Zbornik Radova Filozofskog Fakulteta u Prištini (Jan 2009)
Canova's 'The Three Graces'
Abstract
Antonio Canova (1757-1822), the epitome of the neo-classical style, was born in a small village Passagno in the province of Treviso. At the age of fourteen he started learning sculpture in Venice; at first, he was placed under Giovanni Bernardi and, later on, under Giovanni Ferrari. After he had established himself as a sculptor, he moved to Rome, the city of classisists in which he would later achieve a worldwide fame. The highest level of his art were the statues of naked women which exposed a new type of female beauty as well as a new poetic style based on the beauty conceived in ancient Greece. This work gives a story of one of Canova's unknown pieces. It is about a group of marble statues 'The Three Graces' which can be found in the Regional Museum of Art in Craiova. Not even a word has it been written referring to this particular sculpture in Romania. These are the first words about this piece of art, placed somewhere out of sight at a dark corner of the museum only because they do not possess any valid documentation concerning its purchase. Only the signature was left on it by the author; however, it is certain that it came to life a few years after he moved to London. The sculpture might have been made (around 1820) four or five years prior to his first marble group of statues 'The Three Graces' standing in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.
