Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Milan, September 25 2019 - From 25 October 2019, the Gallery of Modern Art 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 Canova's famous "ideal heads", the particular and successful strand of his work dedicated to the many different declinations of female beauty and created at the height of his career.
Custodian 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 “Vestale”, the fulcrum of the exhibition.
Curated by Omar Cucciniello and Paola Zatti, the exhibition is promoted and produced by the Municipality of Milan-Cultura, the Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Milano and the Electa publishing house, and tells the story of this genre through 39 works, 24 of which by Canova . Among these are 5 sculptures never exhibited in Italy before, such as the herm of "Corinna" and the "Muse" of 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 (Hermitage 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), as well as from private collections. 
Venetian by birth, after moving to Rome in 1780 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 "Vestale". 
Created between 1818 and 1819, the "Vestale" 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 preserved at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon and at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.  
In the exhibition itinerary the different versions created by Canova of the same subject are presented, but precious comparisons are also proposed with works ranging from antiquity to the present day, which not only indicate the sculptor's models but highlight the universal value of his art. Among these we note the ancient sculptures of the Farnese collection (seen by Canova in Naples), the frescoes of the Tuscan fifteenth century, the sculptors who followed the master's classicism in the nineteenth century (such as Gaetano Monti or Pompeo Marchesi) but also the art of the twentieth century and Wildt's sculpture.
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, culminating in fact with a work by Giulio Paolini.
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, echoing Renaissance examples, up to the precious marbles created by Canova as a gift in thanks to the English diplomats who had supported them in 1815 his mission to recover 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.
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 Gallery of Modern Art (GAM), a reciprocal reduction is foreseen: the entrance ticket for the first exhibition visited entitles you to reduced entry to the second exhibition.
SECTIONS
From portrait to ideal
The exhibition opens with the first example of an ideal head created by Canova, the muse "Clio", donated to the Countess of Albany and replicated three times, with modifications in the rendering of the soft epidermis and in the hairstyle, carefully studied and varied by Canova in each specimen. The perfect features of this face probably arise from an idealizing elaboration of a portrait by Elisa Baciocchi, then developed into an independent work, from which the artist amends every particular and portraiture reference. The superb bust preserved in the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth (Texas), donated by Canova to Charles Long and never exhibited in Italy, also belongs to the theme of the Muses.
Elena and Isabella
The first marble example of the bust depicting Helen of Troy was donated by Canova to Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi, who in 1809 had published "Works of sculpture and plastic by Antonio Canova". The bust had enormous resonance among contemporaries and was celebrated in verses by Lord Byron, so much so that Canova was induced to replicate it several times, often also in pendant with the bust of Paris: precisely the pair of marble busts, coming from the Hermitage museum in San Petersburg, is at the center of this section.
The Vestal Virgin
Inspired by ancient prototypes - in particular by busts of Vestals, such as the one known by the name of "Zingarella" from the Archaeological Museum of Naples - the herm of Vestal represents the pinnacle of the formal rarefaction imposed by Canova on the ideal face, in absolute simplification of decorative elements. In the center of the section, the three versions of the "Vestale" are brought together for the first time: alongside the marble from Milan, those from the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, never exhibited in Italy. Also mindful of the eighteenth-century virtuosity of Corradini, present with the splendid “Puritas” of Ca' Rezzonico in Venice, the theme of the veil would have enormous success throughout the nineteenth century in a long series of variations explored by Canova's successors and emulators, such as show the marbles on display, from Pompeo Marchesi to Gaetano Monti to Adolfo Wildt. 
“A type of Italian beauty”
If Canova's work is universally famous for its inspiration from classical antiquity of the Greek and Roman era, equally interesting, although less well known, is the relationship with the art of the Renaissance. In a series of busts from his mature years, the sculptor is inspired by Italian literature and the art of the so-called Primitives (painters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries), to create a type of modern and Italian beauty, which opens up to Romanticism. In an unprecedented comparison, the busts of Dante's Beatrice (inspired by the beautiful Juliette Récamier), and of Eleonora d'Este (Torquato Tasso's muse), are compared with Ghirlandaio's fresco painting, admired by Canova during his trips to Florence.
The idea and the poetry
In some of the last heads created at the end of the second decade of the century, Canova brings the idealization of forms to deal with subjects unrelated to the presence of attributes, drawn directly from antiquity, to reiterate the essential value of classicism. The herms of Sappho and Corinna are ideal representations of Greek poetry. The bust of Peace or even more so the herm of Philosophy, constitute as many incarnations of abstract and intangible concepts, rendered through a purified and almost conceptual form, but at the same time true and natural because they represent human civilization at the highest level. A purification that will fascinate artists for the following centuries, as shown in the work of Giulio Paolini.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a program of concerts, educational activities and guided tours, organized by the museum.
The catalogue, with in-depth essays and scientific descriptions of the works, is published by Electa.
DATASHEET
Title 
Canova. The ideal faces
Work location: 
GAM Gallery of Modern Art
Via Palestro 16, Milan
Give to the public 
25 October 2019 - 18 February 2020
Curated by 
Omar Cucciniello and Paola Zatti 
Promoted and produced by 
Municipality of Milan – Culture
GAM Gallery of Modern Art
with the Electa publishing house
Installation project
Massimo Curzi
Graphic project
Studio Tassinari Vetta
Opening hours 
Tuesday – Sunday 9.00 – 19.30
Closed on Mondays
Last admission one hour before closing
Arrival
full euro 10
reduced 5 euros
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
Products 
Elect

Image Gallery.