SCULPTURE. 
voured to embody Coreggio’s style of painting in sculpture, 
forgetting the impossibility of representing flying draperies 
and the extremities of hair in marble, which is so easily doue 
on canvas; and which, when universally attempted, remains 
an equal testimony of the sculptor’s want of judgment, and 
the impossibility of the attempt. Although there are fine 
ideas in the general conception of both the papal monu¬ 
ments above-mentioned, by this artist; yet his allegorical 
figures are affected in their attitudes, smirking and con¬ 
ceited in their countenances; their forms are flabby and in¬ 
correct, and their draperies confused: yet this style, de¬ 
praved and flimsy as it was, in spite of the beauties of 
Nature, which continually appear before our eyes, and the 
Grecian examples of rigid perfection which adorn the city 
of Rome; notwithstanding these, it produced a train of 
followers, Rusconi, Algardi, Moco, &c. &c., who continued 
to be employed, till within these fifty years, in Italy. 
At length Canova appeared. He was the only child of a 
stone-cutter, and was born in a mud walled cottage in the 
little village of Possagno, among the Venetian hills, in the 
year 1757. His father died when he was three years old; 
his mother married again in a few months, and left her son 
to the charity of his paternal grandfather, Passino Canova. 
Antonio was weak in person, and feeble in constitution: 
this but endeared him the more to his grandmother Catterina 
Cecatto, who nursed him with the tenderest care, and sung 
him ballads of his native hills, infusing a love of poetry into 
his heart, of which he ever afterwards acknowledged the 
value. In his tenth year he began to cut stone, and it was 
his grandfather’s wish that he should succeed him as here¬ 
ditary mason of the village. The weakness of his body and 
his extreme youth were ill suited for a laborious trade. Old 
Passino, who was a man above the common mark, indulged 
him in modelling of flowers, and in drawing of animals, 
and such was his success that, in his twelfth year, he ob¬ 
tained the notice of the noble family of the Falieri, who 
had a palace in the neighbourhood; for, at a great feast 
given by the Falieri, Antonio modelled a lion in butter 
with such skill and effect, that it excited the astonishment 
of the guests—the artist was called in, and he came blush¬ 
ing to receive the caresses of the company and the first ap¬ 
plauses of that kind and opulent family. Its head had the 
sense to see Canova’s genius, and the generosity to encou¬ 
rage him. He carried Antonio to Venice in his fifteenth 
year, introduced him to the Academy of Arts, and opened 
his own palace doors to him, both as a residence and a 
study. The youth’s diligence was unwearied—he studied 
early and late—he drew, he painted, he modelled and he 
carved. His ambition expanded with his years, his skill 
kept pace with his ambition, and he was distinguished 
among the artists of Venice, by a laborious diligence of 
hand, a restless activity of fancy, and an enthusiastic long¬ 
ing for fame. When he imagined that he could conceive 
with truth, and execute with facility, he modelled the group 
of Orpheus and Eurydice as large as life, and carved it in 
soft Venetian stone. It obtained such applause, that the 
artist exclaimed, “ This praise has made me a sculptor." A 
statue of Esculapius was his next work; he carved it in 
marble, and it is still to be seen in a villa near Venice. It 
is chiefly remarkable for the circumstance of having received 
a visit from the artist, a few months before his death—when 
the just conception of the figure, and the skill with which it 
was executed, seemed to fill him with surprize and sorrow. 
He looked at it for some time, and said, “ For these forty 
years my progress has not corresponded with the indications 
of excellence in this work of my youth.” 
The people of Venice felt the beauty of Canova’s works, 
and stimulated his genius and rewarded his merit with a 
small pension. “ Soon after his twenty-third birth-day,” he 
left Venice and went to Rome. Here he found a kind and 
active friend in Gavin Hamilton the painter, and as the 
sculptors of the capital had conceived no dread of his talents, 
they welcomed him warmly. He was soon admitted to the 
society of the learned and the noble, for Zuliana, the 
Vol. XXII. No. 1547. 
877 
Venetian ambassador, introduced his young countryman to 
the judges and patrons of art—and gave him an order for a 
group of Theseus and the Minotaur in marble. This 
enabled him to display his talents, and work without fear of 
wanting bread. The commission was however kept a secret; 
the sculptor laboured incessantly, and in the summer of 1782 
at a banquet given on purpose by Zuliana, the marble group 
was shown by torch-light to the first men in Rome. They 
stood for some time looking at the hero as he rested himself 
on the body of the monster which he had slain, and then 
with one voice pronounced it to be “ one of the most perfect 
works which Rome had beheld for ages.” From this 
fortunate hour to the end of his life, he produced a rapid 
succession of statues and groups, which carried his fame far 
and wide over the world—noblemen from all countries and 
more particularly from Britain, purchased his works at any 
price; and the Pope, whilst he conferred a coronet and a 
pension on his friend, refused to allow some of his favourite 
works to go beyond the walls of Rome. His most zealous 
and also his most judicious patrons were Napoleon and the 
present King of England. Nor should the late amiable and 
excellent Lord Cawdor be forgotten, who discovered the 
merit of the sculptor long before his wide spread fame 
inspired the “ great vulgar," with the desire to be numbered 
among his patrons. Canova died in the fullness of fame at 
Venice, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. 
“ Canova imagined that he had realized the boast of 
Lysippus, by commencing art where art itself began—in the 
study of nature. But nature was not used so wisely by the 
Venetian as by the Greek. He looked on it with an eye less 
simple and poetic, and brooded over it with a mind less 
vigorous and manly. An opera-stage taint infects all his 
earlier works; his most careful studies are full of extravagance; 
his figures are forced into painful action, and his dancing 
ladies labour hard to press all their beauties upon the 
curiosity of mankind. He gradually learned to feel the 
superiority of simplicity over affectation; and advanced 
from violent motion towards tranquil grace, from the 
sentiment of action towards that of repose. But he never 
wholly freed his conceptions from the opera malady; the 
rudiments of his youthful productions are still visible in the 
soberest efforts of his ripest years; that unhappy spirit 
would not be conjured away when solemn thought was most 
wanted. Even in the statue of the Kneeling Magdalen 
there is enough of affectation to poison the charms of 
the most exquisite workmanship and the loveliest shape.” 
“ In the progress of Canova’s taste, however, the student 
in sculpture may read a salutary lesson. He will see that 
nature must be looked upon with modest eyes; that her 
charms, as she sometimes chuses to display them, are not 
always suitable for his art; and that genius alone may hope 
to seize the grace of that composure which gives vigour to 
sentiment in proportion as it chastens action. He will see 
too how an artist may gradually emancipate himself from 
affectation and return to sobriety of conception, simplicity 
and strength. But whilst he observes all this and lays up 
the lesson in his heart, he will likewise feel that there is 
hardly any entire escape to be made from early and long 
cherished impurity of style; that it still follows thought 
where thought should be most severe, and glides uninvited 
into the brightest dreams of the imagination. So was it 
with Canova. No man ever missed the true feeling of 
sculpture so far, and returned towards it with such signal 
success. It is indeed no easy thing to sober down the 
darling style of our youth, to dismiss notions of excellence 
endeared by time, to give up some neat conceit, some 
sparkling absurdity long cherished and hallowed. The re¬ 
volution which Canova accomplished was the labour of 
many years. In his youth, violence was vigour, affectation 
was grace, and the spirit of the startling and the staring was 
the novelty which he desired to infuse into sculpture. To 
work in this way was only to record in marble the fruitless 
throes of Nature, her artificial gestures and actions without 
soul. Look at his early Dancers, his Market of Love, his 
10 O designs 
