ROME - The marble that becomes flesh and sentiment in Cupid and Psyche, the harmonious virtuosity of the Three Graces, the solemn yet sensual elegance of Paolina Borghese.
And always, in every creation, that same perfection of forms, as the vehicle of an ideal of eternal beauty.
2022, on the bicentenary of his death, is the year of Antonio Canova, whose art many Italian institutions are preparing to celebrate.
Sculptor and painter, born in Possagno in 1757 and died in Venice in 1822, Canova is the Italian master of Neoclassicism: his undisputed genius, capable of masterpieces that find a place in the most important museums in the world, from the Louvre to the Hermitage. After the establishment, in mid-December, of the National Committee for the Celebrations of the second centenary of his death (with the allocation of about 157 thousand euros of public funds), we now await the definition of all the events that will be deemed suitable and therefore organized. in the months to come to pay homage to the Venetian sculptor.
Among the institutions in the forefront there will be the Municipality of Possagno, in close collaboration with the Canova Museum which has already awarded the resources (784,000 euros from the tender promoted by the Ministry of Culture) to carry out the project "Restoration and digitization of the architectural complex canoviano ". The project will involve the nineteenth-century wing of the museum (composed of the Gypsotheca, the Birthplace, the Library and the Archive) built by the sculptor's half-brother, Abbot Giovanni Battista Sartori, in order to house the Canova works specially transported from Rome. , the artist's last place of work. On the exhibition front, the calendar is full, with some projects already inaugurated in the last months of 2021.
At the Civic Museums of Bassano del Grappa (VI), for example, as the first celebratory "act", the complete digitization of the entire Canovian Archive kept in the Library was carried out, as well as the setting up of the "Ebe Canova" exhibition hosted until May 30, 2022. The exhibition presents to the public the "rediscovered" grace of the famous plaster statue of Canova from 1817: thanks to new technologies, the fragments of the work (which had fallen apart after the Allied bombing of Bassano in 1945), preserved in the deposits of the Museums Civic for more than 70 years, they have been put back together to recompose the original form. Alongside the masterpiece, along with paintings, drawings and wonderful illustrated books, an in-depth study on the mythological figure of Hebe, symbol of eternal youth.
The exhibition "'in light' Photographs by Alessandra Chemollo in the Gypsotheca of Possagno" opened in early December at the Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice, until March 27: starting from the clay sketch by Antonio Canova, created for a statue by Letizia Ramolino Bonaparte and kept at the Venetian Foundation, the itinerary presents about fifty shots of the reportage that Alessandra Chemollo made in Possagno in the summer of 2016 and destined for a publication (Carlo Scarpa. La Gipsoteca Canoviana di Possagno, with texts by Gianluca Frediani and Susanna Pasquali , Mondadori Electa, 2016). Until April 18, 2022, the Mart in Rovereto is also celebrating the Maestro, with the exhibition "Canova between innocence and sin". The idea that animates the project, curated by Beatrice Avanzi and Denis Isaia,is to relate 14 masterpieces by Canova, coming from the Gypsotheca of Possagno including Cupid and Psyche, Sleeping Nymph, Sleeping Endymion, Le Grazie, Italic Venus, Penitent Magdalene, Creugante, with those of some important contemporary artists: from the great nude photographers twentieth century like Helmut Newton, Robert Mapplethorpe and Irving Penn, to contemporary sculptors like Igor Mitoraj, Elena Mutinelli and Fabio Viale, up to Miroslav Tichì, Jan Saudek, Joel-Peter Witkin, Dino Pedriali, gli Alinari, Luigi Spina, Mustafa Sabbagh .Robert Mapplethorpe and Irving Penn, to contemporary sculptors such as Igor Mitoraj, Elena Mutinelli and Fabio Viale, up to Miroslav Tichì, Jan Saudek, Joel-Peter Witkin, Dino Pedriali, the Alinari, Luigi Spina, Mustafa Sabbagh.Robert Mapplethorpe and Irving Penn, to contemporary sculptors such as Igor Mitoraj, Elena Mutinelli and Fabio Viale, up to Miroslav Tichì, Jan Saudek, Joel-Peter Witkin, Dino Pedriali, the Alinari, Luigi Spina, Mustafa Sabbagh.
Among the projects that will open in the coming months, that of the Bailo Museum of Treviso which from 25 March will host "The unveiled nineteenth century. From Canova to historical Romanticism", curated by Fabrizio Malachin and Elisabetta Gerhardinger, set up (until June 26) in the large gallery of the museum which for the occasion will be named after Antonio Canova. The protagonist of a varied path is the Venetian sculptor, of whom the plaster of Cupid and psyche stanti, a work of 1800, is exhibited, next to the precious sketch of the Three Graces, where on closer inspection you could discover the master's footprints, and the edition integral of all the engravings by the sculptor, expressly donated to the Treviso University by the Abbot Sartori Canova half-brother. (HANDLE).
