Audio tour Io, Canova. Genio europeo

Considered the greatest living artist by his contemporaries, Antonio Canova was celebrated as he who had returned sculpture to those sublime heights that were thought to belong only to classical statuary. He did so by inventing a canon of beauty that was absolute and timeless, but also modern as imbued with a throb of life.

Canova was this and much more. Witness to a period of great historical and political upheavals, the humble stonemason from Possagno conquered the international art scene, vying with the greatest of his time and assisting in the recovery of masterpieces with important diplomatic missions. Endowed with rare talent and uncommon artistic sensitivity, he became a leading figure in European cultural life, indelibly marking the style of the period in which he lived and worked.

The man, the artist, the collector, and the diplomat are the many aspects highlighted for the first time by this exhibition, through which the Musei Civici di Bassano del Grappa, holder of one of the world’s most extensive and important collections of Canova works and documents, pay tribute to the greatest sculptor of the neo-classical age in the bicentenary of his death.

Around 140 sculptures, paintings, drawings and precious books, some being shown to the public for the first time, will take the visitor on an ideal journey in Canova’s footsteps, from the creative world of his studio to the big cities of the old continent, revealing episodes and encounters with people who influenced the course of his life and European history.