Published to mark the exhibition dedicated to Canova e l’Antico (MANN – Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, 28 March – 30 June 2019), this volume is curated by Giuseppe Pavanello, a leading expert on Canova, and illustrates the intense, constant and fruitful link between the artist and the classical world. A link which established him in the eyes of his contemporaries as a latter-day Phidias and an artist who both disrupted and renewed the classical model through his contemplation of nature.

It is this dialogue, almost a harmonious counterpoint echoing the similarities and differences between the works of Canova and classical antiquities, which lies at the heart of this singularly original exhibition. A dialogue the catalogue explores in depth thanks to a series of fact sheets and comparisons between the works, highlighting the unique relationship between a modern artist and the art of antiquity.

Canova always refused to make copies of classical sculptures, scorning such work as inappropriate for a creative artist. Yet his dialogue with Classicism was profound, stemming from his desire to see Antiquity reborn in Modernity and mould Modernity through the filter of Antiquity in a profoundly significant instance of creativity in the fullest sense of the word.

Paperback edition.

Book design studio Leonardo Sonnoli.