Thursday, October 24, 2013

ANTONIO CANOVA'S HOUSE-STUDIO

CASA-STUDIO DI ANTONIO CANOVA
1803/06 Antonio Canova (1757/1822), the great sculptor and giant of Neoclassicism who created in this building many of his masterpieces
He bought some houses from the Augustinians of S. Maria del Popolo and united and adapted them as his home
The house was equipped with a huge studio that is now a clinic, the last remnant of the St. James Hospital closed in 2008
In 1912 it was the headquarters of the Unione degli Artisti (Union of Artists) that there had affixed a plaque in 1917 designed by Cesare Bazzani (1873/1939) and executed by Ettore Ferrari (1845/1929)
The "Bust of Canova" is by Giuseppe Guastalla (1867/1952) who copied the portrait of Canova kept in the Academy of St. Luke
The date on the plaque is 2670 but it is neither an error nor a mysterious Maya prediction: it is simply the date 1917 calculated from the founding of Rome in 753 BC, a touch of anticlericalism that would have been unthinkable only a few years later with the reconciliation between state and church of 1929
Now the house is managed by a cultural association that organizes meetings and exhibitions

No comments:

Post a Comment