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Updated: May 6, 2025
He was fortunate, too, in the exact moment of his residence: Rome then contained at once, besides himself, the two truest sculptors of the present century, Canova the Venetian, and Thorwaldsen the Dane. Both these great masters were singularly free from jealousy, rivalry, or vanity. In their perfect disinterestedness and simplicity of character they closely resembled Gibson himself.
The tomb of Alfieri, the dramatist, to which we now come, was erected at the cost of his mistress, the Countess of Albany, who herself sat to Canova for the figure of bereaved Italy.
The single work of art that attracted him strongly at this time was a statue of Venus, by Canova, which he compares to the Venus de' Medici, and his brother Samuel remarks that he was always more attracted by sculpture than painting. Canova was a genius very similar to Longfellow himself, as nearly as an Italian could be made to match an American, and he was then at the height of his reputation.
After the knock, a handsome young man entered, and announced himself brusquely as the Duke of Devonshire. "Canova sent me," he said, "to see what you were doing."
Then Canova was done, and Possagno was finished; and we resumed our way to Treviso, a town nearly as much porticoed as Padua, and having a memory and hardly any other consciousness. The Duomo, which is perhaps the ugliest duomo in the world, contains an "Annunciation," by Titian, one of his best paintings; and in the Monte di Piet
Impatience, when he was under its influence, got the better of him; it was then impossible for him to control himself. I had a remarkable proof of it about this very period. Canova having arrived in Paris came to St. Cloud to model the figure of the First Consul, of whom he was about to make a colossal statue.
And whereas Saint-Saëns' style is over-smooth and glacial, a sort of musical counterpart of the sculpture of a Canova or a Thorwaldsen, Franck's is subtle, mottled, rich, full of the play of light and shadow.
There was one little boy, especially, who loved old Pisano, and whom old Pisano loved more than anybody else in the world. This was Antonio Canova, Pisano's grandson, who had come to live with him, because his father was dead, and his mother had married a harsh man, who treated the little Antonio roughly.
One longs to remain here for ever, and when one stands in the churches and listens to the organ one longs to become a Catholic. The tombs of Canova and Titian are magnificent. Here they bury great artists like kings in churches; here they do not despise art as with us; the churches provide a shelter for pictures and statues however naked they may be.
On the great steeple surmounting the myriad of spires inside of the spires over the doors, the windows in nooks and corners every where that a niche or a perch can be found about the enormous building, from summit to base, there is a marble statue, and every statue is a study in itself! Raphael, Angelo, Canova giants like these gave birth to the designs, and their own pupils carved them.
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