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Notes
Claire J. Farago, ed. Leonardo da Vinci’s Paragone: A Critical Interpretation with a New Edition of the Text in the Codex Urbinas (Leiden and New York: E.J. Brill, 1992), 257.
Canova’s finishing techniques have received much attention recently. See, for instance, Hugh Honour, “Canova’s Studio Practice II: 1791-1822,” The Burlington Magazine 114, no. 829 (April 1972): 218-19; Mark Norman and Richard Cook, “‘Just a Tiny Bit of Rouge upon the Lips and Cheeks’: Canova, Colour, and the Classical Ideal,” in Canova: Ideal Heads, ed. Katharine Eustace (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1997), 47-58; Alex Potts, The Sculptural Imagination: Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), esp. “Surface Values,” 38-60; Satish Padiyar, Chains: David, Canova, and the Fall of the Public Hero in Postrevolutionary France (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007), 119–41; and, more recently, David Bindman, Warm Flesh, Cold Marble: Canova, Thorvaldsen and Their Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014).
After a visit to Canova’s studio in 1799, for instance, Général Baron Thiébault remarked, “Une chose me surprit dans toutes ces statues, c’était la différence de la teinte du marbre qui, dans le même bloc, distinguait la chair et les vêtements. Je pensai que cette différence provenait de la manière de piquer le marbre ou de le polir ; mais Canova me dit qu’il avait découvert une espèce de cire dont il faisait enduire toutes les parties représentant les chairs, et que ce procédé avait non seulement l’avantage de leur donner un velouté nouveau pour le marbre, mais encore de contribuer à préserver ces parties des effets de l’air.” Paul Charles François Adrien Henri Dieudonne Thiébault, Mémoires du General Bon Thiébault, publiés sous les auspices de sa fille Claire Thiébault, d’après le manuscrit original, par Fernand Calmettes, 7th ed., 5 vols. (Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie, 1893-1895), vol. 2, 549.
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own. I have also retained the original orthography and phrasing for all citations, including typographical errors.
To use Alex Potts’ phrase. See Potts, The Sculptural Imagination: Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist, 38-60.
See Roland Barthes, “The Reality Effect,” in The Rustle of Language, trans. Richard Howard (Berkeley: University of California Press), 141-48.
For more on Venus and Adonis, see the comments by Augustin Creuze de Lesser in note 54. For the full passage recording Thiébault’s reaction to his visit to Canova’s studio, see note 3.
Joseph Forsyth, Remarks on Antiquities, Arts, and Letters During an Excursion in Italy, in the Years 1802 and 1803, ed. Keith Crook (1813; London; Newark; Cranbury, NJ: University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses, 2001), 113.
For more on the different versions of Hebe, see Norman and Cook, “‘Just a Tiny Bit of Rouge upon the Lips and Cheeks’: Canova, Colour, and the Classical Ideal,” 51-52.
Ibid., 54-56.
One interesting exception is Canova’s statue of Paolina Borghese as Venus Victrix; recent conservation has shown that Canova did not wax this particular work. See Elisabetta Caracciolo and Elisabetta Zatti, “Il Restauro della Sala di Paolina Bonaparte = the Restoration of the Room of Paulina Bonaparte,” in ‘Venere Vincitrice’: La Sala di Paolina Bonaparte alla Galleria Borghese, ed. Claudio Strinati (Roma: Edizioni dell’Elefante, 1997), 216.
According to conservation reports, Apollo and Daphne received a waxy patina in the seventeenth century. Whether it was applied by Bernini or not is the subject of some debate. See Kristina Herrmann Fiore, “Apollo e Dafne del Bernini al Tempo del Cardinale Scipione Borghese,” in ‘Apollo e Dafne’ del Bernini nella Galleria Borghese, ed. Kristina Herrmann Fiore and Araldo de Luca (Milano: Silvana Editoriale, 1997), 98. For more on the physical condition of the sculpture and its surface, see the conservation reports in Elisabetta Caracciolo and Elisabetta Zatti, “Il Restauro delle Sculture,” ibid., esp. 152 and Alfredo Aldrovandi et al., “Apollo e Dafne: Indagini Scientifiche per lo Studio delle Superfici,” ibid., 161-69. For Pluto and Proserpina, see Genevieve Warwick, Bernini: Art as Theatre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 109.
In his journal entry on August 13, 1665, Paul Fréart de Chantelou noted the artist’s interest in the sculptural surface, particularly the way marble acquired a natural softness with time. See Paul Fréart de Chantelou, Journal de voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France, ed. Milovan Stanić (Paris: Macula-Insulaire, 2001), 116.
See Herrmann Fiore, “Apollo e Dafne del Bernini al Tempo del Cardinale Scipione Borghese,” 98 and Norman and Cook, “‘Just a Tiny Bit of Rouge upon the Lips and Cheeks’: Canova, Colour, and the Classical Ideal,” 50.
Two particularly egregious dealers were Thomas Jenkins and Robert Fagan. See Brinsley Ford, “Thomas Jenkins: Banker, Dealer and Unofficial English Agent,” Apollo 99, no. 148 (1974): 416-25 and Antonello Cesareo, “‘He Had for Years the Guidance of the Taste in Rome’: Per un Profilo di Thomas Jenkins,” in: Collezionisti, Disegnatori e Teorici dal Barocco al Neoclassico, ed. Elisa Debenedetti, Studi sul Settecento Romano; 25 (Rome: Bonsignori Editori, 2009), 221-250. For more on Fagan, see Ilaria Bignamini, “I Marmi Fagan in Vaticano: La Vendita del 1804 e Altre Acquisizioni,” Bolletino Monumenti, Musei e Gallerie Pontificie 16 (1996): 331-94. See also the documents in the Archivio di Stato, Roma, Camerale II, Antichità e Belle Arti, Busta 6, fasc. 175 which denounce Fagan for exporting objects from Rome without permission.
See Ascanio Condivi, Vita di Michelangolo Buonarroti (1553; Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International, 1976), 9-12. For a fascinating discussion of Michelangelo as a potential forger, see Lynn Catterson, “Michelangelo’s Laocoön?,” Artibus et Historiae 52 (2005): 29-56.
As quoted in Honour, “Canova’s Studio Practice II: 1791-1822,” 219.
Noted by Thomas Moore in his diary entry of October 29, 1819, upon a visit to the Museo Pio-Clementino with the sculptor Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey. Thomas Moore, Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence of Thomas Moore, ed. John Russell (London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1860), 235.
Augustus von Kotzebue, Travels through Italy in the Years 1804 and 1805, 4 vols. (London: Richard Phillips, 1806), vol. 3, 158-59.
J. S. Memes, Memoirs of Antonio Canova, with a Critical Analysis of his Works, and an Historical View of Modern Sculpture (Edinburgh: A. Constable & Co., 1825), 295-96. Leopoldo Cicognara likewise recounts this story. Leopoldo Cicognara, Biografia di Antonio Canova (Venezia: Editore Giambattista Missiaglia, 1823), 11-12.
Antonio d’Este tells a slightly different version. According to his account, a French sculptor named Suasy often critiqued Canova’s style. One morning d’Este ran into Suasy while he was carrying casts the Minotaur’s arm and hand and Theseus’ foot. After Suasy saw them, not only did he beg to buy them, but he disdainfully suggested that d’Este bring them to Canova so that he might study and learn from the antique. D’Este gleefully replied that the pieces belonged to an original work by Canova himself—a prank that ended d’Este’s friendship with Suasy. Antonio d’Este, Memorie di Antonio Canova, ed. Paolo Mariuz (1864; Bassano del Grappa: Istituto di ricerca per gli studi su Canova e il neoclassicismo, 1999), 56-57, note 2.
That said, throughout his career, Canova often made sculptures that emulated well-known ancient works and exhibited his sculptures in ways that emphasized the comparison with the antique. See, for instance, Antonio Pinelli, “La Sfida Rispettosa di Antonio Canova. Genesi e Peripezie del ‘Perseo Trionfante’,” Ricerche di Storia dell’Arte 13/14 (1981): 421-38 and Christina Ferando, “Staging Neoclassicism: Antonio Canova’s Exhibition Strategies for Triumphant Perseus,” in Das Originale der Kopie: Kopien als Produkte und Medien der Transformation von Antike, ed. Tatjana Bartsch, et al., Collaborative Research Centre (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 139-63.
“Questo quadro restò per più anni in un angolo dello studio, finchè per la patina della polvere e degli anni, prese aspetto di un vecchio quadro.” See d’Este, Memorie di Antonio Canova, 348.
Memes, Memoirs of Antonio Canova, with a Critical Analysis of his Works, and an Historical View of Modern Sculpture, 374. See also d’Este, Memorie di Antonio Canova, 70 and Faustino Tadini, Le Sculture e le Pitture di Antonio Canova Pubblicate Fino a quest’Anno 1795 (Venezia: Dalla Stamperia Palese, 1796), 42.
Wendy Wassyng Roworth also explores the case of Canova’s fake Giorgione, including the variations between the biographical accounts. She sets these in the broader context of literary and biographical portrayals of jokes and tricks played by artists and also stresses the importance that Venetian painting held in Rome at the time. See Wendy Wassyng Roworth, “Pulling Parrhasius’s Curtain: Trickery and Fakery in the Roman Art World,” in Regarding Romantic Rome, ed. Richard Wrigley (Bern; New York: P. Lang, 2007), 17-37. More recently, Ranieri Varese has made a similar argument that these accounts reiterate the importance Venetian art had for Canova. See Ranieri Varese, “Un Falso Giorgione e un Vero Canova,” in Mosaico: Temi e Metodi d’Arte e Critica per Gianni Carlo Sciolla, ed. Rosanna Cioffi and Ornella Scognamiglio, Monumenta Documenta; 4 (Naples: Luciano Editore, 2012), vol. 1, 353-362.
Gilbert Bagnani compares intentionally forged works with “fakes in reverse”—“that of objects or documents which, though undoubtedly not authentic, cannot be considered either as fakes or as forgeries.” These works of art—copies, studies, hoaxes, parodies or exercises—were produced by artists and scholars for their own amusement or instruction, without the intention to deceive, and became “fakes” through ignorance and the passage of time. Canova’s Venus with a Mirror could conceivably fall into this category. See Gilbert Bagnani, “On Fakes and Forgeries,” Phoenix 14.4 (Winter 1960): 29.
“[...] lo termina in modo, che sembrava un vecchio dipinto.” See d’Este, Memorie di Antonio Canova, 78 and Melchior Missirini, Della Vita di Antonio Canova: Libri Quattro (Prato: per i Frat. Giachetti, 1824), 123.
For more accounts of Canova’s “fakes,” see Missirini, Della Vita di Antonio Canova: Libri Quattro, 123-25 and Memes, Memoirs of Antonio Canova, with a Critical Analysis of his Works, and an Historical View of Modern Sculpture, 373-75.
For the reception in Naples of Canova’s painting in the manner of Giorgione, see the letters from Ranieri Calzabigi to Canova, April 18, 1795, and from Nicola Passeri to Canova, April 23, 1795, cited in Paola Fardella, Antonio Canova a Napoli: Tra Collezionismo e Mercato (Napoli: Paparo, 2002), 28, note 33 and 148-49, respectively. For the rediscovery of Canova’s painting, see Marco Nocca, “Un Dipinto Inedito di Antonio Canova Ritrovato a Propaganda Fide: l’Ezzelino da Romano (1793),” Bolletino Monumenti, Musei e Gallerie Pontificie 22 (2002):109-36. Canova then arranged for this painting to be sent to Venice, where it would be exhibited without revealing that he was the artist, in order to see how it was received. See the letter from Canova to Giannantonio Selva, May 14, 1796 and the reply from Giannantonio Selva to Canova, May 21, 1796. The original letter from Canova to Selva is in the Biblioteca Correr (PD 529C), but it has been published (with some modifications) in Lettere Familiari Inedite di Antonio Canova e di Giannantonio Selva. Per le Nozze Persico-Papdopoli (Venezia: dal premiato stabilimento di G. Antonelli, 1835), 14. The letter from Selva to Canova was published in d’Este, Memorie di Antonio Canova, 369.
“Artists are chiefly supported by English travellers, who usually follow Mr. GRAY’s advice, and buy every thing which is to be bought: and among other curiosities, copies for original pictures; and antiques made on purpose for them. Would you buy pictures, beware of counterfeits, and remember Andrea. Medals will also be brought to you in quantities, which science requires some caution also. It is the rarity that fixes the value: you would not think, perhaps, that an Otho in copper, is worth more than an Otho in gold.
False pearls are made here in the greatest perfection. If not too large, they may pass at a distance for real ones, and at any rate will answer the purpose full as well. The pearls CLEOPATRA wore were esteemed at one hundred and sixty-one thousand four hundred and fifty-eight pounds.—How much better might that money have been employed!” Peter Beckford, Familiar Letters from Italy, to a Friend in England, 2 vols. (Salisbury: Printed and sold by J. Easton, 1805), vol. 2, 317-18.
Giandomenico Spinola, “La Manipolazione dell’Antico tra Restauro e Falso: Esempi dai Musei Vaticani,” in Roma e l’Antico: Realtà e Visione nel ‘700, ed. Carolina Brook and Valter Curzi (Milano: Skira, 2010), 52.
Emphasis added. He continues, “….But many of the names given to the marbles and bronzes in this quarter of the Capitol are more than questionable. The Duillian column is modern, and the fragments of inscriptions on it are copies; the colossal bronze fragments, said to belong to a statue of Commodus, are not certainly his. The Geese called the saviours of the Capitol may be ancient, but they look like ducks. The Boy extracting the thorn is not what it is called, the Shepherd Martius; the bronze Junius Brutus is a baptism; the Caesar is a forgery; so are the Appius Claudius, the Mithridates, the Ariadne, the Sappho, the Virgil, the Cicero, and the Poppæa. No such uncertainty attaches to the collection of modern worthies on the Promoteca, many of them removed from the Pantheon; but most of the recent busts were supplied by the munificence of Canova.” John Cam Hobhouse Broughton, Italy; Remarks Made in Several Visits, from the Year 1816 to 1854, 2 vols. (London: J. Murray, 1859), vol. 2, 39.
“Ces accessoires, ainsi colorés, me semblent faire une disparate choquante avec le reste de la statue […].” Victorin Fabre, “Salon de peinture. Huitième article. Sculptures,” Mercure de France, journal historique, politique et littéraire (24 Decembre 1808): 604. For the rest of the citation, see note 39. Fabre’s reaction was based in part on the polychromy and in part on the luxuriousness of the bronze, which was at odds with Magdalene’s pious renunciation of worldly goods.
See Antoine-Chrysosthôme Quatremère de Quincy, Le Jupiter Olympien, ou, l’art de la sculpture antique considéré sous un nouveau point de vue (Paris: de Bure Frères Libraires du Roi et de la Bibliothèque du Roi, 1815). For more on Quatremère’s interest in polychromy, see Yvonne Luke, Quatremère de Quincy’s Role in the Revival of Polychromy in Sculpture (Leeds: Centre for the Study of Sculpture, Henry Moore Institute, 1996).
“Quelques-uns se sont recriés sur l’emploi que M. Canova a fait d’un peu de dorure dans l’enjolivement de la ceinture de son Hebé, et sur l’application du métal doré à quelques-uns de ses accessoires. Cette critique ne peut être faite sérieusement que par des personnes peu versées dans la connaissance historique de la sculpture antique, ou qui ne se sont formé l’idée de toutes les variétés que par un petit nombre de marbres. L’habitude d’introduire soit des couleurs, soit des matieres diverses dans les statues, fait une des habitudes favorites de l’antiquité. S’il le fallait, on prouverait que loin de ramener l’art vers le mauvais goût des tems barbares; cet essai de M. Canova le rapproche au contraire, et de la manière et des ertemens pratiqués par les maîtres des plus beaux siècles de la Grèce. Sans doutes, et on l’avouera sans peine, ce n’est pas par-là que le statuaire doit ambitionner le don de plaire. Si beaucoup de marbres antiques portent encore des marques d’une parure étrangère à leur matière, si la Vénus de Médecis, par exemple, eut les cheveux dorés, on n’en concluera point qu’il faille imiter par-là l’antique. Mais si ces licenses qui peuvent être subordonnés au goût, sont autorisées par une multitude d’exemples, on en concluera, et que M. Canova a pu se les permettre dans un sujet léger, et que si on l’en blâme, ce ne doit pas être sur-tout par les motifs qu’on a allégués.” Antoine-Chrysosthôme Quatremère de Quincy, “Sur M. Canova et les quatre ouvrages qu’on voit de lui à l’exposition publique de 1808: par M. Quatremère de Quinci [sic],” Gazette nationale ou le moniteur universel, no. 565 (Dec. 28, 1808): 1429.
In Pliny’s Natural History, for instance, he cites Praxiteles’ admiration for the painter Nicias, who also painted Praxiteles’ own sculptures. Vitruvius, on the other hand, suggests wax was used to tint marble sculptures. See Pliny the Elder, Natural History, ed. H. Rackham, trans. H. Rackham (vols. 1-5, 9), W.H.S. Jones (vols. 6-8), and D.E. Eichholz (vol. 10), 10 vols. (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann, 1949-54), XXXV, lx, http://www.masseiana.org/pliny.htm#BOOK%20XXXV (accessed June 30, 2015) and Vitruvius, The Architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio in Ten Books, ed. and trans. Joseph Gwilt, 1826, VII, 9, 3, http://lexundria.com/vitr/7.9/gw (accessed June 30, 2015).
“Elle tient à la main une coupe dorée, idée que je n’approuve rien, quoique les anciens l’aient eue souvent. Du moment qu’on admet deux couleurs dans la sculpture, il faut les admettre toutes. Dès que vois me montrez une coupe d’or, je trouve difforme et avec raison une bouche toute blanche, des yeux tout blancs: en un mot une seule couleur, ou toutes les couleurs.” Augustin Creuze de Lesser, Voyage en Italie et en Sicile, fait en MDCCCI et MDCCCII (Paris: de l’Imprimerie de P. Didot l’Ainé, 1806), 313.
“Le bandeau des cheveux de la Déesse [Hebe], l’aiguière et la coupe qu’elle teint dans ses mains, sont de couleur d’or; les parties nues de la statue sont imprégnées d’une préparation de soufre et de cire, qui leur donne une teinte jaunâtre et un reflet assez semblable à celui des corps demi-diaphanes, comme certaines partes de l’albâtre: cet encaustique a même sur quelques parties du visage une couleur légèrement rosée; et cependant les draperies conservent la blancheur naturelle du marbre.
Ce sont ces petits artifices que nous eussions pu remarquer plus tôt, en parlant de la Madeleine et du groupe de Psyché, que l’on reproche au chevalier Canova, comme peu dignes de la gravité de la statuaire. En admirant l’adresse et la discrétion avec laquelle il les emploie, on craint que l’abus n’en devienne un jour funeste. On invite les sculpteurs à repousser une prétendue innovation, qui n’est en effet que le raffinement du procédé ordinaire aux artistes des siècles de barbarie: toutes ces observations me semblent forte justes.
Les anciens ont employé l’or, l’argent, les pierreries, la marqueterie dans quelques-unes de leurs statues de marbre. Les anciens n’ont-ils pas eu aussi leurs âges d’ignorance et leurs siècles d’un luxe barbare? Nous ne voyons pas cette bigarrure dans ceux de leurs plus beaux ouvrages que le temps a respectés; et quel elle s’y trouveroit, cette autorité ne sauroit prévaloir contre le bon sens et la raison.
À la vu d’un ouvrage de sculpture, nous nous figurons le sujet représenté sons un seul de ses rapports, celui de la solidité. Cette seule propriété, imitée plus ou moins parfaitement, suffit pour nous donner une idée distincte du sujet entier; et elle satisfait si bien notre esprit, qu’à peine nous nous apercevons de l’absence de toutes les autres.
Cependant, que par un soin imprudent l’artiste accorde à quelque partie de sa statue une de ces autres propriétés qui manquent à tout le reste, nous sommes frappés de la différence; et notre pensée, d’abord tout occupée d’un seul objet, prend un autre tour.
La blancheur du lin, si facilement imitée par la blancheur du marbre, nous fera songer à l’inimitable couleur de la chair. Le diadème, brillant d’or véritable, accusera la feinte impuissante de l’art à l’égard des cheveux. Et que le sculpteur égaré dans cette fausse voie n’espère pas s’en tirer en poursuivant: au bout est le terme fatal de l’art. ” M.B., “Beaux-Arts. Salon de 1808. N. XVIII. Sculpture. M. Canova,” 3-4.
“Again—there is a trickery and quackery in the finishing of Canova’s statues, which is below the dignity of a sculptor. The marble is not left in its natural state—but it must be stained and polished to aid the effect. The other sculptors laugh at this, and well they may;—for these adventitious graces soon fade away, and are beside the purpose of sculpture, whose end was, and is, to represent form alone.” Henry Matthews, The Diary of an Invalid, Being the Journal of a Tour in Pursuit of Health, in Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and France, in the Years 1817, 1818, and 1819, 5th ed. (Paris: A. and W. Galignani and co., 1836), 89.
See note 37 for the full text. M.B., “Beaux-Arts. Salon de 1808. N. XVIII. Sculpture. M. Canova,” 3-4.
The anonymous writer of The New Monthly Magazine cited these criticisms, but ultimately defended Canova’s work. “Canova has been blamed by some critics for endeavouring to impart to his statues an air of reality, and of heightening their resemblance to nature by artificial means unconnected with the province of sculpture: namely by colouring the eyes, lips &c., a practice quite unusual among modern sculptors. This, however, he manages with so much delicacy, that it is scarcely perceptible, and if it do not, as many maintain, impart an additional charm to the statue, it is at least certain that Canova never suffers the colouring to obtrude so as to become offensive to the eye.” “Memoir of Antonio Canova [with a Portrait],” The New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register 13 (Jan. 1, 1820): 71.
“Canova strives, by the kind of polish which he gives to his works, to produce in the spectator an impression corresponding with that which the subject of his compositions ought to inspire. He gives to the marble the appearance of a soft and delicate substance, and when it has received the last polish, by means of the pumice-stone, he makes use of a mordant, to diminish its whiteness, and to give it somewhat of a yellowish tint. The connoisseurs who love to find in a statue the beauty of the form designed with the utmost possible purity, do not approve of this process, by which it would seem to be impaired; but it is expressly calculated to heighten the pleasure of the amateur, who is more susceptible of enthusiasm, and frequently measures the perfection of a work by the degree of satisfaction which it affords him.” English translation from Carl Ludwig Fernow, “Account of the Life and Works of M. Canova, the Celebrated Italian Sculptor,” The Monthly Magazine, or, British Register XXIV, no. 160 (August 1, 1807): 47.
“Cet habile statuaire [Canova] se sert, avec beaucoup d’adresse, d’un moyen peu usité, pour donner plus de douceur à ses chairs et les mieux distinguer des draperies. Il jaunit le marbre dans le nu, et lui laisse sa couleur naturelle dans les étoffes. Les avis peuvent être partagés sur cette espèce d’innovation, mais M. Canova est allé plus loin encore : on trouve dans ses statues d’autres accessoires représentés en couleur; telles sont la coupe d’or de son Hébé, la croix de roseau de sa Madelaine. Ces accessoires ainsi colorés, me semblent faire une disparate choquante avec le reste de la statue, ôter à la vraisemblance et à l’illusion de l’ensemble plus peut-être qu’ils n’ajoutent à la vérités des détails; et je crois qu’un tel usage, dont il serait si facile à des imitateurs maladroits d’abuser, pourrait, s’il venait un jour à s’établir, altérer enfin la noble simplicité, la franchise de composition, et même de style qui doivent former toujours le principal caractère des grands ouvrages de sculpture.” Fabre, “Salon de peinture. Huitième article. Sculptures,” 604.
“If the business of Sculpture were to administer pleasure to ignorance, or a mere entertainment to the senses, the Venus of Medicis might certainly receive much improvement by colour; but the character of Sculpture makes it her duty to afford delight of a different, and, perhaps, of a higher kind; the delight resulting from the contemplation of perfect beauty: and this, which is in truth an intellectual pleasure, is in many respects incompatible with what is merely addressed to the senses.” Joshua Reynolds, Discourses on Art, ed. Robert R. Wark (New Haven: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art Ltd. by Yale University Press, 1997), 176-77.
Johann Gottfried Herder, Sculpture: Some Observations on Shape and Form from Pygmalion’s Creative Dream, ed. and trans. Jason Gaiger (1778; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 54.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann, History of the Art of Antiquity, ed. Alex Potts, trans. Harry Francis Mallgrave, Texts & Documents (1764; Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2006), 195.
Charlotte A. Eaton, Rome, in the Nineteenth Century; Containing a Complete Account of the Ruins of the Ancient City, the Remains of the Middle Ages, and the Monuments of Modern Times, 5th ed., 2 vols. (1820; London: H. G. Bohn, 1852), vol. 2, 301.
This interest in animation remained powerful well into the nineteenth century. Recent scholarship which has explored the issue includes J. L. Carr, “Pygmalion and the Philosophes: the Animated Statue in Eighteenth-Century France,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 23, no. 3/4 (Jul-Dec. 1960): 239-55; Victor Ieronim Stoichita, The Pygmalion Effect: From Ovid to Hitchcock, The Louise Smith Bross Lectures (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008); Kelly Dennis, Art/Porn: A History of Seeing and Touching (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2009), esp. 37-53; George L. Hersey, Falling in Love with Statues: Artificial Humans from Pygmalion to the Present (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009); and Marquard Smith, The Erotic Doll: A Modern Fetish (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013).
See Hersey, Falling in Love with Statues: Artificial Humans from Pygmalion to the Present, 99-102 and Smith, The Erotic Doll: A Modern Fetish, 39.
“For this purpose, we imagined a statue constructed internally like ourselves, and animated by a mind which as yet had no ideas of any kind. We supposed the marble exterior of the statue to prevent the use of its senses, and we reserved to ourselves the right to open them at will to the different impressions of which they are susceptible.” Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, Condillac’s ‘Treatise on the Sensations’, ed. and trans. Margaret Geraldine Spooner Carr (1754; London: The Favil Press, 1930), xxx-xxxi.
As cited in Hersey, Falling in Love with Statues: Artificial Humans from Pygmalion to the Present, 102.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Anthony S. Kline, Book X, 243-297, “Orpheus Sings: Pygmalion and the Statue,” http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph10.htm (accessed June 30, 2015).
Ibid., Book X, 220-242, “Orpheus Sings:The Propoetides,” http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph10.htm (accessed June 30, 2015).
Some contemporary reports suggest that Corday was not, in fact, slapped. Regardless of the historical accuracy of the account, the image entered the entered public imagination and was still actively discussed for several years after her execution. For more details, see Dorinda Outram, The Body and the French Revolution: Sex, Class and Political Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 118-20.
Ibid., 119.
Daniel Arasse, The Guillotine and the Terror, trans. Christopher Miller (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1989), esp. 37-42.
Letter from Lucchesi Palli to Canova, n.d. [1795]. “Il marmo è trattato con tale industria, che la superficie sembra positivamente l’epiderma del corpo umano e si sarebbe tentati pungerla con una spilla per vedere se ne uscisse il sangue.” Cited in Fardella, Antonio Canova a Napoli: Tra Collezionismo e Mercato, 145.
“J’ai vu à Naples un autre essai de ce système de Canova, et beaucoup moins heureux encore à mon avis ; c’est dans un grouppe de Vénus et Adonis. Vénus est nue ; mais quand j’entrai dans la pièce où est ce grouppe, je fus désagréablement frappé d’une large bande, blanc de neige, qui entouroit la ceinture de cette déesse. Je crus que c’étoit une linge dont une pudeur assez ridicule l’avoit couverte, et je priai qu’on l’ôtât ; mais en m’approchant je vis que Canova avoit profité, pour masquer un peu sa Vénus, d’une variété de teinte qui existoit dans la blancheur du marbre. Je me demandai ce que ce linge avoit là à faire auprès d’Adonis ; de plus un linge blanc me montra tout de suite une Vénus toute grise. Au reste ce qui auroit dû me détromper tout de suite, c’est que ce linge est posé tellement qu’à moins de supposer qu’il tient par des épingles à la personne même de Vénus, il est impossible qu’il tienne; mais aussi Vénus est dans une disposition si tendre qu’on peut supposer que dans ce moment là le voile alloit achever de tomber.” Creuze de Lesser, Voyage en Italie et en Sicile, fait en MDCCCI et MDCCCII, 313-14.
“Quand M. Canova lui-même emprunterait la palette du Titien, pour ajouter dans toutes les parties de ses figures la couleur à la forme, l’imitation parfaite de ses deux propriétés ne serviroit qu’à faire sentir plus vivement l’absence d’une troisième. Ces simulacres d’hommes, auxquels il ne manqueroit plus rien que la vie, seroient par cela seul un objet horrible. Sans doute M. Canova est loin, bien loin de cet excès de barbarie ; cependant je ne crois pas que la teinte, assez forte, de carmin qu’il a donné à l’intérieur de la bouche de son Hébé, soit aux yeux de personne d’un effet agréable; et l’analogie est assez grande entre ce procédé et celui que nous venons de supposer, pour justifier les reproches ou du moins les craints des amis des arts.” M.B., “Beaux-Arts. Salon de 1808. N. XVIII. Sculpture. M. Canova,” 4.
See, for instance, Roberta Panzanelli, “Compelling Presence: Wax Effigies in Renaissance Florence,” in Ephemeral Bodies: Wax Sculpture and the Human Figure, ed. Roberta Panzanelli (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute, 2008), 13-39 and Joris van Gastel, “Life, But Not as We Know It: Wax Images and the Denial of Death,” in Bildakt at the Warburg Institute, ed. Sabine Marienberg and Jürgen Trabant (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2014), 231-51.
Uta Kornmeier, “Almost Alive: The Spectacle of Verisimilitude in Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks,” in Ephemeral Bodies: Wax Sculpture and the Human Figure, ed. Roberta Panzanelli (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute, 2008), 67-81.
Joan B. Landes, “Wax Fibers, Wax Bodies, and Moving Figures: Artifice and Nature in Eighteenth-Century Anatomy,” ibid., 41-65.
Charles Baudelaire, “The Salon of 1846,” Art in Paris, 1845-1862: Salons and Other Exhibitions, ed. Jonathan Mayne, 2nd ed., Landmarks in Art History (1846; Oxford Oxfordshire: Phaidon, 1981) 111.
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