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Art Category: Europe 1800-1900

Comparison of Arts

The 19^th-century art started anti-rationally with Romanticism, where it ended with Symbolism anti-rationally (Carbonne, 2017). The work focuses on the comparison of the sculptures of Bertel Thorvaldsen and Antonio Canova. The City of Rome was significant to Canova and Thorvaldsen. It was in Rome, where the two parties started to engage in one of the most fruitful and the most famous examples of art competitions in history. The work will compare the actions of Bertel Thorvaldsen Jason with the Golden Fleece and the works of Antonio Canova Theseus and the Minotaur.

With Thorvaldsen and Canova, the development of the modern sculpture combines the fruits of a historic competition, interpreting identical subjects and themes to come up with several masterpieces. Both the arts of Thorvaldsen and Canova can reinterpret classical themes by the modern-day lens. Due to his art, Theseus and the Minotaur Canova was perceived as a revolutionary artist who provided sculpture precedence by confronting ancient arts and reinterpreting them for the contemporary audience. The work of Thorvaldsen, on the other hand, was impacted by a more conservative and stricter adherence to classical norms.

The success of the Statue of Jason attracted the attention of Canova, where Thorvaldsen was propelled on one of the most efficacious careers of the 1800s (Mattusch, 2017).  The sculpture marked the start of a new historical period when a belief in free humankind developed in the light of antiquity was highly valued.  After Thorvaldsen had the development with Jason, he started getting a lot of commissions (Carbonne, 2017). The artwork made Thorvaldsen take on many assistants and more studios in Rome, where his works were set up in entire Europe.

Just like Jason with the Golden Fleece, Theseus and the Minotaur was the major neoclassical work of Antonio Canova. The subject matter of the heart of Canova comes from the mythology of Greece. The story of Theseus is famous among the Greek myths. The art depicts Theseus, who is the victor resting atop the body of Minotaur (Meyer, 2017). Theseus is reflective, and he appears composed regardless of the violent struggle that is happening. The body is a representation of a chiseled perfection ideal. The sculpture also showed immediate success and assisted in building the reputation of Canova. Just like Jason with the Golden Fleece was critical in building the reputation of Thorvaldsen.

There is a notable similarity between the stories behind the two arts — the myths of the two are intertwined, where they show similar recurring motifs and themes. The analogy is seen between the stories of the heroes together with their wives. For instance, both Ariadne and Medea are seen as goddesses. Both the characters used in the arts were also sons of kings who were sent to stay in the countryside. Both Jason and Theseus traveled on the sea with many youths to hostile kingdoms. Both the wives of the individuals gave them secret help. How the heroes treat women is a portrayal of the place that women hold in the Greek community. The heroes ascertain that women in Greek society are vital in some instances, but that does not mean that they are not expendable.

The creations of the two sculptors are different in terms of their styles and above all the sensual grace that Canova applies in the art compared to the ascetic beauty that Thorvaldsen employs in his work (Johns, 2015). Even though both the styles that have been used in the two works are significant antique precedents, the arts include value judgments inevitably on the grounds of the preferences of the specific audiences. It appears that both the sculptors were not interested in either contemporary philosophical debates or art theory.

Influence of Each Art to History

            The Jason with the Golden Fleece art is essential to history in showing that the place of an individual in the society is not determined by privileges that are inherited by the abilities that they have. The Evil uncle of Jason had taken power from his father, and Jason needed to win the Golden Fleece to claim back his father’s throne (Dowling, 2015). The Fleece guaranteed wealth and fertility to the land that possessed it. The art also has a significant impact on history since classical Greece was the cradle of Democracy, where the art of Thorvaldsen made an appearance on the artistic scene precisely at the time pro-democracy sentiment was creating a powerful implication in Europe. To the contemporaries of Thorvaldsen, Jason made it clear the sculptor had succeeded in giving classical antiquity new life, including for freedom’s hope in the future.

Theseus and the Minotaur show Theseus seated on the lifeless body of Minotaur. The portrait shows the struggle that Theseus has undergone. The art has resulted in Antonio Canova obtained more favor from the masses, while the critics claimed that he would have created a static group instead of creating a violent one (Myssok, 2017). The sculpture had a significant influence on art since it assisted Establish a reputation as a leading European artist in his days.

Both Canova and Thorvaldsen revolutionized an approach to classical sculpture ideas with the advancement of new techniques. Thanks to the technical innovations used in art like preparatory models that were introduced mainly by Canova and applied widely by Thorvaldsen. The artist was able to show their poetic vision by the use of the statues that were calculated without being specially made.

References

Carbone, E. (2017). Reading sculpture: The remediation of Thorvaldsen’s sculptures in literature. In Sculpture and the Nordic Region (pp. 88-101). Routledge.

Dowling, J. (2015). Jason and the Golden Fleece (Classic Collection)/The Twelve Tasks of Hercules (Classic Collection). The School Librarian, 63(1), 41.

Johns, C. M. (2015). Warm Flesh, Cold Marble: Canova, Thorvaldsen, and Their Critics. The Sculpture Journal, 24(1), 117.

Mattusch, C. C. (2017). Rome under the influence: Canova’s view of antiquity-TOMAS MACSOTAY (ed.), ROME, TRAVEL AND THE SCULPTURE CAPITAL, c. 1770-1825 (Routledge; Abingdon, 2017). Pp. xx+ 274, figs. 72. ISBN 978-1-472-42035-0. $149.95. Journal of Roman Archaeology, 30, 939-947.

Meyer, S. A. (2017). Promoting Sculpture in Eighteenth-Century Rome. Rome, Travel, and the Sculpture Capital, c. 1770? 825, 59.

Myssok, J. (2017). Canova and His German Friends. Rome, Travel, and the Sculpture Capital, c. 1770? 825, 131.