To correct, or perhaps to avoid the corruptions of taste and false principle, is in all cases more arduous than to elevate to higher excellence a rising art. In addition to this general difficulty, two peculiar obsta cles opposed the renovation of Sculpture. The aber rations first to be repressed were exactly those which appeared to indicate genius and spirit. Exterior qualities, by which alone the many judge, were in no respect deficient; indeed, an exuberance of executive dexterity and management existed, first to he reduced, consequently the preliminary steps to reformation would seem to imply diminished freedom and energy. In the second place, the line arts generally, and our subject in particular, had suffered from a system of criticism, originated in France under Louis XIV. which had long vitiated the public mind, and misled the judgment of the artist by false refinement and con ventional principle. Towards the end of last century, however, more perfect discoveries of classic remains, aided by the writings of a few enlightened authors, had begun to excite a movement towards a happier order of things. To sculpture, the influence had not extended; this art was in the hands of those who, educated in former abuses, wanted the patience and the discrimination either to perceive the evil, or to apply the favourable occurrences of the time. Refor mation in art has never been accomplished by mere imitation of examples, however excellent; nor by only adopting rules in opposition to methods less pure. Some mind of uncommon firmness and good sense is required, who, beginning the art with nature, brings to the work of reformation all the original powers, with more of severe judgment than have distinguish ed the greater proportion of even the fathers of inven tion. Such a mind had not yet assumed its enlight ening career. At Rome, then the only school, if school it might be named, hardly any work save a copy was attempted; or if by chance an artist aspired to an original composition, a performance was exhi bited, made up of plagiarisms from ancients and moderns, combined in an union of extravagance and conceit. Such were the labours of Penna, of Pacilli, of Lebrun, of Pacetti, of Rhigi, of Angellini; and without promise of rising merit, the art seemed fast verging to extinction.
Such was the condition of Sculpture, when, in 1787, was exposed to view at Rome a work declared at once by the intelligent, "of all the monuments of modern times to approach nearest to the beauty of ancient taste." This was the tomb of Clement XIV. the celebrated Ganganelli, a work ranking among those memorable productions which mark the com mencement, while they announce the continuance of a new and better era. Standing itself nobly conspi cuous, it is but one step from barbarism, yet directs the eye to a lengthened prospect of renovated gran deur and beauty; the first fruits of one of those rare minds just described, more rare than even original genius, whose fire, tempered with steady judgment and patient correctness, shOws them born to redeem and to elevate a fallen age. The Sculptor was Anto nio Canova.
The education of this artist, self-conducted and amid difficulty of every kind, completed with success ful perseverance, alone supplies ample proof of tran scendent talent, and of those qualities we have point ed out as necessary in one who aspires to reform a degraded art. Fallen upon evil days, descended of ob scure parentage, remote from all means of advice or instruction, he raised himself to the highest honours, and greatest of all, became the true restorer of pros trate taste. Canova was born, in 1757, at Possagno, a distant and till then unknown hamlet of the territo ry of Treviso. Here he was intended by his friends for the humble situation, hereditary for two genera tions in his family; of stone-cutter to the village. A happier destiny however awaited him. Having early discovered marks of docility and talent, he was per mitted, through the benevolent recommendation of the proprietor, to attend upon a Venetian artist, then employed on some stone ornaments at a neighbouring villa. In his fifteenth year, repairing to Venice, partly aided by the same patron, and having procured a workshop in the cloisters of a convent, he struggled forward; prudence and industry preserved indepen dence, and merit at length procured friends whom virtue ever afterwards retained. At Rome, whither he had ventured to proceed. his'only certain means of support being a small pension granted for three years by the Venetian senate, he greatly recommended him self to the discerning few, by the classic elegance and purity of his first production—the group of Theseus and the Minotaur. On this account he was selected to execute the monument already noticed.
The works of Canova are too numerous to admit here of particular description, or of minute examina tion. The impression is yet fresh upOn the memory, when representations of them arranged in his funeral hall might well have been deemed the labours of suc cessive periods, and of a race of sculptors, not the productions of one short life—the creations of a sin gle mind. Neither have we forgotten, while now
writing on the subject, that the undertaking has been gone into, only because we have seen and examined on the spot each of these exquisite masterpieces, and that to enjoy this advantage a very considerable por tion of Europe must be traversed. These works, thus in number so imposing, and so widely extending the influence of their individual excellence, may be class. ed as follows; In the first of these departments only has the supe riority of Canova been questioned; or rather, while his claims have been universally recognised in pro ductions of softer grace and loveliness, his powers seem less generally appreciated in the sublimities of severe and masculine composition. He has been ad mitted a master of the beautiful—hardly of the grand; the Praxiteles—not the Phidias of modern art. This opinion, causes merely extrinsic and unconnected with the genius or labours of the artist concurred to origi nate and to maintain. Notwithstanding an early pre dilection for this especial branch of his profession, as appears from his own letters. and from the choice of aubject, where that choice was left free, more than forty years, and those the best of life, had passed away, before a proper opportunity occurred of grati fying this inclination or of proving his capabilities. his fame was first established as the sculptor of the softer affections and more tender forms of nature. The world is parsimonious of praise, nor is it easy to pass those limits which public opinion has set to its own suffrage. Subjects of gentler character seem al so to be more generally pleasing in Sculpture; hence while his works in this class have been spread widely by numerous repetitions, his labours in the more ele vated style have remained in the originals. But it may be justly doubted how far Canova is not even su perior to himself in the grander attributes and high er walks of art. fly not but many, groups and single statues, be has attained, in nobility of form, cor rectness of science, strength of character, harmoni ous design, and, where demanded, forceful expression some of the best effects and loftiest aims of Sculpture. Nor is this merely a general character; individual works may be instanced, in each of which, while the intrinsic requisites of excellence are conspicuous, some especial constituent of greatness is remarkable. In manly and vigorous beauty of form, where grace and elegance are justly distinguished from the effeminate, we have the Perseus: not unworthy of its immediate prototype, the Apollo. In strength, in forceful ex pression, and perfection of science, there is the group of the Pugilists, in its peculiar range the most classic work of modern times. In harmonious and noble composition, united with grandeur of action, the The seus combating the Centaur, offers an admirable example; nor does the whole extent of three preceding centuries afford_a happier combination of poetic feel ing and natural effect. For the terrible in expression and suffering, the Hercules and Lycas carries sculp ture to its utmost limits in the representation of pas sion, yet without extravagance. These, with the Pa lamcdes, the Hector and the Ajax, the Paris, and others that might be added, all belong to the grand style of art, furnishing a series of works in only one of several departments unparalleled in the history of any single man; while in the beauties of sustained effect—of learned design—of boldness and exquisite delicacy of execution, they may challenge comparison with the style of any former age. On leaving the re gions of poetry and fable, to whose heroic imaginings he has thus given high embodiment, we find that in the faithful portraiture of the great or the venerable realities of human life, Canova has proved himself an equal master. The statue of Napoleon is a most ma jestic figure, combining the ideal in composition with individual and striking resemblance. Of dignity in spiring veneration, the kneeling figure of Pius VI. which received the very last touches of the artist;—of sedate energy and classical arrangement, that of Washington, furnish fine examples. In modern art, what more worthy of the highest praise than the cha racteristic firmness of good intention which respires in the statue of Ganganclli? or than the solemn and affecting feebleness of Rezzonico, which speak their sole support to he in religion? In the second division of his works, Canova remains not only unequalled but unrivalled in our clays. His compositions have enriched modern art with the most glowing conceptions of elegance and grace—raised and yet more refined by the expression of some ele vating or endearing sentiment.