CANOVA, ANTONIO. - Sculptor, b. at Possagno on 1 Nov. 1757, d. at Venice on 13 Oct. 1822. At the beginning of his artistic career he long admired in Venice, in the halls of the museum of the Palazzo Farsetti, the plaster cast collection of ancient statuary, and this may be called his first school, besides that of the sculptor G. Torretti.
His first patron was the Venetian senator G. Falier, who entrusted him with the commission for two statues: Eurydice and Orpheus (1773-76, Asolo, Villa Falier); but his birth as an artist of a new sculpture, in opposition to the late Baroque, already visible in the group Daedalus and Icarus (1779, Venice, Museo Correr), continued to mature during his stay in Rome with the Monument to Clement XIV, executed at the age of twenty-five (1784-87, Rome, church of the SS. Apostoli). Here the Berninian scheme of the Monument to Urban VIII lives again, but the three figures of the monument: the Pontiff, Temperance, and Meekness have an Attic simplicity, and fully express a religious composure. Shortly afterward Prince Rezzonico and the two cardinal brothers commissioned from C. the Monument to Clement XIII. For five years C. worked on the grandiose tomb that was unveiled in the Vatican Basilica in the year 1792, on Holy Thursday. Great admiration was aroused by the realism of the two lions that guard the sarcophagus, the classicism of the Genius of Death, the idealism of the allegorical figure raising the Cross, the expressive power of the aged Pontiff absorbed in prayer. From then on, until his death, the fame of C. had no more rivals in Europe. To the passion of his time for classical mythology C. gave satisfaction by evoking in his creations: Cupid and Psyche (1794, Paris, Louvre), Hercules Hurling Lichas into the Sea (1795-1815, Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna), the Perseus (1799-1802, Vatican, Museo Pio-Clementino), the Italic Venus (1805-1812, Florence, Galleria Pitti), the Venus Victrix in the guise of Pauline Borghese (1806-1808, Rome, Galleria Borghese), the Paris (1812-13, Munich, Alte Pinakothek), the Graces (1813-16, Leningrad, Hermitage), of which group Foscolo, with his well-known poem, wished to be the ideal inspirer.
To be remembered, moreover, are the numerous Stelae: that for Admiral Emo (1792-95, Venice, Museo dell'Arsenale), that for Antonio Zustinian (1797, Padua, Museo Civico), for Giovanni Volpato (1806-1807, Rome, portico of the SS. Apostoli), for Domenico Manzoni (1817-18, Forlì, church of the Most Holy Trinity). The scheme of the slightly tapering stele, surmounted by various crowning elements, is often repeated; in bas-relief the bust of the deceased,
(phot. Alinari)
CANOVA, ANTONIO - Self-portrait in marble.
Possagno. Canovian Temple.
before it a young woman in an attitude of grief. The monuments to Vittorio Alfieri (1804-10, Florence, church of S. Croce), to Maria Cristina of Austria (1798-1805, Vienna, church of the Augustinians), to the Stuarts (1817-20, Rome, Vatican basilica), less happy in their architecture, nonetheless have details of exquisite beauty; the last of these, with the busts of the exiled kings James III and his sons Charles III and Henry IX, especially in the two funeral Genii, represents one of the most significant moments of C.'s art. Of great commitment is his portraiture, the part, even today, most admired of his vast output. The marble loses its rigidity, since C. sculpted «the most fleshy flesh that ever was treated by chisels» (L. Cicognara). Singular skill in modelling and a vigorous and poetic investigation are revealed in Napoleon as First Consul (1803, Florence, Pitti gallery) and in Napoleon Victorious (1811, Milan, Palazzo Brera), in the portraits of the Napoleonids: Madame Letizia (1805-1808, Chatsworth, Duke of Devonshire coll.), Card. Fesch (1807, Possagno, gypsotheca), Paolina Borghese (1807, Rome, Museo Napoleonico), Carolina Bonaparte, Joachim Murat (1812, Naples, Royal Palace of Capodimonte). Great firmness of plastic planes is found in the two portraits of Pius VII (1817, Vatican, Braccio Nuovo museums; Rome, Palazzo dei Conservatori) and in the figure of Pius VI praying, a work that remained unfinished (1822, Vatican basilica). In the span of about 50 years, C. sculpted fifty-three statues, twelve groups, fourteen cenotaphs, eight great monuments, seven colossi, two colossal groups, fifty-four busts, twenty-six bas-reliefs; this did not prevent the author from taking part in the public life of his time. The motu proprio of 1822 of Pius VII prohibiting the export from the Papal State of ancient monuments of painting and sculpture was suggested by C., who also gave rise to the Vatican collection of the Museo Lapidario, donating to the Pope eighty cippi with inscriptions purchased from the Giustiniani family. Appointed inspector of the Fine Arts in Rome and in the Papal State on 10 Aug. 1822, C. took up the office, rendering useful services to the Holy See.
At the repeated insistence of the French ambassador and of Card. Consalvi he went to Paris a first time for the portrait of Bonaparte (1802), a second time (1810) during the exile of Pius VII for the portrait of the empress Maria Luigia - in the Diary dictated to the abbot Sartori, his uterine brother, one can see his religious coherence and his love for the things of Italy - a last time in Aug. 1815 for the negotiations for the restitution of the works of art, seized from the Papal State. C. overcame the difficulties and the resistance: interesting in this regard is the correspondence with Card. Consalvi. In twenty days came about the restitution of the statues, paintings, codices, manuscripts, medals, prints listed. C.'s name was written in the Golden Book of the Campidoglio and Pius VII conferred on him the title of marquis of Ischia and an annual income, devolved by C. into pensions for young artists and for the benefit of the academies. On a design by Pietro Bossi and following suggestions of Antonio Selva, in his last years C. provided for the erection of a great temple in Possagno: he himself laid the first stone on 11 July 1819, dressed in the habit of the supreme Order of the Knights of Christ. For his church he had painted the great altarpiece The Deposition of Christ from the Cross, and he managed to bring to completion some metopes with episodes of the Old and New Testament and to form in plaster the great Pietà. To religious art he had donated one of his masterpieces, the Penitent Magdalene (1796, Genoa, Palazzo Bianco). He died in Venice in 1822; the funeral rites were celebrated by the cardinal patriarch in the basilica of S. Marco, the funeral oration was delivered by Leopoldo Cicognara in the Academy of Fine Arts.
His art, which some like to call parallel to the poetry of Foscolo, represents the last great voice of Italian art that moved Europe; in an individuality of forms and of spiritual conception it expresses the monumental value of sculpture. Rigid classicism found its representative in Thorwaldsen; that of C. was in the end a romantic attitude toward classicism, which explains one of the motives, not the least, of his fascination and of his genuine greatness. - See Pl. XLV.
Bibliography13 works
Giovanni Fallani