🖌️Antonio Canova (1757-1822) was an Italian sculptor

 Antonio Canova (Italian: Antonio Canova; 1757-1822) was an Italian sculptor, along with the Dane Bertel Thorvaldsen, the most significant representative of the salon-academic movement in Western European sculpture during the Neoclassical period.
Some art historians, while noting the naturalism of the sculptor's form and creative method, nevertheless, citing the idealization of images, classify his work as "early Romanticism."
For his mastery, he earned the nickname "the New Phidias" (il nuovo Fidia).
In the early 19th century, Antonio Canova completed a number of commissions for Napoleon, including a marble portrait of his sister, Paolina Bonaparte, as Venus. As a representative of Neoclassicism, Canova revived the characteristics of ancient sculpture in his work, including staticism, pomposity, and a striving for perfection of form.
The sculpture was executed in an unusual manner: the sculptor depicted Paolina lying on a triclinium (bed), and furthermore, she was naked, which was considered unheard of at the time.
According to contemporaries, Paolina Bonaparte had strikingly perfect features and a magnificent figure, "which—alas!—was too often admired." Seeing Napoleon's sister naked, Canova presented her with Aphrodite's apple. (According to ancient Greek myth, Paris gave the apple of discord to the most beautiful of goddesses.)
In Antonio Canova's work, the ideal and the real are fused: on the one hand, it is a portrait of a charming young woman, confident in her beauty and the fact that the whole world admires her. Her pose is natural, yet she looks not at the viewer but into the distance, as if reminding them that she is a special woman, not a mere mortal, and that those around her can only admire her.
Before her death, Napoleon's sister requested that her coffin not be opened, as anyone who wished to see her could look at Canova's sculpture. Her wish was fulfilled; the marble sculpture was displayed at the funeral, and in the memories of those around her, Paolina remained young and beautiful.
The portrait of Bonaparte's sister was created not only by the sculptor's hands, but also by his heart, and it brought him his greatest fame.
Antonio Canova's works are represented in many museums around the world, but his "Portrait of Paolina Bonaparte as Venus," housed in the Borghese Gallery, is the most famous.
#OnThisDay