Le Galleries of Italy – Piazza Scala, museum headquarters of Intesa Sanpaolo in Milan, present dal 25 October 2019 to 15 March 2020 the exhibition Canova | Thorvaldsen. The birth of modern sculpture, Edited by Stefano Grandesso and Fernando Mazzocca.
Realized in collaboration with the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the exhibition is made possible thanks to the contribution of fundamental loans granted by Italian and foreign museums and private collections. Just to name a few: the Vatican Apostolic Library, the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, the Pinacoteca di Brera and the Pinacoteca della Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the National Galleries of Ancient Art in Rome, the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice. A substantial nucleus of works also comes from the Antonio Canova Museum and Gypsotheca in Possagno which has important initiatives planned for the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the master's death.
The exhibition proposes a comparison, never attempted before, between the two great protagonists of modern sculpture in the neoclassical and romantic age: the Italian Antonio Canova (1757-1822) and the Danish Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), the two "modern classics ” capable of transforming the very idea of sculpture and its technique, creating immortal works that have become popular and reproduced all over the world.
The ground on which the two illustrious masters originally faced each other was the Roman soil, where they both carried out a good part of their careers: Canova arrived in Rome in 1781 and died there in 1822, while Thorvaldsen settled there starting from 1797 for the next forty years.
Here, the two artists engaged in one of the best known and most productive challenges on identical themes and subjects that will give art some masterpieces: the figures of classical mythology, such as Love and Psyche, Venus, Paride, Ebe, thank you, represented in the common imagination the incarnation of the great universal themes of life, such as the short journey of youth, the enchantment of beauty, the flattery and disappointments of love.
The applause with which they were both received by contemporary critics is emblematic of a civilization that looked to the ancient, but which at the same time aspired to modernity, a duality which they knew how to masterfully interpret and guide: Canova had been the revolutionary artist, capable of guaranteeing sculpture a primacy over the other arts, in the sign of comparison and overcoming of the ancient; Thorvaldsen, looking at the work and strategy of his rival, was inspired by a more severe and austere idea of classicism, starting a new season of Nordic art, inspired by Mediterranean civilizations.
Both had been able to free themselves from the constraint that the client traditionally placed on sculpture due to the high costs of marble or bronze, founding large studios that had the dimensions of complex workshops, with numerous collaborators and students: with the technical innovations introduced by Canova and used on a large scale by Thorvaldsen – creating a plaster model before the marble statue – the sculptor acquired for the first time the freedom to express his own poetics in the statue, created without a commission.
Through more than 150 works divided into seventeen sections the exhibition intends to document the extraordinary complexity of Canova and Thorvaldsen's creations, intended for both Italian and international high-profile collecting, and the enormous following that their sculpture had, proposing continuous comparisons with other artists of all nationalities.
The first section deals with the topic of The image of the artist. The self-portraits, with the works performed by the two artists in three moments: at the beginning of their careers, when they had already established themselves, and those created in maturity. Canova represented himself as both a sculptor and a painter in a series of paintings. Thorvaldsen has left us in some drawings a more intimate image of his face with romantic features. But the two official portraits are those in which they are depicted in two busts of a heroic nature, i.e. larger than life, in the old-fashioned way: two self-celebratory portraits, projected into a timeless dimension, but also animated by a great introspective charge.
We continue with the section de The studies of Canova and Thorvaldsen in Rome, with a series of works that refer to the real workshops in which the two masters worked in the center of Rome: on display are the works of Francesco Chiarottini, Johan Vilhelm Gertner, Hans Ditlev and Christian Martens, Gaetano Matteo Monti, Friedrich Nerly, Ferdinand Richardt, Pietro Tenerani, who testify how the studio has become for Canova and Thorvaldsen a sort of artist's museum, where they can display their work and plaster models to copy.
The following sections, dedicated to portraits, mostly to those attributed to the two sculptors, bear witness to a phenomenon that in terms of number and quality has no equal in the history of art, justified by the admiration they were the object of. Canova appears simultaneously as the artist of universal fame and the personification of the Italian national identity. Thorvaldsen, the Nordic Phidias, is the reference for the rebirth of Germanic and Nordic art in general.
In the third section, Canova's glory, a series of effigies, works by Andrea Appiani, Giuseppe Bossi, Giovanni Ceccarini, Hugh Douglas Hamilton, Angelica Kauffmann, John Jackson, Giovanni Battista Lampi Junior, Thomas Lawrence, Ludovico Lipparini, have Antonio Canova as their subject, very different images that they reveal the greatness of the artist, sometimes represented next to his works, and the admiration for him. Emblematic is the monumental statue, placed in the center of this section, in which Canova does not appear in modern clothes as in the other portraits, but seated and semi-naked with an athletic body, next to the ancient head of the so-called Jupiter of Otricoli.
It continues with Portraits on stage, which brings together portraits of a celebratory nature including those of the two artists posing in their ceremonial clothes (three by Rudolph Suhrlandt and one by Jacob Munch), but also the works by François Xavier Fabre with Ugo Foscolo, Vittorio Alfieri, Antonio Canova identified like the great glories of Italy; there Italian Venus and the portrait of Maria Luigia of Habsburg and plaster for the Monument to Vittorio Alfieri, all by Canova, mark the last great season of the allegorical portrait as an old-fashioned apotheosis.
Particular attention is paid in the fifth section, Popular icons. The multiplied image of masterpieces, to the circulation of reproductions made by other artists in all materials and techniques, from bronze reductions to engravings. Alongside the two wax reliefs by Canova and the small wax portrait of Thorvaldsen by Giovanni Antonio Santarelli, as well as five waxworks by Benedetto Pistrucci, reproductions of works by Antonio Canova, there is a gold medal by Christen Christensen with Thorvaldsen's image on the front and Galatea presents Denmark to Cupid with Thorvaldsen's lyre on the reverse, in comparison with a bronze medal by Giuseppe Girometti with a Canova subject.
A prominent place is given to the gilded bronze reductions used as exceptional pieces of furniture: while Desiderio Cesari portrays the Danish master with this technique, one of Canova's favorite subjects is exhibited, aEbe made by the Strazza and Thomas manufactory, in comparison with the one made on the model of Pietro Galli, by Thorvaldsen, by Wilhelm Hopfgarten and Benjamin Ludwig Jollage, of which is also exhibited Jason with the Golden Fleece.
The section concludes with lithographs with religious subjects and portraits in neoclassical style by Michele Fanoli from the Braidense National Library, which were published and distributed all over the world, testifying to the vastness and versatility of Canova's production.
In the sixth section Thorvaldsen's Glory, around the full-length monumental effigy of theSelf-Portrait with the Statue of Hope, where the artist was able to revive the mysterious beauty of Greek art of the archaic age, we find effigies that portray him or that reproduce his works by Karl Begas, Ditlev Conrad Blunck, Vincenzo Camuccini, Johan Vilhelm Gertner, Alessandro Puttinati, Carl Adolf Senff, Horace Vernet, Carl Christian Vogel von Vogelstein and Emil Wolff: Thorvaldsen's image became extraordinarily popular, fueling the myth of the sculptor who, having come from the North, had become the interpreter of a classic and Mediterranean ideal of beauty.
The primacy of sculpture and the celebration of genius focuses on the fortune that the sculptural genre assumed thanks to Canova and Thorvaldsen, witnessed both on an illustrative and allegorical level, on marble and on canvas, by Giuseppe Borsato, Carl Dahl, Giacomo De Maria, Julius Exner, Constantin Hansen, Leopold Kiesling, Tommaso Minardi, Giuseppe Sabatelli, LA Smith, Fritz Westphal. Allegories of classical derivation have been used to celebrate the power of the arts and in particular of sculpture as the one that most of all manages to imitate and compete with Nature, creating three-dimensional figures capable of living in space.
There are also portraits of Canova where he is celebrated in the solemn ceremonies officiated for his death, experienced as a national mourning, and in the monuments that will remember him as the universal genius. Thorvaldsen too, on his return to Copenhagen, was feted like a god and a personal museum was dedicated to him, an honor never before granted to a living artist.
In the large central hall, around which the exhibition revolves, The Graces and the dance, the section dedicated to the sensational comparison, never proposed before, between the two famous masterpieces, the two marble groups of The Graces where Canova and Thorvaldsen best expressed their ideal of beauty. To the concept of grace as movement, variety and feeling of Canova's group from the Hermitage, Thorvaldsen responds by reaffirming his austere ideal of chaste simplicity with The Graces with Cupid, from the Thorvaldsens Museum. These two works are surrounded by a choreography of four figures in which Canova, Thorvaldsen and one of their followers, Gaetano Matteo Monti, have represented the motif of dance, a great novelty because a theme never before addressed in sculpture.
Portraits as a mirror of an era traces the vast marble portrait production of Canova and Thorvaldsen, restoring the image of the most prominent characters of the time, sovereigns, aristocrats, collectors, artists and men of letters who wanted to be immortalized in idealized features. Despite the idealization, these faces do not appear cold, but animated by an extraordinary ability to convey the psychology of the characters.
Another theme dear to the two sculptors is exemplified in the section Venus and the triumph of beauty. Canova, Thorvaldsen and their follower Mathieu Kessels are compared in the representation of Venus, the goddess of love. Above all Canova favored this subject, representing in various statues, slightly different from each other, the motif of Venus who, coming out of the bathroom, tries to cover herself from prying eyes. In this way she intended to convey the emotion one feels every time the appearance of beauty. Canova's goddess appears more feminine and therefore more sensual than that of Thorvaldsen who, in her absolute nudity, remains a divinity: a victorious Venus who, perfectly still, triumphantly exhibits the apple of victory assigned to her in the famous contest.
The eleventh section, Amor vincit omnia. The representation of love, examines one of the most loved themes in sculpture and painting between Neoclassicism and Romanticism, namely that of Love or Cupid. Symbol of sensual grace, intact and innocent beauty, with the body of an adolescent or a child, the figure of Cupid offered an opportunity for unique virtuosity in the representation of the wings, which make these images extraordinarily seductive. Thorvaldsen and his follower Wolff depict Love as a victorious deity proud of his triumph, thus rendering the power of this universal sentiment dominant over man's life and destiny. Particularly appreciated and requested were the bas-reliefs in which Thorvaldsen was able to render the ancient myth of Child love consoled by Venus or as an emblem, together with Bacchus or Anacreon, of the seasons, where youthful beauty is investigated together with the allegorical resources of the myth, to symbolize that there is always a time to love. In the'Apollo crowning himself, an early experiment by Canova carried out in the Rome atelier in 1781-82 and preserved today in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and in theApollon recently rediscovered, the attention to movement is more accentuated. Also on display are works on canvas by José Álvarez Bouquel, Francesco Hayez, CF Høyer, Mathieu Kessels, Joseph Paelinck, Julien de Parme, Emil Wolff.
In the wake of Cupid, the two sections are entirely dedicated to the favorite subjects of the two sculptors: the twelfth to Love and Psyche and the thirteenth ad So what.
In the first, In the sign of grace. Love and Psyche, the theme is declined in the works on canvas and in marble by Giovanni Maria Benzoni, Agostino Comerio, François Pascal Simon Gérard, Felice Giani, Johan Tobias Sergel which frame the famous Canova group in the Hermitage Love and Psyche standing together with Psyche with the vase by Thorvaldsen. The embrace of the two lovers is rendered in the two marble groups by Canova and Thorvaldsen in a very different way. While in the first their attention appears to be concentrated on the butterfly, identified as the emblem of the soul, in the second their gaze is directed to the vase, identified as a mysterious object and a key element of the myth. Compared to the engaging sensuality of Canova's creation, the Danish sculptor's work appears to be characterized by a more detached grace.
In the second, Flying figures. She was cupbearer of the gods, the works of Vincenzo Camuccini, Gavin Hamilton, John Gibson, Gaspare Landi, Pietro Tenerani offer insights into theEbe canoviana of the Hermitage and of the three works (statues and reliefs) by Thorvaldsen in which they appear Ebe, Hercules, Nemesis e Jupiter.
The figure of Hebe, identified as a symbol of eternal youth, did not have, unlike Venus, Cupid and Psyche, an iconographic tradition dating back to antiquity which Canova and Thorvaldsen could draw inspiration from. In the neoclassical era Ebe had considerable success in painting especially among English artists as demonstrated by the example of Gavin Hamilton, considered one of Canova's first supporters. Compared to the extraordinary dynamic strength of the statue of Canova half-naked and with transparent clothes that the wind makes adhere to the body, the immobile chastity of Thorvaldsen's Hebe stands out, enclosed in her melancholy and spiritual beauty.
A separate chapter, The great patrons. Napoleon and Sommariva, focuses on the commissioning of the two masters: patrons such as Napoleon and his family and the great Lombard collector Giambattista Sommariva, who acquired numerous statues by Canova and received his masterpiece from Thorvaldsen, The Triumph of Alexander in Babylon commissioned by Napoleon for the Quirinale but then executed for the villa of Tremezzo on Lake Como. Thanks to Sommariva and other patrons, both artists had a privileged relationship with Milan. By portraying Napoleon, Canova tried to convey the charm of the hero, of the man of destiny, while Thorvaldsen deified the emperor by representing him as Jupiter with an eagle. Sommariva is represented in the magnificent portrait by Prud'hon inspired by those of great English collectors who had had Batoni portray them together with the ancient statues admired in Rome.
We continue on the themes dear to Thorvaldsen, with The charm of eternal youth. Ganymede: the master's favorite subject, complementary to that of Hebe, was never considered by Canova. The Dane made it the male image of an adolescent beauty symbol of eternal youth, experimenting with different ways of representing it, influencing contemporary painters and sculptors, as in the case of the works by Camillo Pacetti, presented in the exhibition.
The Romantic Legacy. The wandering shepherd summarizes, with works dedicated to the natural beauty and sentimental character of the Arcadian and pastoral subjects of Hippolyte Flandrin, John Gibson, Aleksandr Andreevic Ivanov and Bertel Thorvaldsen, the legacy of stylistic features and models of timeless universality of the language of Canova and Thorvaldsen. Here, the more idealized features of Ganymede are replaced by the more natural ones of the Shepherd boy which in the Manchester Art Gallery version still rests on its original pedestal designed by Flaxman. In the Faun represented by Thorvaldsen's best follower, Pietro Tenerani, he seduces live verisimilitude while playing music that seems to soothe his limbs. Similarly, sleep lends a feeling of melancholy to Gibson's forlorn and dreamy shepherd figure. We find the same languor in the Young shepherd painted by Flandrin, nostalgic for a lost Arcadia.
Concluding the exhibition itinerary is the splendid series of 13 plaster bas-reliefs by Canova permanently exhibited at the Gallerie d'Italia and belonging to the XNUMXth century collection of the Cariplo Foundation. They immortalize mythical scenes and representations of some precepts of Socratic philosophy.
