Canova and the writing of art criticism in eighteenth-century Naples

Abstract

This article explores the literary debate that erupted in the Neapolitan press after the public display of Antonio Canova’s Venus and Adonis in 1795. The feud was sparked by two articles written by Marcello Marchesini and Carlo Castone, Count della Torre di Rezzonico, respectively. Each explored a different aspect of sculptural practice — invenzione, the creative selection of the subject, and esecuzione, the act of chiseling and shaping the marble block. Soon, however, a third writer, Tommaso Gargallo, responded to the two texts, and sparked a polemic that raged between Neapolitan literati for nearly a year. This debate, never before discussed in the secondary literature, soon shifted its focus from Canova’s working method per se to the question of which author had best captured — and communicated — the most intimate understanding of the artist and his work. In the end, critics were more preoccupied with the means of expression than they were with the content of the articles — or even the sculpture itself. Venus and Adonis therefore allowed writers to explore larger, timeless questions regarding the nature of sculpture, its relationship to text, and the best way to describe sculptural technique and its visual effects. The polemic facilitated a new discussion about the writing of art criticism and gives us new insight into the way these issues were being worked out and debated at the end of the eighteenth century.