Studying this Italian Renaissance masterpiece is a rite of passage for artists. David is the textbook example of contrapposto, the pose where a figure rests its weight on one engaged leg while the other stays relaxed.

That weight shift tilts the hips and shoulders in opposite directions. Learn to read it and your standing figures stop looking stiff.

Standing 17 feet tall, David was meant to sit high on a cathedral, so Michelangelo enlarged the head and hands to read correctly from below. For the opposite approach, study Thorvaldsen’s Venus with the Apple Interactive Reference, where restraint and simplification do the work instead of exaggeration.

Change the angle, lighting, and color to study all of this interactively, and you'll have earned your place in a long line of artists who've done the same.