Hello and welcome to the third episode of my weekly pod-cast, a commentary on art&architecture in the news.
Today we talk about a piece of news from an Italian museum, but relevant for any museum in the world. A visitor damaged a statue, sitting on it for a selfie, breaking the artwork's foot and leaving it without few toes! This looks quite ridiculous, but instead it's dramatic, opening questions such as: how do we look at art? What is our responsibility in visiting a museum? To what extent museums should allow visitors to interact with artwork?
The museum in the news is dedicated to the master of Neoclassicism, the sculptor Antonio Canova, lived between the second half of 1700 up to 1822. He was the preferred artist of Napoleon who hired him several times to portray himself and his family. The damaged artwork was made 1805-1808 and it is actually the plaster of the white marble sculpture portraying Napoleon's sister, Paolina, completely naked on a reclining sofa-chair and represented as Venus, the Greek goddess of beauty. The statue was commissioned to Canova by Paolina’s husband, the Roman Camillo Borghese, for their marriage, and it was meant to be placed in their Roman mansion Palazzo Borghese, which is now a museum where the statue can be still seen today. So the statue is in Rome in Palazzo Borghese, the damaged plaster is in the Canova museum in North Italy, the Veneto region, where Canova was from.
The audience of the statue was meant to be private, the Borghese family as well as their visitors and there was a rotating mechanism hidden in the sculpture, allowing it to be seen from different perspectives. The plaster instead, was meant to remain with the artist, that’s why it is in the Canova museum.
The sculpture is so well done, as it is its plaster, and so realistic, that maybe Paolina’s chair looked comfortable to the tourist who decided to sit on it…..but instead sat on Paolina's foot! Ooch!
What should museums do to protect art? How can visitors be educated? To me it should be a broad and ongoing conversation between all parties - museums, schools, media, travel agencies, you name it! We need to educate visitors to love and respect art since childhood.
Any thoughts? share your opinions on my FB page, (artwitlondon) or Instagram artwit_london. This is Robi from Art Tours with a Theme, I hope you enjoyed my podcast, follow me on Spotify, Google Podcast and other platforms and share my podcast with your friends. Thank you for listening. Bye!
