A Touch of Neoclassicism Viccy Coltman

A touch of neoclassicism Viccy Coltman ast spring, three major exhibitions in London were devoted the head of Thetis is a portrait of Jane to aspects of neoclassicism in Britain. Sculpture took pride of Johnes, wife of the man who commis- L sioned the sculpture, and the infant place at Tate Britain’s The Return of the Gods, architecture at Achilles has the features of their baby Sir John Soane’s Museum’s In Pursuit of Antiquity, and the daughter Marianne. decorative arts at the Victoria & Albert Museum’s exploration of Thomas Hope: Regency Designer. Art historian Viccy Coltman Sculpting and sculpted celebrities went to the Tate exhibition and asks: what is ‘neoclassicism’, The Venetian Antonio Canova is undoubt- and why should anyone be interested in neoclassical sculpture? edly the most celebrated of neoclassical sculptors, both in his lifetime and up to the Living softness centuries. The first owner of the Graces, present day. But other neoclassical sculp- the 6th Duke of Bedford, wrote of their tors too, such as the Danish sculptor, The Return of the Gods invaded the monu- ‘look of living softness given to the Bertel Thorvaldsen, acquired enormous mental central galleries at Tate Britain surface of the marble, which appears as if international reputations. Today many are with a mania for marble. The usually well- it would yield to the touch’. unknown or famed for one particular work lit spaces with their neutral colour palette – like the American Hiram Powers, were transformed by dramatic spotlights Roman roots responsible for The Greek Slave (left), which brilliantly illuminated the marble uniting chains with female nudity and sculptures positioned in front of dark, The label ‘neoclassicism’ was coined only classical form with contemporary politics, cavernous walls. The impression was of a later by the Victorians and used as a term or John Gibson, responsible for an exper- nocturnal encounter. Visiting sculpture of abuse for what they saw as a lifeless and iment in colouring marble known as The galleries at night was a favoured pastime impersonal style that attempted (and in the Tinted Venus (right). of visitors to Rome in the later eighteenth eyes of the Victorians, failed) to revive the One of the valuable things done by the century, who were often accompanied by antique. Today it is used of work produced Tate exhibition was to show how neo-clas- a guide (ideally a sculptor) to the Vatican during the sixty-year period from 1770 to sicism continued beyond 1830, juxtapos- and Capitoline Museums. By flickering 1830 by sculptors who used the Greek and ing earlier and later pieces. Gibson’s torchlight, the ancient masterpieces in Roman past as a library, or repertoire of Narcissus, 1838, perched on a rock and Roman collections could be viewed in a subjects, themes, and characters, for their captivated by his own (unseen) reflection, new light which brought the figurative own productions. Over half the sculptures shares a plinth with Joseph Nollekens’ sculptures alive. This impression of in the Tate exhibition were produced when seated Mercury, 1783, opposite Gibson’s animation was sometimes heightened by their makers were in Rome learning their Pandora, 1856 and Canova’s Psyche, the use of rotating pedestals, which gave trade. A British painter wrote that it was 1789–93. Nollekens’ Mercury explicitly this most impenetrable of artistic materi- not painting but sculpture ‘that is the great invokes a celebrated bronze sculpture als the possibility of circular motion. object of attention and encouragement’ in recently excavated in the eighteenth The Tate assembled a wide range of Rome in 1826. century at the site of Herculaneum. Other neoclassical sculptures, some of them Those sculptures in the exhibition that works in the exhibition referenced ‘antiq- freestanding – from colossal male forms were not made by British sculptors were uity’ in a variety of ways, not least by to petite, curvy Venuses, to four-year-old commissioned or bought from their conti- taking subjects from classical literature girls – some of them portrait busts, and nental peers by British patrons on their and mythology, exploiting literary texts others again reliefs. Crowning the vista at grand tours in Italy. from Homer’s Iliad to Apuleius’ Golden the end of the tunnel-like gallery was Sculptures were commissioned or Ass or picking up on themes from ancient Antonio Canova’s celebrated trio The purchased as luxury collectables, history. Three Graces 1814–17. Once displayed in imported from Rome to Britain for display Portrait busts were a neoclassical a tailor-made temple of the Graces in the in the country house interior. John Rossi’s favourite. These truncated heads without sculpture gallery at Woburn Abbey in The British Athlete, 1828, is still in the bodies were incredibly popular in the Bedfordshire, the Three Graces was sculpture gallery at Petworth House in neoclassical period. To our twenty-first bought by the National Galleries of Sussex for which it was commissioned by century eyes they seem bland and not at Scotland and the Victoria & Albert the 3rd Earl of Egremont. A work by all naturalistic; all too easy to walk past Museum in 1994 for the staggering sum of Thomas Banks, Thetis dipping Achilles in without a second glance. Once you scruti- £7,600,000. The base is still fitted with the the Styx, c. 1786, reveals the link between nize them, however, it soon becomes brass knobs by which the sculpture could neoclassical sculptures as elite posses- apparent that they are highly individualis- be rotated. Sadly the Graces now remain sions evoking and invoking antiquity and tic with distinctive hair, dress, and expres- unmoved by our attention. And we can’t their potential for contemporary self- sions: with wigs, or bare-headed, with touch them either, though that was a vital representation. In this ambitious work formal and informal hints of dress or part of the aesthetic experience of sculp- Banks shows Thetis dangling her son nakedness; their heads poised at angles ture in the eighteenth and nineteenth precariously by his heel in the River Styx; catching our eye, or looking into the far 16 distance. Some of the faces show signs of wear and tear – reminding us that not all neoclassical sculpture is idealizing – with wrinkles, sagging flesh, and bags under their eyes. Just how important material is to these busts is revealed by a bust by Francis Harwood of a black athlete executed in black stone (pietra da paragone), outstanding amid the profusion of white marble (right). Nothing is known about the sitter or the commission, so this remains an enigmatic sculpture that eludes the usual interrogation by art historians with their questions: who are you? Who made you? Where were you displayed? The lure of the third dimension Sculptures may be mute and unable to answer all our questions, but they never- theless shout out the continued vitality of antiquity in the modern period. Walking around an exhibition of neoclassical sculpture reveals how important the third dimension is to its appeal. To walk around a figure is to encounter it as truly human. With so many beautiful bottoms on display in a gallery one comes to under- stand those stories told by Pliny, Ovid, and Lucian about people embracing and kiss- ing sculptures, falling in love with statues and bringing them to life through their desires. The third dimension is the dimension of passion. Perhaps it is a good job we are not allowed to touch! Viccy Coltman teaches the History of Art at Edinburgh University. Like the sculptors she discusses here, she has lately been spending her time in Rome on research leave. 17.

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