Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Milan, October 24 2019 - From 25 October 2019, the GAM|Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan presents the exhibition “Canova. The ideal faces", a precious journey which for the first time reconstructs in its rooms the genesis and evolution of the famous "ideal heads", the particular and successful strand of Canova's work dedicated to the many, different declinations of female beauty and made at the height of his career.

Keeper of one of the most important collections of neoclassical art at a national level, the Gallery of Modern Art is the perfect setting for the works of Canova, of which it preserves three masterpieces: the original plaster model of Hebe, the bronze bust of Napoleon and the marble herm of the Vestal Virgin, the centerpiece of the exhibition.

Curated by Omar Cucciniello and Paola Zatti, the exhibition is promoted and produced by the Municipality of Milan|Cultura, GAM|Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Milano and the Electa publishing house, and tells the story of this genre through 39 works of which 24 by Canova. Among these, 5 sculptures never exhibited in Italy before, such as Corinna and the Muse from 1817.

The works on display come from the main national museums (Uffizi Galleries in Florence, Gipsoteca Canoviana in Possagno, Gallery of Modern Art in Turin, National Archaeological Museum in Naples, Correr Museum in Venice) and international ones (State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, Musée des Beaux Arts in Lyon, Musée Fabre in Montpellier).

Venetian by birth, after moving to Rome in 1781 Antonio Canova (Possagno, 1757 - Venice, 1822) became the most important sculptor between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, interpreting Winckelmann's lesson and founding modern sculpture. Courted by sovereigns from all over Europe, from Napoleon to the Popes, from the King of England to the Tsar, Canova modified and oriented the taste of an entire era, to which he provided models of idealized beauty, interpreted above all in his sculptures of mythological subjects .

In the last twelve years of his activity, when he was the most famous and most requested sculptor in Europe, Canova dedicated himself to a series of female effigies of ideal characters which had immediate success among his contemporaries, both among clients and among critics of the era. The exhibition is dedicated to these, which he himself called "ideal heads".

The faces sculpted by Canova do not represent real characters, but constitute a very successful trend of idealized faces in which the sculptor investigates the infinite variations of female beauty, based on the perfect balance between the idealization deriving from classical sculpture and the study of nature. Subjected to subtle, highly refined variations in hairstyles, expressions, and the virtuosic rendering of the marble, these faces reach a progressive formal and expressive simplification which finds its culmination in the Vestal Virgin.

Created between 1818 and 1819, the Vestal Virgin was replicated in three marbles which are brought together for the first time on the occasion of this exhibition and are compared in an unprecedented dialogue at the center of the exhibition itinerary. Of the three works, the best known is part of the GAM collections, the other two are kept at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon and at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

In the exhibition itinerary the different versions of the same subject created by Canova are presented, but precious comparisons are also proposed with works ranging from antiquity to the present day, which on the one hand indicate the models from which the sculptor took inspiration, on the other they highlight the universal value of his art. Among these, we highlight the ancient sculptures of the Farnese collection (seen by Canova in Naples), the frescoes of the Tuscan fifteenth century, the works created by the sculptors who followed the master's classicism in the nineteenth century (such as Raffaele Monti or Pompeo Marchesi) but also the Twentieth century art and the sculpture of Adolfo Wildt.

The exhibition thus highlights not so much the context of the sculptor's contemporaries (already investigated many times by studies and exhibitions in recent years) but the position of absolute importance that Canova holds for Western art, highlighting not only the complexity and vastness of his models, but also the influence he had on modern art, well exemplified by the work of Giulio Paolini which closes the exhibition itinerary.

The exhibition is divided into 5 sections, which cover the history of this genre from its first formulations to the emergence of a romantic sensibility, up to the precious marbles created by Canova as a gift of thanks to the English diplomats who had supported his mission of recovery of Italian works of art stolen by Napoleon's troops.

Set up in the rooms on the ground floor of the Villa Reale, which preserve the splendid late eighteenth-century decorations created by the Albertolli school, the exhibition establishes a dialogue with the neoclassical environments and exploits their perspectives and decorations, using in particular mirrors and reflections, recovering Canova's indications on the display of his marbles, but also providing a contemporary interpretation of Canova, based on the gaze.

The exhibition, conceived and curated by Massimo Curzi, will reflect, with sensitivity and attention, the eighteenth-century atmospheres of the exhibition spaces with the search for contemporary materials and the recovery of exhibition details from the history of the museum.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a program of concerts, educational activities and guided tours.

The catalogue, with in-depth essays and scientific descriptions of the works, is published by Electa.

As part of the #canovamilano project for the two Canova / Thorvaldsen exhibitions. The birth of modern sculpture at the Gallerie d'Italia and Canova. The ideal faces at the GAM Gallery of Modern Art, a reciprocal reduction is foreseen: the entrance ticket for the first exhibition visited entitles you to reduced entry to the second exhibition.

INFO

Opening hours

Tuesday – Sunday 9.00 – 19.30 

Closed on Mondays

Last admission one hour before closing

Arrival

full euro 10

reduced 8 euros

special reduced price €5

As part of the #canovamilano project for the two exhibitions “Canova/Thorvaldsen. The birth of modern sculpture" at the Gallerie d'Italia and "Canova. Ideal Faces” at the GAM Gallery of Modern Art, a reciprocal reduction is foreseen: the entrance ticket for the first exhibition visited entitles you to reduced entry to the second exhibition.

Information

T. + 39 02 884 459 43

c.gam@comune.milano.it

Guided tours and teaching

Ad Maiora

GAM teaching section

Website

gam-milano.com electa.it

#canovamilano
 

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