Antonio Canova

Italian, 1757 - 1822

(not assigned)Italy, Europe

Biographyborn 1757 Possagno, Italy, died 1822 Venice, Italy

Italian sculptor who was possibly the most accomplished and certainly the most famous sculptor of the neoclassical movement, his rivals being Thorvaldsen and Flaxman. He trained in and near Venice and his earliest works are typical of the late Baroque. But by the time of Daedalus and Icarus (1778–9; Venice, Mus. Correr) he had already moved towards a synthesis of the naturalistic and the classical. The decisive event in Canova's career was his move to Rome in 1779, where he fell under the influence of Antique art and the group of artists, scholars, and archaeologists inspired by Winckelmann. The unveiling in 1787 of his monument to Pope Clement IV in S. Peter's brought him instant acclaim with its austere and monolithic reinterpretation of its Baroque prototypes. He continued to refine and simplify his concept of the funerary monument for the rest of his career, the culminating and most radical example being that to Maria Christina of Austria in the Augustinian church, Vienna (1798–1805). With its line of marble mourners moving towards the entrance of a pyramidal sepulchre it is the benchmark of Neoclassical simplicity and larmoyante sensibility in the same way that Bernini's monument to Urban VIII in S. Peter's is the high-water mark of Baroque complexity and drama.

Alongside these funerary works Canova carved many ideal marble groups, most prominent among them Cupid Awakening Psyche (1783–93; Paris, Louvre) and The Three Graces (1812–16; St Petersburg, Hermitage). The latter shows the extent to which Canova in his later career moved away from close imitation of his Antique prototypes to create an entirely modern sculpture of exquisite refinement of conception, touch, and sensibility. Such an achievement was the result of a long process of abstraction from the vigour and passion of his first drawings and sketch models: the marble works were mainly carved by assistants from full-size plaster models, Canova himself then adding the final refinements of surface and patination.

By 1800 Canova was the most famous sculptor in Europe and much in demand for portraits as well as large-scale commissions. Particularly striking among them are those of members of the Bonaparte family. These include a colossal nude statue of Napoleon as Mars the Pacifier (1803–6; London, Apsley House) and a reclining one of Paolina Borghese Bonaparte as Venus Victorious (1804–8; Rome, Borghese Gal.), which posterity has judged transcendent and absurd by turns. In his last years Canova used part of his accumulated wealth in building a circular Neoclassical church at his native Possignano (1819–30). This serves as his mausoleum and nearby stands the Gipsoteca Canoviana, housing his drawings and terracotta and plaster models.

Jordan, Marc. "Canova, Antonio." In The Oxford Companion to Western Art, edited by Hugh Brigstocke. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/opr/t118/e457 (accessed March 22, 2012).

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