Stepping on Canova’s Toes

Back in August 2020 an Australian visiting the Gypsotheca Museum in Possagno, Northern Italy snapped the toes off a sculpture by the famous Neoclassical artist Antonio Canova. The piece itself was the original plaster-cast model of Paolina Bonaparte from 1804, that was directly used to model his marble sculpture of the same subject as Venus Victrix in 1808. The incident occurred while the tourist leant on the work to take selfies. CCTV footage shows him getting up and continuing to act normal despite having broken two of the model’s toes. He later apologised to the head of the Antonio Canova foundation, claiming ignorance to the damage caused.

As its full title suggests, the ‘Museum Gipsoteca Antonio Canova’ is devoted exclusively to Canova’s work. It is situated along the road from the ‘Museo Canova’ and ‘Farmacia A. Canova’. As the names indicate, the small town of Possagno is the home of the Neoclassical sculptor, who was born there in 1757. He began under the patronage of Giuseppe Bernardi as a young boy, after it is said that he demonstrated his skill by carving a lion from butter at a dinner party.

His commissioned works began with Two Baskets of Fruit in 1774, and developed towards larger, freestanding figures. Works of his that initially reflected a more Baroque style with emotive subjects displaying dynamic forms transformed into a more sober refined technique that came to be characteristic of the Neoclassical movement. 1783 saw the completion of his Theseus and the Minotaur, his first notable embodiment of this transmission of style. As reflected by its title, the sculpture illustrates the well-known ancient Greek myth concerning Theseus' defeat of the Minotaur with the help of a ball of string to navigate the maze.

At the peak of the tale, Theseus locates and slaughters the Minotaur with his bare hands. Canova chose to depict the stillness which accompanies the moment preceding the struggle, as opposed to the action itself. The anatomy of the figures is simplified in comparison to his previous works, and it is the difference between the polished and rough rock that helps to establish where bodies end and the floor begins. The sculpture is balanced in a pyramidal composition with equal divisions across both axes, which convey ideas of harmony, and feed back towards the notion of the Neoclassical ideal.

Five years later Canova was commissioned a depiction of Psyche being revived by Cupid’s kiss by Colonel John Campbell. The sculpture took six years to complete, and is interesting because while it maintains characteristics that have become recognized as integral to Neoclassical sculpture, the moment depicted is of great emotion, and so hints towards the stylistic period of Romanticism that is to come. Canova renders the pair at the moment after Cupid rushes to his lover after witnessing her in a deep, deathlike sleep. The tale of the lovers involves forbidden romance, and Canova captures the tender passion they feel for each other, awakened by Cupid’s immediate relief that Psyche is not in fact dead. It is this moment of devotion to Psyche that encourages the gods’ decision to finally permit the two to marry.

Continuing with his theme of taking subject matter from classical mythology, Canova chose to depict Napoleon Bonaparte as Mars the Peacemaker when invited to sculpt a full-length rendition of the statesman. It’s likely that Napoleon didn’t have a naked sculpture in mind when asking this of Canova, however the artist was less than enthusiastic about the commission he was given due to the violent French occupation of Venice that had occurred only five years prior, in 1797.

After much persuasion Canova relented and proposed his thoughts on drawing a classical allusion between Mars and Napoleon. His patron eventually conceded, trusting the famed sculptor’s abilities to capture elegance and grandeur in all of his sculptures. When the statue finally arrived at Napoleon’s doorstep some nine years later he was stunned and immediately banned it from public view. Whilst the classical allusion was there, the subject’s heroism largely depended on context, and the nude seemed to evoke feelings of embarrassment and vulnerability rather than the strength Napoleon was expecting.

The work was met with ridicule, with comments that it looked ‘unflattering and ridiculous’, and had depicted Napoleon as ‘balding’ and ‘paunchy’. The statue was hidden for some time and resurfaced following his defeat in The Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Ironically, it was gifted to the Duke of Wellington to celebrate the win at Waterloo, and was hence displayed in the stairwell of his residence - Napoleon on show naked and defeated in his victor’s home.

It was during work on Napoleon’s statue that Canova began the Venus Victrix sculpture of Bonaparte’s younger sister Pauline, of which is the plaster-cast that now lacks a couple of toes. While the finalised statue didn’t receive anywhere near as much backlash as her brother’s, it certainly got it’s fair share of press coverage at the hands of a large Australian some 200 years later. Given his feelings towards the Bonapartes, my impression is that Canova wouldn’t be that upset about the statue’s modification, but that is up for debate.

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