A History of Sculpture

by Ernest Henry Short

An equally fine example of Canova at his best is the famous statue of “[Pauline Borghese],” a work of later date than the “[Cupid and Psyche].” The light-hearted sister of Napoleon is represented as Venus, despite the fact that she was the wife of Prince Borghese, the ruler of Piedmont. The story runs that a friend remonstrated with her and ended with the question whether Pauline had not found the ordeal “a trying one.” “Trying, not at all,” replied the Princess, “there was a stove.” The anecdote serves to illustrate the difference between Canova and his Greek predecessors. Comparing the story of Pauline Borghese with that of the Hetaera Phryne, the difference between the spirit animating Hellenic art and that animating the imitation Greek art of two thousand years later is unmistakable. Praxiteles’ statue of Phryne was the incarnation of womanhood as he felt it. Pauline Borghese merely suggested to Canova a number of graceful lines and masses, which his sense of form enabled him to combine in a pleasing fashion. He willingly preserved a sufficient likeness to compliment the fair model, who had risked a physical and spiritual chill in the cause of art. But the difference between the lasting value of Canova’s “Venus” and that of Praxiteles’ “[Aphrodite of Cnidus]” can be estimated exactly. It is that which separates the idea of womanhood from the idea of the princely light-o’-love—Pauline Borghese. Canova’s work has not a suggestion of that contact with the eternal verities which is the very essence of a great Greek statue.

No one can doubt that both the “[Cupid and Psyche]” and the “[Pauline Borghese]” are the works of a man who feels the full beauty of pure line. If formal grace were the best that sculpture could give us, there would be no more to be said. But the achievements of the Greek masters prove that this is not the case. A work of sculpture can convey a sense of palpitating life, of vigorous emotion, which is worth far more than the graceful beauty with which Canova has endowed his conception of [Cupid and Psyche], and the Goddess of Desire.

It cannot be said that Canova lacked any opportunity vouchsafed to the earlier sculptors. Before he died, his reputation rivalled that of the great artists of the Renaissance. In 1802 he was appointed curator of the Vatican art treasures, a post resembling that held by Raphael and Michael Angelo. Like Bernini, he was called to France. Instead of a bust of Louis XIV., Canova’s task was to model a colossal statue of Napoleon. If Canova had had it in him, he might have been a Michael Angelo. As it was, he lived and died Antonio Canova.

If our estimate of Canova is correct, can more be said for his rival, the Danish sculptor, Thorvaldsen? Thorvaldsen was born about the year 1770, his father being a journeyman wood-carver of ship’s figure-heads. As a boy he worked on the quays at Copenhagen, much as Puget had done a century earlier at Marseilles. In 1793 Thorvaldsen, then a youth of twenty-three, won the Copenhagen Academy’s gold medal and a travelling scholarship, which made a visit to Rome possible. Four years later, in 1797, Thorvaldsen came to Rome.

Between May and December of the previous year, Italy had been overrun by the French. In October 1797 the Venetian territories were divided by Austria and France. In the following February Pius VI. was deposed by Napoleon. Italy had never stood lower in the scale of nations. Perhaps for that very reason Rome was able to welcome artists from all parts of Europe, and imbue them with entirely non-national ideals, drawn from the treasures of art stored in the Eternal City.

“I was born on March 8, 1797,” said Thorvaldsen himself. “Up to that time I did not exist.”

The Dane’s scholarship only amounted to £24 a year, insufficient for the bare necessities of life. But the young sculptor struggled along until 1803, when his “Jason” was purchased by the English banker, Thomas Hope, and he was relieved from his most pressing difficulties. A little later Thorvaldsen found himself the talk of artistic Rome. The Baron de Schubart, Danish Ambassador at Naples, had commissioned a “[Cupid and Psyche].” The sculptor was in the midst of the work when his studio at Montenero was struck by lightning. The only model which escaped destruction was the Baron’s “[Cupid and Psyche].” Thorvaldsen himself was in Rome at the time, and the pretty little story naturally ran the round of the studios. The tale caught the fancy of the smart set, ever on the look-out for an excitement, and “the miracle of the marble” became the sensation of the hour. A flood of sonnets and epigrams resulted. Thorvaldsen found himself suddenly recognized as the coming sculptor—second only to Canova.

There is no finer example of the genius of Thorvaldsen than his “[Venus].” There is certainly no statue upon which he lavished more care. It exists in several forms, including a fine marble copy in the Duke of Devonshire’s collection at Chatsworth. Starting in 1805, he took ten years to complete the design to his satisfaction. Not that Thorvaldsen was a slow worker. He had no love for the actual carving, and left the greater portion of the marble-work to his assistants. But in the clay he worked with extreme facility, and few sculptors have excelled him in the number and variety of his designs. A statue like the “[Venus]” proves that he also possessed qualities of breadth and emotional austerity, which cannot be claimed for the prettier works of Canova.

But, judging the life-work of the Danish sculptor in its broadest aspects, the only possible verdict is that which must also be passed upon Canova. Both men preferred to echo an earlier art. They made no attempt to realize nature afresh. This acceptance of a purely artificial creed, based upon their admiration for their Greek predecessors, entailed an abandonment of the personal standpoint which alone gives an art the highest value.

THORVALDSEN