The exhibitions, the birthplace: the tributes to the neoclassical genius who transfigured his era in marble. The volume published by Corriere and La nave di Teseo will be on sale on 8 October
October 13 will be two hundred years after the death of Antonio Canova, who was born in Possagno (Treviso) where he rests in the Temple that he had built as a gift to his community. He was responsible for the most beautiful neoclassical statues in Europe in which each character depicted (from Paolina Bonaparte to Ferdinando IV) was transfigured by the mind of the creator. Italy and the Vatican owe him the return of the most important works stolen by Napoleon, from Laocoon al Codex Atlanticus by Leonardo. Italy owes it to him for having been, for the last time, the parent of European art. For this occasion, a book by Vittorio Sgarbi entitled Canova and the beautiful beloved (La nave di Teseo / Corriere della Sera), on Saturday 15 the exhibition will open at the Civic Museums of Bassano del Grappa (Vicenza) I Canova and on Sunday 16, in Possagno, various events will be held, including the reopening of the birthplace.
Killed by the critics of Roberto Longhi, Canova survived as a superstar of Beauty whose works, inspired by the Winckelmanian principles of noble simplicity and quiet greatness, are now transiting into the digital-pop universe through the reinterpretations of contemporary artists and photographers. As Sgarbi’s book also tells us, Canova was born into a family of stonecutters, he did an apprenticeship in Venice and in 1779 he moved to Rome. It had Napoleon, the Popes, the Habsburgs, the Bourbons and the Russian nobility as clients. He was one of the artists who wrote the most (much detail) and, according to the count drawn up by Leopoldo Cicognara in Chronological catalog of the works, sculpted 53 statues, 12 groups, 14 cenotaphs, 8 monuments, 7 colossi, 2 colossal groups, 54 busts, 26 bas-reliefs for a total of 176 works. He made them with that method of nails fixed to plaster which almost anticipates technical reproducibility and removes sculpture from the charm of the creative imagination of Michelangelo or Bernini. With him heroes and gods return to earth: the Psyche sold to Henry Blundell for 600 sequins plus tools for the drawing arts, Adonis and Venus to the Marquis of Salza for two thousand sequins, Place 15 years for Yusupov, another Place for the Venetian Vivante Albrizzi with another version for Giuseppina de Beauharnais …
Fiercely anti-Jacobin, in 1801-2 pushed by Pius VII into the arms of Napoleon, revised in 1810 in Fontainebleau. He sculpts it like Mars peacemaker (he Napoleon!), a statue that the French do not like so much that in retaliation ends up at Apsley House, home of Wellington who defeated him at Waterloo. In 1814 Giuseppina de Beauharnais commissioned the group of Three Graces, which will also be reproduced for John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford. The work translates the concept of the eternity of beauty into marble: among the most enthusiastic admirers Ugo Foscolo andadvertisement. Not without difficulty, the situation in Paris was desperate, thanks to the intervention of Metternich and the help of the English Canova was able to obtain the return of many works of art stolen or brought to the Louvre by Napoleon to form the Great Museum of the whole Europe unified by him.
He sculpted many female nudes, but saw few of them: Sgarbi mentions the passions for Minette Armendariz and Juliette Rcamier but in two letters to his friend Giuseppe Falier Canova he appears radical: Wife I hope not to take it anymore, or at least if I had to, I would take it forward, to be able to always live quietly and attend to my art, which so much to me that the whole man demands without wasting a moment and I do not make love with unmarried girls and not even with married ones, on the contrary I advance to tell him that few celibate people live far from done as I do. the Ciceronian theme that one cannot give oneself to studies, to work and to women together, a theme that is nowadays superseded by the policies of family rights, but perhaps not.
At the celebrations of the 16th in Possagno (Solemn mass, restoration of the birthplace, commemorative coin and stamp …) joins the exhibition I Canova at the Civic Museum of Bassano del Grappa (until February 26, 2023) curated by Giuseppe Pavanello and Mario Guderzo under the direction of Barbara Guidi. In the wake of Pavanello’s book Antonio Canova and his artistic environment between Venice, Rome and Paris (first volume of the Studies of Venetian Art series of the Venetian Institute of Sciences, Letters and Arts), this exhibition reveals the man, the collector, the diplomat (almost all of Canova’s papers are kept in the Bassano Library) and the protector of the arts.
Here, for the first time, the Magdalene lyingCanova’s work recently found in an English garden after nearly two centuries. The history of this very particular statue, worthy of a novel, as underlined by Guderzo: commissioned to the Italian sculptor by Prime Minister Lord Liverpool, it was changed hands, sold, disassigned, lost, found, re-attributed to Canova. Valued by Christie’s over five million, it was auctioned last July and found no buyers. Between the marble of the Principessa Leopoldina Esterhazy Liechtenstein and the plaster of the Dancer with her finger to her chin On which Canova engraved, which was worked in the sad days of the deportation of Pius VII, are on display both paintings recovered by Canova, such as those by Paolo Veronese, Ludovico Carracci and Guido Reni, and paintings of his own by Tiepolo and Moretto.
Finally, until November 1, the day in which Canova came to light in 1757, some sections of the exhibition Canova glory of Treviso will remain open to visitors in Tribute to Canova at the Luigi Bailo Museum in Treviso. Here on display works that the new Phidias created to replace, with a symbolic act, what had been stolen by Napoleon, as the Triumphant Perseus. Another work by Canova, the Italic Venusas Sgarbi recounts in the book cited, took the place of Venus Medici of the Uffizi stolen by the French commissioners. These are epiphanies of the eternal challenge between Ancient and Modern, the spirit of Novelty and Antiquity, incessant renewal and tradition. In art there is no progress: the Venus who spoke to the ancients spoke to Canova and still speaks to us today, telling different things.
The book on newsstands for € 9.90
Vittorio Sgarbi’s book Canova and the beautiful beloved published by Corriere della Sera and La nave di Teseo (pages 124). Out on Saturday 8 October with the Corriere at 9.90 euros plus the usual price of the newspaper, it will remain on newsstands for a month.
October 7, 2022 (change October 7, 2022 | 21:16)
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