A new lighting system has revolutionized how the famous statue of David looks. LED spotlights were installed in a circle above the statue, allowing them to “completely envelop the David and leave the rest of the space in the background” The new-look David is part of a wider revamp of the Accademia Gallery, Italy’s second most visited in 2019. The Galleria dei Prigioni, or “prisoners corridor” has also had its lighting switched up, with several spotlights pointed on each sculpture. “It used to be that the prisoners looked yellow, and David was white. Now they’re the same color,” director Cecilie Hollberg told CNN. “You can now see every chisel mark on them,” Hollberg said of Michelangelo’s Palestrina Pietà and Prisoners. The Sala del Colosso, the gallery’s first room, is now a bright blue, while the 13th and 14th-century rooms are a pale green, chosen to bring out the gold used in most of the paintings. Before, the beige walls flattened the gold. In another, it feels like you could pluck the pearls from the painting – before you couldn’t see them at all. “My job is to give value and visibility to all the works. Every single work is a masterpiece, but they need to be lifted and supported by color,” said Hollberg. The Gipsoteca renovation has completed the museum’s revamp, and visitors have already changed their behavior, she said. “Now they’ve already followed and look like they’re not in the front of the David,” she said of tourists who used to rush past en route to David. “Before it was so dark, all the paintings were barely visible – like those beside the David – no one stopped to see them,” she added. “I want to give them what they deserve,” says Hollberg of visitors to the museum, which has completed a revamp to show it to the world in a bid to show visitors it to be a good place to visit. The new lighting is also energy-efficient. Hollberg says the gallery should use around 80% less electricity than in previous years. It’s not just the headline works that are looking different. Several of the other rooms of the gallery have had their previously beige Walls painted in colors that maximize those in the paintings – before, they were a beige background, but now they’re bright blue and pale green. “In one painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio you can nowsee all the gold dots in the [saints’] halos,” said the director of the museum. “One regular visitor said, ‘Where was all this detail? We never saw it,'” Hollberg tells . “I said ‘What on earth? How have I never seen this?’ The lighting is much better on the David’,” said a guide who visits the Accdemia Gallery most days.
The Italian icon looks like you’ve never seen it before. It’s a new take on the classic car.
