Jason and the Golden Fleece, by Bertel Thorvaldsen (Jason et la Toison d'Or)

This beautiful Jason with the Golden Fleece, male hero from the Greek mythology, was sculpted by Bertel Thorvaldsen, a Danish sculptor mentioned before in this blog for his Ganymède and his Achille.

This sculpture is considered by many as the masterpiece of Thorvaldsen’s work. It was initially done in clay, life size, in 1802, to show his sculpting ability to the Copenhagen Academy. The nude aspect of the sculpture may have been inspired by the Apollo Belvedere, sculpture that we mentioned previously in this blog as part of the male art in the Vatican.

Bertel Thorvaldsen, from Denmark, is born in 1770, and died in 1844. He spent a major part of his life in Italy (Rome), and would be in the line of the best neoclassicists sculptors, like the Italian Antonio Canova. Canova who apparently was impressed by the Jason sculpture (see 19th century art website in the sources).

Painting of Bertel Thorvaldsen by Rudolf Suhrlandt - 1810 - detail

Drawing of Thorvalden 'Jason' sculpture, by Ferdinando Mori - 1809

Thorvaldsen received a commission from Thomas Hope, a British art lover, to sculpt his Jason in marble, larger than the clay model, and this sculpture of 242 cm (95 inches) will take 25 years to be achieved. The long and exciting story of it can be read in detail here. The marble sculpture was purchased by the Thorvaldsen Museum in 1917, at an auction following Hope's death.

The only known sketch of Jason done by Thorvaldsen - c.1800-1802

Below is a lithograph, dated 1872, made by Thorvald Jensen, showing Thomas Hope arriving in Thorvaldsen' studio to buy Jason with the Golden Fleece.

For those interested in the Greek mythology of Jason's legend: ''Jason was a Greek mythological prince whose wicked uncle Pelias had unjustly taken power from Jason’s father, King Aison. To win back the throne, Jason needed to obtain the Golden Fleece, which was guarded by a dangerous dragon in a far-off land. Jason sailed off with his men to find it, and after surviving numerous dangers and challenges, the brave young man and his comrades finally found the Fleece; this sculpture depicts the proud Jason at the moment where, with the Fleece draped over his arm, he is going down to the ship that will return him to his fatherland.
The Fleece was magical, and guaranteed fertility and wealth to the land that possessed it – so by obtaining it, Jason established that he was not only a prince in name, but indeed, equipped to rule his land in the best possible way. The notion that a person’s station in society is not determined by inherited privileges, but by his or her human abilities, is a fundamental democratic principle. As is well known, classical Greece was the cradle of democracy, and Thorvaldsen’s Jason made its appearance on the artistic scene at precisely the moment when pro-democracy sentiment was making a powerful impact in Europe."

The Copenhagen Thorvaldsen Museum :

As published in the Anderson guide in 1887

The Library

The Danish Post Office decided to create the first Danish Art Stamp with his name, to celebrate his return to Denmark, and his nomination as Citizen of Honour in Copenhagen.

• Denmark 1938. The Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, after a painting by C.W. Eckersberg.
• Denmark 1938. Sculpture by Bertel Thorvaldsen, "Jason with the Golden Fleece".  

 

Sources:
Wikipedia
The Thorvaldsen Museum
The Hope Commission story


19th century art website 

Icarus (1) Classical sculptures

Since my childhood and the reading of Mythology Tales, followed by classical studies and trips to Greece, Italy and Egypt, I always kept an interest towards mythology.
So today you will see a first post about Icarus & Daedalus sculptures, which will be followed by one or two posts about more recent & contemporary sculptures of them. I will add my version of it as well, done in blue alabaster.

Below is a bas-relief done in the 17th century, with a Cretan labyrinth, visible at the Musée Antoine Vivenel in Compiègne (France).

A short summary of the Legend (re-written/shortened from Wikipedia):

''Icarus' father Deaedalus, a very talented and remarkable Athenian craftsman, built the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete near his palace at Knossos to imprison the Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster born of his wife and the Cretan bull. Minos imprisoned Daedalus himself in the labyrinth because he gave Minos's daughter, Ariadne, a ball of string in order to help Theseus, the enemy of Minos, to survive the Labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur.

Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers for himself and his son. Daedalus tried his wings first, but before trying to escape the island, he warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea, but to follow his path of flight. Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared into the sky, but in the process he came too close to the sun, which due to the heat melted the wax. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that he was only flapping his bare arms, and so Icarus fell into the sea in the area which today bears his name, the Icarian sea near Icaria, an island southwest of Samos.''

The fall of Icarus has been sculpted (and painted) numerous times. So I only suggest a very subjective selection of sculptures. Let start with a magnificent white marble sculpture achieved by Paul Ambroise Slodtz (1702-1758), the death of Icarus, displayed in the Louvre museum.

Here is a medallion from the 18th century, showing Icarus fall, the author is unknown. Located in the Louvre Museum collection in Paris. 

Below, the first masterpiece from the sculptor Canova, dated 1779, commissioned by Pisani, procurator of the Venetian republic. This 'group sculpture' in marble shows Icarus' father attaching the wings to his son's arms. This sculpture is visible at the Museo Correr in Venice (Italy).

Not too long after that, the French sculptor Henri Joseph Ruxthiel sculpted the same type of scene, a bas-relief showing Daedalus attaching the wings to Icarus' body. It is located in the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris.

To finish today's post, here is a bronze sculpture from Sir Alfred Gilbert (1854 – 1934), son of professional musicians, who was an English sculptor and also a goldsmith (he was passionate about bronze casting techniques). This is a bronze with a very dark patina, placed on an ebonised wood plinth.

This art piece representing Icarus was commissioned by Frederic Lord Leighton in 1882 after the exhibition of Perseus Arming at the Grosvenor Gallery. Lord Leighton, a painter and a sculptor, was already mentioned in this blog here, and had already painted the subject of Icarus, see below. 

Sources:
Wikipedia
National Gallery of Art

http://lemythedicare.unblog.fr/category/le-mythe-dicare-arts-plastiques/

Antonio Canova (1) and his Perseus

We have previously covered in some detail another Perseus, the magnificent sculpture in bronze from Benvenuto Cellini, achieved in 1554. Today, lets have a look at the marble version executed 250 years later, by the famous sculptor Canova, and also a glimpse at Canova's life.

Canova got a rich heritage, in the sense that he was born in a family (his father, his grand father) of stone carvers. So he learned to carve marble already as a kid. Soon he is sent as apprentice by the Italian sculptor Giuseppe Bernardi Torretti, and later on he will study in Venice (Academia di Belle Arti). In Venice he got several awards, became famous among the modern sculptors, but still got lots of inspiration from Greek & Roman mythology.

He is known to express lots of sensitivity in his marble sculptures, and was able to get a highly polished texture on his marbles, and to express the softness of the body. He became the perfect example of what was later called the neoclassicism.

In 1779, he opened his own studio, and soon got his first large marble commission : a statue of Icarus and Daedalus (more details in a future post). Being very generous, he helped a lot of young artists in the need. Canova was also a painter.

Self portrait 1792

He then travelled to Rome, where he studied in depth the Michelangelo numerous works. It is in Rome that he got the commission for Theseus and the Minotaur (more details in a future post).
It is said that ''by 1800, Canova was the most celebrated artist in Europe.''

What we would call today as 'marketing' was a regular and natural habit from Canova, indeed he constantly aimed at establish his reputation and make his work well known by publishing drawings (engravings) of his works.

When he died, in 1822, aged 65, his heart was kept in a monument he created himself, in Venice, inside the Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari Basilica. His body though was buried in his birthplace, Possagno, in the Canoviano temple, where his brother body lays as well.
And it is said that his right hand is preserved in a vase, at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice. The ceremony was reportedly grandiose, to be compared with the one given by Firenze city at Michelangelo's death in 1564. 

Photo Matthew Clemente

The original sculpture is located in the Vatican in Rome, Italy. Sometimes called Perseus Triumphant, sometimes called Perseus with the Head of Medusa. The statue was acquired by Pope Pius VII. An exact copy, in marble as well, was purchased in 1804 from Canova by the Polish Countess Valeria Tarnowska. That copy is located now in New York, at the Metropolitan Museum. Pictures below.

Canova apparently wanted to constantly surpass the classical statues.
He did not teach students or apprentices, but instead had a lot of workers who would prepare the rough statue he wanted to sculpt, using the '3 points machine' to copy a plaster model, and leaving just enough marble so that Canova could concentrate on the surface. For which he was famous.

It is also said that some people were reading to him pieces of literature and historic texts while he was sculpting.
After the sculpting, he spent lots of time, like weeks or more, sanding it, using a special stones,  like 'pumice' and 'tripoli'. And for the nude parts of the skin, he would use a special patina to make the tone lighter.

Sources :
MET NYC
Wikipedia