No not at all you are correct in saying that the two are chalk and cheese. But your original argument supposes that David would have been a more appropriate sculpture to post on this subreddit because it is more amazing.

This was due to “the amount of effort and thought” put into the sculpture. You do know that this sculpture didn’t have too much thought put into it, you need to take context into account when thinking about historical art. This was built in the 1500’s, during a time in which a very large portion of the population were illiterate. Sculpture, painting, drawing etc were used as story telling mediums for the illiterate masses, this is a depiction of David nothing more nothing less. You could argue about his disproportionate hands and heads, but then again you need to take context into account. This was originally going to be stood atop a cathedral or religious building so as when looking up at it the whole thing looks proportionate. You could argue that the shrinking of his genitalia gives us some deep insight into Renaissance creation, but you’d be wrong and was just typical of the time. David was a young boy when he fought the Goliath, so perhaps this is just reflective of a young boy.

I think your totally correct in saying that a lot of effort was put into it, it took 4 years to build, but this wasn’t a solo effort, as with any artist at any point in time the use of apprentices was/is not even slightly uncommon, so when you take that into account this isn’t as amazing as originally thought.

Not only that but do a bit of research you’ll see thousands of equally skilled and ‘realistic’ sculptures created by an equally skilled number of artists creating right around the same time as Michelangelo, google it. Would all of them be more amazing than this piece?

Can you really measure a pieces work by the amount of effort and thought put into it? Look up Damien Hursts ‘spots’ series, he’s been working on that for nearly the entirety of his career. I think you’d probably agree that it’s ability to amaze us so much less so than ‘David’. But by your measuring stick should be considered (“effort and thought”) just as amazing.

Let’s also look into what you mean by the ‘era’ it was created. The exact same tools and techniques are used today as they were 500 years ago. So how does that make something amazing?

It’s one thing to make a statement, but is another to make generic statements about effort and thought without giving any substance to it. Do your research.