Engraved by J. Posselwhite.
CANOVA.
From a Picture by
Sir Thomas Lawrence,
in the possession of the Abate Canova at Rome.
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall East.
CANOVA.
About the middle of the last century the art of Sculpture, which had been long on the decline, may be said to have reached the lowest point to which it has sunk since the revival of the arts; for, although the seventeenth century was the great æra of bad taste, the genius which was often apparent in the mannered productions of that time, no longer survived in those of the imitators who succeeded. The works of Bernini in Italy, and of Puget in France, both men of extraordinary talent but most mistaken principles, were still regarded as types of excellence. Their fame still produced a host of followers, who, with perhaps the single exception of Duquesnoy, called Fiammingo, naturally aimed at the extravagances and peculiarities of their models; and the consequence was, a constantly increasing deviation from nature, and a total misconception of the style and limits of the art. The works which were produced in Rome about the period alluded to, thus fluctuated between manner and insipidity; till the art had relapsed into a state of such lethargic mediocrity, that even sculptors of note, such as Cavaceppi, Pacetti, and Albacini, were content to occupy themselves in restoring and mending antique statues. But the germs of a better taste, and a more rational imitation, were already expanding. If the mania for collecting antique statues had the temporary effect of paralysing invention in the artist, and diverting the means of patronage, a gradual appreciation of the principles of ancient art was, nevertheless, the result; while the illustration and description of museums, and the works of Winkelmann, all tended to awaken the attention of the connoisseur to the amazing difference between the ill-advised caprices of the Bernini school and the sagacious simplicity of the ancients.
These circumstances concurred ultimately to work a change and an improvement of taste among the artists themselves, and thus prepared a better æra of sculpture. The partiality of the Italians may be excused, when they attribute the reformation of the art to the single efforts of Canova, although the designs of Flaxman, composed about the same time that the Italian artist was beginning his career, exhibit a more decided feeling for the long-lost purity of the antique, and a more thorough comprehension of the style and language of sculpture, than we find in the works of his continental contemporaries. But it is time to give a more particular account of the subject of this memoir.
Antonio Canova was born A.D. 1757, at Possagno, a small town in the province of Treviso. His father, Pietro Canova, was a stonemason and builder; and the first occupation of the future sculptor taught him to use the chisel with dexterity. At the age of fourteen, he was introduced to the notice of Giovanni Faliero, a Venetian senator, who used annually to pass the autumn near Possagno. By the kind assistance of this nobleman, the young Canova was placed with one Torretti, a sculptor who had studied in Venice, and who resided in a neighbouring town. On the return of this artist to Venice, Canova accompanied him. A year afterwards however Torretti died, and the young sculptor, unwilling to continue with Ferrari, his master’s nephew and heir, established himself in a studio of his own. While with Ferrari, he produced his first work, a pair of baskets of fruit and flowers, done for the noble Faliero. They are still to be seen in the stair-case of the Farsetti palace, in Venice, more generally known as the Albergo della Gran Bretagna. The same patron next employed him on two statues of Orpheus and Eurydice, preserved in the villa of Pradazzi, near Possagno. After one or two other less important performances, he executed his Dædalus and Icarus, for the Procurator Pisani. In all these works he aimed at a close imitation of individual nature, and this was carried so far in the Dædalus, that, when it was afterwards shown in Rome, the sculptor was hardly believed when he asserted that it was not moulded from a living model.
The imitation of the softness, surface, and accidents of skin was an early excellence and a lasting peculiarity of Canova; and however he may have been smitten with the antique statues in Rome, it is certain that, while in Venice, where he remained till the age of twenty-two, he paid little attention to the specimens of ancient art in the Farsetti Gallery. It is probable that the prejudice against the antique, which had prevailed ever since Bernini’s time, was hardly yet effaced in Venice; and if Canova’s admiration of the ancients increased in Rome, it was undoubtedly greatly owing to the opinion and examples of those among whom he had the good fortune to be first thrown.
In 1779, Girolamo Zulian being appointed ambassador of the Republic at Rome, Faliero recommended Canova to his notice. The young sculptor had already determined to visit the metropolis of the arts, and soon followed the ambassador thither. The course of study which he adopted, founded on the comparison of nature with the best specimens of art, showed that he was earnest to improve; and his new patron Zulian, who had introduced him to the distinguished amateurs and artists residing in Rome, recommended him to send for a cast of his Dædalus and Icarus, in order to show them what he had done, and profit by their advice. He did so, and the day on which that group was submitted to the judgment of the connoisseurs was a memorable one for Canova. His work by no means excited unqualified approbation. It was, indeed, so different from the style which was then prevalent, that his judges remained silent, till the generous Gavin Hamilton openly declared, that it was a simple imitation of nature, which showed that the artist had nothing to unlearn; at the same time reminding him, that although the greatest artists had always begun thus, they had subsequently refined their taste by comparison and selection, and their execution by an ampler and larger treatment; all which, aiming at the grandest impressions of nature, but by no means departing from nature, approaches what is called the divine and ideal in art. This opinion, from so good a judge as Hamilton, delighted Zulian, who asked “what was to be done with the young man?” “Give him a block of marble,” said Hamilton, “and let him follow his own feeling.” From this hour the fate of the young artist was decided: Zulian furnished him with a studio and materials, and he began his career in Rome.
Canova always spoke with gratitude of Gavin Hamilton, and acknowledged that he owed to him every sound principle of art. The vast knowledge of the antique which the Scotch artist possessed, gave more than common weight and value to his advice respecting its imitation. Canova’s first work in Rome, was an Apollo crowning himself. The sculptor himself was not satisfied with it, and felt all the difficulty of uniting a purer and broader style with a sufficient attention to the details of nature. His engagements soon after recalled him to Venice, to complete an unfinished work, the statue of the Marquis Poleni, placed in the Prato della Valle, at Padua. It was probably hurried, that he might get back sooner to Rome.
On his return to Rome, he produced his celebrated group of Theseus sitting on the slain Minotaur. The moment chosen was recommended by Hamilton, who observed, that it was generally safer for young artists not to aim at too much action in their subjects. In this composition Canova endeavoured to infuse still more of the style of the antique, and he succeeded so well, that the exhibition of it may be considered an epoch in the art. Quatremère de Quincy (an eminent French sculptor) spoke of it in these words in 1804:—“This group struck foreigners even more than the Romans, who were still attached to their accustomed manner. Nevertheless, Canova, from that time, was considered the sculptor who was destined to restore good taste, and to reduce the art to its grand principles.” The fame which this work gained for its author has been allowed, on all hands, to have been justly awarded; and, after the efforts of the artist to fix his style and define the mode of imitation which he believed to be the best, it may be supposed that the praises he received would have confirmed him in the principles he had formed to himself, and encouraged him to carry them farther. None of his Italian biographers, however, have taken sufficient notice of the fact, that he never followed up the style which is observable in this group. His subsequent works were undoubtedly more refined in execution and more anatomically studied; but it is quite certain that he never approached the breadth of the antique so much in any later works. Hence it would appear that, in this effort, he was in some degree doing violence to his real feelings; and having once established his reputation, he was more likely afterwards to exercise his own unbiassed taste. It was, indeed, some time before he was occupied on a subject which afforded a display of the figure.