Biography of Antonio Canova

The idea of perfection

1 November 1757
13 October 1822
Antonio Canova, massimo sculptor exponent of neoclassicism, is also considered the last great artist of Italian sculpture. Born the day 1 November 1757 in Possagno (Treviso). He carries out his apprenticeship in Venice where he carves his first classical works representatives Orpheus and Eurydice, Daedalus and Icarus and Apollo. In 1779 he went to Rome where he attended the schools of the Academy of France and nude Capitoline Museum. Canova in his drawings and sculptures neoclassical embodies the principles of Winckelmann.
Among his drawings recall the study by the Group of Castor and Pollux, nude manly supine on a Boulder and two female nudes. The first sculptural work realized in Rome is the Theseus and the Minotaur that he was commissioned by the Ambassador of the Venetian Republic Girolamo Zulian. Theseus is represented sitting on Minotaur after the fight, representing the victory of reason over irrationality.
In his sculptures search Canova ideal beauty that is the Venus italica, the beauty that is the brainchild of the artist on the perfection that you cannot find in nature. To reach the rappresentrazione of ideal beauty requires knowledge and imitation of classical sculpture, as well as a mastery of sculptural material. For the latter reason the sculptures by the artist, always made of marble and sometimes covered with a layer of wax pink or amber, to mimic the color of skin tone, are always nicely trimmed and polished to a smooth surface and translucent.
This is evident in the group sculpture of Cupid and psyche which is now in Paris at the Louvre. The group represents the moment when Love revives Psyche in the moment before the Kiss, a work very refined and sensual elegance. Other works of the same kind are Hebe, Venus and Adonis and the three Graces, where sensual elegance is combined with a perfect balance of the composition is typical of classical culture. He painted also some funerary monuments as monument of Clement XIII in St. Peter, the monument of Clement XIV ai Santi Apostoli, The funeral stele of Volpedo where represents the personification of friendship crying in front of the bust of the deceased. In 1798 the Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen commissioned Antonio Canova's funerary monument to Maria Christina of Austria.
In this work is the sepulchre in pyramid shape, probably inspired by the pyramid Caius Cestius in Rome that is the building of the first century BC before the pyramid Canova represents a funeral procession carrying inside the tomb the ashes of the deceased whose portrait is represented in a Medallion above the door supported by Heavenly Happiness. Is then called to Paris in 1802 by Napoleon, who entrusted him with the task for a bust-portrait of where today there remain some plaster casts. Subsequently the Canova is dedicated to the realization of the nude of Napoleon in the figure of Mars peacemaker, but the Emperor did not like. Also carries the portrait of Pauline Borghese as Venus victrix, who's holding a bone of victory offered by Perseus to the most beautiful goddess.
Paolina is represented lying on cushions with semi-erect and naked torso. The uncovered parts are covered with wax pattern to give it a human face. The opera is in a typical neo-classical coldness due to composition precise. With the end of the Napoleonic era Canova returned to Rome: the works from this period show a change in the style of the artist that loads of greater emotional representation his work that in this way they approach to new romantic tendencies; are from this period, the Make over the dead Christ, Stuart monument and Venus and Mars. Antonio Canova died in Venice on 13 October 1822.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.