07/11/2019
Canova | Thorvaldsen exhibition.
https://www.gallerieditalia.com/it/milano/mostra-canova-thorvaldsen/
The birth of modern sculpture represents, both for the importance and beauty of the exhibited works, which for the great scientific relevance, an extraordinary opportunity to know the sculpture between seven and nineteenth century.
A period when this art met a decisive transformation thanks to the genius of Italian Antonio Canova (Possagno 1757-Venice 1822) and the Danish Bertel Thorvaldsen (Copenhagen 1770-1844), protagonists and rivals on the scene again Great of a cosmopolitan Rome where they had a chance to confront the universal values of classic and ancient. They were recognized and celebrated as the "modern classics", capable of transforming the idea itself of sculpture and its technique, creating immortal masterpieces that have become, also because continuously reproduced, loved and popular all over the world.
The prestigious collaboration with the thorvaldsens museum in Copenhagen and the hermitage state museum of st. Petersburg, the contribution of fundamental loans granted by important Italian and foreign museums, but also by exclusive private collections, made it possible to compare, for the first time in an exhibition , the two artists, biological in their fascinating biopic and creative.
The comparison was originally in Rome, where they spent most of their lives and reached the celebrity thanks to an extraordinary career. Canova had moved in 1781 from Venice, while the youngest thorvaldsen will reach him in 1797 from Copenhagen. In the next two decades and beyond, when their presence made Rome the capital of modern sculpture, they were rivals and challenged on the same reasons and subjects, giving each one their original interpretation. These were the figures of the ancient mythology that, like thanks, love and psyche, Venus, ebe, represented in the western collective imaginary the embodiment of the great universal themes of life and death, like the short path of youth, the charm of beauty, The flattery and disappointments of love.
The possibility of gathering their most beautiful statues allowed us to set up a real marble Olympus, emblem of a civilization that looked at the ancient, but which aspired at the same time to modernity. Canova was the revolutionary artist, able to assign to sculpture the primacy on other arts, through the comparison and overcoming of the ancient. Thorvaldsen, studying the work and strategy of the rival, was inspired by a more austere and nostalgic idea of classic, starting a new era of Nordic Art dominated by the timeless charm of the Mediterranean world.
Useful Links:
https://www.gallerieditalia.com/it/milano/mostra-canova-thorvaldsen/
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La mostra Canova | Thorvaldsen. https://www.gallerieditalia.com/it/milano/mostra-canova-thorvaldsen/ La nascita della scultura moderna rappresenta, sia per l...
