analecta romana instituti danici xliia present day notion of artistic originality, but by framing...

ANALECTA ROMANAINSTITUTI DANICI

XLII

ANALECTA ROMANA

INSTITUTI DANICI

XLII

2017

ROMAE MMXVII

ANALECTA ROMANA INSTITUTI DANICI XLII© 2017 Accademia di DanimarcaISSN 2035-2506

Published with the support of a grant from:Det Frie Forskningsråd / Kultur og Kommunikation

Scientific Board

Karoline Prien Kjeldsen (Bestyrelsesformand, Det Danske Institut i Rom)Jens Bertelsen (Bertelsen & Scheving Arkitekter)Maria Fabricius Hansen (Københavns Universitet)

Peter Fibiger Bang (Københavns Universitet)Thomas Harder (Forfatter/writer/scrittore)

Michael Herslund (Copenhagen Business School)Hanne Jansen (Københavns Universitet)

Kurt Villads Jensen (Syddansk Universitet)Erik Vilstrup Lorenzen (Den Danske Ambassade i Rom)

Mogens Nykjær (Aarhus Universitet)Vinnie Nørskov (Aarhus Universitet)

Niels Rosing-Schow (Det Kgl. Danske Musikkonservatorium)Lene Schøsler (Københavns Universitet)

editorial Board

Marianne Pade (Chair of Editorial Board, Det Danske Institut i Rom)Patrick Kragelund (Danmarks Kunstbibliotek)

Sine Grove Saxkjær (Det Danske Institut i Rom)Gert Sørensen (Københavns Universitet)

Anna Wegener (Det Danske Institut i Rom)Maria Adelaide Zocchi (Det Danske Institut i Rom)

Analecta Romana Instituti Danici. — Vol. I (1960) — . Copenhagen: Munksgaard. From 1985: Rome, «L’ERMA» di Bretschneider. From 2007 (online): Accademia di Danimarca

ANALECTA ROMANA INSTITUTI DANICI encourages scholarly contributions within the Academy’s research fields. All contributions will be peer reviewed. Manuscripts to be considered for publication should be sent to: [email protected] Authors are requested to consult the journal’s guidelines at www.acdan.it

Contents

Sine Grove Saxkjær: The Emergence and Marking of Ethnic Identities: Case Studies from the Sibaritide Region

aleSSia di Santi: From Egypt to Copenhagen. The Provenance of the Portraits of Augustus, Livia, and Tiberius at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

larS Boje MortenSen: The Canons of the Medieval Literature from the Middle Ages to the Twenty-First Century

Søren kaSperSen: Body Language and Theology in the Sistine Ceiling. A Reconsideration of the Augustinian Thesis

nicholaS Stanley-price: The Myth of Catholic Prejudice against Protestant Funerals in Eighteenth- Century Rome

annika Skaarup larSen: Bertel Thorvaldsen and Zeuxis: The Assembling Artist

kaSpar thorMod: Depicting People in Rome: Contemporary Examples of Portaiture in the Work of International Artists

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33

47

65

89

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119

Abstract. This paper seeks to offer an insight into the drawing practices of Bertel Thorvaldsen by drawing an analogy between the sculptor and the mythic working process of the ancient Greek painter Zeuxis (5th century BC). Zeuxis, unable to find a suitable model for his painting of the ideal beauty of Helen of Troy, selects from five young women their most perfect feature and combines them to create his own image of universal beauty. The biographer of Thorvaldsen, J. M. Thiele, writes how the artist modelled his Venus on 30 live models, an anecdote that mirrors Zeuxis’ quest to extract perfect beauty from imperfect nature. But Thorvaldsen’s models were not only the men and women he brought to his studio. His drawn sketches testify that for inspiration as well as for specific compositional solutions he looked to the admired art of Antiquity and his own contemporaries. These external origins challenge a present day notion of artistic originality, but for the neoclassical artist the act of copying, or imitating, was closely connected to that of inspiration and invention. By framing Thorvaldsen as a 19th century Zeuxis, his creative process can be viewed in light of an academic tradition that relates the idea of originality, not, as we have come to expect of art today, to the invention of something hitherto unseen, but to a conscious strategy of selection and assemblage.

Bertel Thorvaldsen and ZeuxisThe Assembling Artist

by AnnikA SkAArup LArSen

Introduction: Thorvaldsen as ZeuxisIn his Natural History (33 AC), Pliny the Elder describes the mythic working process of the ancient Greek painter Zeuxis (5th century BC) when composing a painting of the beautiful Helen of Troy for the temple of Hera Lakinia at Akragas. Unable to find a suitable model for his image of the universal beauty of Helen, he selects from five young maidens their most admirable features and combines them in his painting, thus achieving an ideal not found in nature.1 Pliny also writes of Zeuxis that he “robbed his masters of their art and carried it off with him”2, thereby adding another source to the composite ideal, that Zeuxis, and since him a long line of artists, strived to visualize. This method of creative assemblage has since the Renaissance stood as a model

for artistic creation and the complex concept of mimesis promoted by European classicism. It lay at the foundation of the teachings of the art academies that arose all over Europe during the 18th century, where natural and artistic models alike were copied and imitated in search of perfect form. This paper seeks to offer an insight into the work of the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) by drawing an analogy between his creative process and that of the ancient Greek painter.3 Using Zeuxis as a model will allow for a reading of Thorvaldsen, that includes his extensive use of known visual models, while avoiding the temptation of categorizing Thorvaldsen as merely an uninspired copycat. Thus, the first section of the paper describes the teaching at the Copenhagen Academy

1 Plinius 1952, 308-9, § 64. That the image is of Hel-en of Troy is not mentioned by Pliny, but is speci-fied by the translator. The different versions of the legend are discussed in: Mansfield 2007, 19-38.

2 Ibid. 306-7, § 62.

3 My thanks to Maria Fabricius Hansen from the University of Copenhagen for her help and guidan-ce in relation to, first, my thesis, and since this paper. Also to Ernst Jonas Bencard from Thor-valdsens Museum for taking the time to discuss

102 AnnikA SkAArup LArSen

of Art, and the validation that the myth of Zeuxis offered the academic system, which will serve as a basis for a further analysis of Thorvaldsen’s creative process and use of drawn sketches.

The primary object of study will be Thorvaldsen’s drawings. Since paper became commercially available in the 15th century, drawing has often been theorized in European art history as a document of artistic creation and as the most direct link between inner idea and outer image. This also shapes the reading of Thorvaldsen’s drawings. When Julius Lange wrote about this subject in 1886, he made a clear distinction between the sculptor’s finished works in marble, which, writes Lange, one might sometimes find to be a bit cold, and his drawn sketches, in which one enters into “a confidential conversation with the artist himself ”, and “finds him at the moment of creation.”4 Lange credits this coolness in the finished works to a demand for “purity of form”, present at the time in both painting and sculpture, which impacted the way Thorvaldsen executed his ideas in marble.5 Such a distinction has continued to shape the way the sculptor’s drawings are presented.6 This framing of Thorvaldsen’s sketches as particularly subjective or personal is challenged by the fact that in many cases Thorvaldsen found his ideas – for subjects as well as specific compositional solutions – in the work of other artists, both ancient and contemporary.

The use of known visual models has not gone unnoticed in the extensive writing on Thorvaldsen. The different antique models that Thorvaldsen imitated in his own work have been defined and discussed, not least in relation to the early masterpiece, Jason and the Golden Fleece.7 That Thorvaldsen took inspiration from the drawings of his contemporaries, Asmus Jacob Carstens and John Flaxman, is also well described in the literature, as is the general overlap between

the motifs chosen by both Thorvaldsen and his rival, the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova.8 In many cases, however, the many visual models are mentioned in relation to specific works by Thorvaldsen and treated as somewhat isolated occurrences. Only Jan Zahle relates, in his book on Thorvaldsen’s extensive collection of plaster casts, the many cases where Thorvaldsen found solutions to specific compositional problems in his plaster copies, to a discussion on Thorvaldsen’s use of models in a broader perspective.9 It is the aim of this paper to bring together these diverse inspirations and discuss in more general terms what role the act of copying or imitation played in Thorvaldsen’s creative process. A reality of many visual models might challenge a present day notion of artistic originality, but by framing Thorvaldsen as a neoclassical Zeuxis his artistic practices can be viewed in light of an academic tradition that relates the idea of originality, not, as we have come to expect of art today, to the invention of something hitherto unseen, but to a conscious strategy of selection and assemblage.

Zeuxis and the Art Academies The myth of Zeuxis is important, according to professor Elizabeth C. Mansfield, because it differs from many of the ancient myths used to explain the rules of classical art. Where creativity is otherwise characterized as a result of emotional or corporeal stimuli, the Zeuxian myth favours an intellectual rather than emotional approach to art making.10 A central ambition of the Art Academies that first developed in Italy during the 16th century, and later spread all over Europe, was the elevation of the status of art to a respected intellectual activity, as opposed to a mere craft. The ancient myth of Zeuxis helped legitimize this objective. Moreover, according to Mansfield, Pliny’s account of Zeuxis’ life highlights a number of the qualities that academic training was designed to enhance.

Thorvaldsen’s drawings with me, and for sugge-sting that the linear drawing style of John Flaxman and Asmus Jacob Carstens not solely be read as an expression of ideal and unchanging form, but as open-ended designs, that might spike in the viewer a desire for completion.

4 Lange 1886, 214.5 Ibid. 111-112.6 E.g. Christensen 1918, 1-2, who views Thorvald-

sen’s drawings as “fresh and lively” sketches, that were since tamed to fit the demand for harmony in

his sculptures.7 An example of this from Thorvaldsen’s own time

is Brun, discussed below. A recent example is the museum journal Meddelelser fra Thorvaldsens Museum 2003, where several articles discuss Jason and his re-lationship with Antiquity.

8 See note 40-42 about Thorvaldsen and Canova. About Flaxman, see note 44. About Carstens e.g. Miss 2003, 11-17.

9 Zahle 2012, 136-144.10 Mansfield 2007, 7.

BerteL thorvALdSen And ZeuxiS 103

Each of Zeuxis’ paintings celebrates another aspect of the artist’s genius such as his originality, the moral delivered in his work, and his facility with illusionism. He often attended competitions with other artists, an activity later echoed in the competition system at the academies. Most importantly, the method of selection and assemblage employed by Zeuxis in the legend of the five maidens is mirrored in the pedagogical program of the academies.11 Adding to this, Pliny declares that Zeuxis “robbed his masters of their art and carried it off with him”, an information that supports the later academic doctrine of imitation. These stories promote a specific understanding of the artist’s role, where the particularly artistic or inspired component to art making is expressed through a creative act of selection and assembling as performed by Zeuxis.

Like many of the 18th century Academies of Art, the Copenhagen Academy, (called Maler- Billedhugger- og Bygnings-Academiet) was founded on the principles of the Parisian Académie Royale.12 The training program issued from the Parisian academy was based on renaissance studio practices, featuring continuous exercises in drawing along with training in anatomy, perspective and the liberal arts. In Copenhagen, the student would first enter the lower level Drawing Schools. Here, he would (no women were allowed at the Academy in Copenhagen until 1908) study drawings books, in which famous works of art were dissected into parts and proportions, and copy engravings of works from the classicist canon or drawings made by their professors. At the next level, they would copy plaster casts of single body parts (hands, feet, heads), and full statues, mostly casts of antique masterpieces in the Academy’s collection. These endless drawing exercises were aimed at training the student’s hand in reproducing on paper the correct, firm shapes, that were admired the time, while at the same time presenting him with important artistic models from a glorified past. Through the myth of Zeuxis, this process was elevated to a conscious act of isolation and study that would later aid the student in his own artistry. The talented student would then advance to the Model School, where he would draw from

nature, meaning live male models. At this level the various types of artist were differentiated, and sculptors such as Thorvaldsen would now work in clay, shaping reliefs. The specific craft of marble cutting was not taught at the academy, and for Thorvaldsen this would have to wait until he reached Rome. There, he would use plaster casts of antique sculpture as models to obtain the right skills, continuing the practice of copying that had been ingrained in him at the Academy.

Models, living and deadIn the Model School the young student studied the surface and shape of young men posing on a podium in front of the students. These models would often leave something to be desired, which meant that the student would have to correct the appearance according to the ideal copied in the previous training.13 Often the model would be placed in positions known from famous ancient works, underlining the connection. He would also study the body’s inner workings in anatomy lessons. These two sides of the exploration of the human body – the outer form and the inner mechanics – also had roots in a renaissance tradition. Frederika Jacobs describes in her article ”(Dis)assembling: Marsyas, Michelangelo, and the Accademia del Disegno” (2002) how studies in anatomy were embedded in academic theory from the early Italian beginning. The reason for this was found in another ancient myth told by Ovid: the story of the satyr Marsyas, who loses to Apollo in a music competition, and as punishment is stripped of his skin and left to bleed until he at last transforms into the “clearest river in all Phrygia”.14 This mythic, open and exposed body was in the 16th century, writes Jacobs, an image of artistic creativity and transformation, as well as of the importance of anatomical insight when trying to compose a lifelike figure.15 In renaissance theory, anatomizing was viewed as a crucial step in the creative process, a precondition for the creative selection and assemblage that ensured an aesthetically perfect and anatomically correct body. This process – mirrored by that employed by Zeuxis – also involved the surviving ancients statues so admired by renaissance artists. Because the antique works often survived

11 Ibid. 57.12 Fuchs & Salling 2004, 51-53.13 Fernow 1806, 24.

14 Jacobs 2002, 429.15 Ibid. 434-436.


creating his own compositions. From a friend, the sculptor Michael Christoph Wohler (1754-1806), he borrowed some half sized copies of antique works that Wohler had made in Rome and brought back to Copenhagen in fragments:

In particular I used, in this way, The Borghese Gladiator for my studies. Through this continuous exercise of my imagination of picturing all objects in the round, and impress well upon myself their form and contour from all sides, so that the anatomical knowledge, I already had, supported me, I finally arrived at a point, where I, once I had studied it thoroughly in different views and positions from all sides, and sometimes used it in my own inventions, could take a part and draw it quite accurately from the mind in the most eminent positions and functions; and what I once had understood in this way, I did not easily forget. Thus, I studied all parts of the body several times with the application into my own inventions, and thereby my imagination gained the practice and skill, which other artists only bring to their hand and eye by copying; which has since been very useful for me in the easiness of inventing and composing.19

Though Carstens did not have much regard for the endless copying that constituted the practical exercises at the academies, his own methods did not differ much from those of the official program. His models were the same: body parts taken from prominent prototypes such as The Borghese Gladiator or studied in Weidenhaupt’s anatomy lessons. Moreover, Carstens describes the place that these fragments held in the artistic process, both in terms of correcting the form in accordance with nature and a classical ideal, but also as a

in fragmentary form, they lent themselves easily to the process of unification that was the objective of renaissance artists and anatomists alike. Simultaneously they worked, writes Jacobs, as a catalyst for new and original compositions. For the 16th century artist, this was certainly the case of the Belverede Torso, endlessly copied and admired by artists and a continuous inspiration to the famous Michelangelo.16 From 1789, a plaster copy was part of the collection at the Copenhagen Academy, brought back from Rome along with many others by Thorvaldsen’s teacher Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809). Perhaps these additions were important to Abildgaard, suggests Thorvaldsen’s biographer J. M. Thiele, because of his favourite student.17

A description from the Copenhagen Academy demonstrates how the significance of these artistic strategies lasted well into the 18th century. It comes from the Danish-German artist Asmus Jacob Carstens (1754-1798), who attended the Academy from 1776-1781 and followed Professor Andreas Weidenhaupts anatomy lessons in the winters of 1776-1777. Carstens describes how the professor would isolate a body part and then explain it in relation to a skeleton and an écorche – a flayed figure – of his own design. The next night he would show the same part on a live model, demonstrating to the viewers its form in a resting position and in motion. These lessons, along with the continuous study of antique statues, gave the young Carstens an idea of the human body and of beautiful form.18 The account from Carstens demonstrates how the live body was studied just as the ancient statues in the drawing books: as units that could potentially be dislodged and then reintegrated into a new whole. Moreover, Carstens then explains how he would use the knowledge he had gathered from Weidenhaupt’s anatomy lessons when

16 Ibid. 442-443.17 Thiele 1851, I, 21.18 Fernow 1806, 21.19 Ibid. 25. My translation of: “Vorzüglich benuzte

ich auf diese Art zu meinen Studien den Borghe-sischen Fechter. Durch diese stete Uebung meiner Einbildungskraft mir alle Gegenstände rund vor-zustellen, und mir Formen und Umrisse derselben von allen Seiten wohl einzuprägen, wobei mich die anatomischen Kenntnisse, die ich bereits hatte, un-terstützen, gelangte ich endlich dahin, dass ich einen Theil, wenn ich ihn einmal in versciedenen Ansich-ten und Lagen von allen Seiten recht durchstudiert,

und einigemal die Anwendung davon in eigenen Erfindungen gemacht hatte, nachher in den vor-nehmsten Stellungen und Verrichtungen ziemlich richtig aus der Vorstellung aufzeichnen konte; und was ich auf diese Weise einmal recht begriffen hatte, vergas ich nicht leicht wieder. So studierte ich alle Theile des Körpers mehrmal mit der Anwendung in eigenen Erfindungen durch, und erwarb dadurch meiner Vorstellungskraft eben die Uebung und Fer-tigkeit, welche andrere Künstler durch vieles Nach-zeichnen blos in Hand und Augebringen; welsches mir in der Folge für die Leichtigkeit im Erfinden und Komponiren sehr nüzlich gewesen ist.”


catalyst for the creation of new compositions. The Zeuxian method is then described by Carstens in practical terms and presented as the conscious creative act of splitting up and reassembling in new, inventive designs.

Thorvaldsen in CopenhagenThorvaldsen entered the Drawing School at the Copenhagen Academy in 1781, and must have been met by the training program outlined above. He advanced through the levels, reaching the Plaster School in 1785 and the Model School in 1786. Though there are no surviving drawings from this early time in his training, we know from Thiele that the young student was skilled at the perfectionist and highly illusionistic drawing style that was promoted by the Academy. He writes how Thorvaldsen’s drawings would show almost no contour, to a point where a contour was barely visible, and that he would work with diligence when copying his figures “from head to the toe”.20 Thorvaldsen is thus presented as a serious and hard working artist who met the Academy’s expectations. Thiele also informs us that Thorvaldsen sought out ways to improve outside of the official training, getting together with artist friends to draw from the female nude and practice composing. In relation to this, we learn that Thorvaldsen was very talented at designing compositions, and would often finish quickly while the others were still debating the best course of action.21 These skills came in handy at the biannual medal competitions, where Thorvaldsen won the small gold medal in 1791 and the large gold medal in 1793.

The Academy was at the time influenced by the neoclassicism of the sculptor Johannes Wiedewelt (1731-1802) and the painter Nicolai Abildgaard. Wiedewelt had in 1762 published a treatise repeating in Danish the famous ideas of the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann. In this, he discusses the relationship between nature and the ideal, between the copy and imitation of the ancients, all while highlighting a select number of antique sculptures from the established classical canon. Jan Zahle suggests that a remark Thorvaldsen later made to Thiele could be aimed at Wiedewelt’s teaching.22

In a humorous critique of the professors at the Academy Thorvaldsen reports how he was encouraged to copy the antique models adding “the artistic swing”, while his own true perception of what was before him was corrected.23 So though Thorvaldsen shared the admiration for the ancients with his teachers, he did not necessarily agree with the way they were interpreted. Little is actually known about the relationship between Wiedewelt and Thorvaldsen. Abildgaard, on the other hand, seems to have take special interest in the young Thorvaldsen, making sure he stayed in school and later making him his assistant when decorating the former Levetzau’s Palace, today Christian VIII’s Palace, for Prince Frederik in the 1790s.24 Abildgaard’s admiration for the tradition was no less than Wiedewelt’s, and the Zeuxian method of copying and combining is essential to his work. His paintings would often include figures, positions, or movements appropriated from the grand masters.

Zeuxis applied: Peter and John Healing a Lame Man (1793)The influence of Abildgaard on the young Thorvaldsen is found in a drawing that the sculptor made in preparation for the relief Peter and John Healing a Lame Man, for which Thorvaldsen won the prestigious gold medal in 1793. The drawing (Fig. 1) is executed in a style that bears resemblance to the drawing style of his teacher, where dark wash is used to create dramatic contrasts. Chris Fisher has demonstrated how Thorvaldsen found a model for the composition in Raphael’s treatment of the story, while the specific gesture of Peter is from The Death of Ananias in The Sistine Chapel. The Academy owned reproductions of both designs, and Thorvaldsen would likely have seen or copied these during his training.25

Besides the use of admired models as a basis for the composition, this drawing also shares another feature with those of Abildgaard. The painter’s figures often appear oddly elongated and fragmented as if the creative process of assembly has not yet been erased from the final image. An example taken from Abildgaard’s early work is The Wounded Philoctetes (1775), today at the National Gallery of Denmark.

20 Thiele 1851, 27-28.21 Ibid.22 Zahle 2012, 128. See his discussion on the differ-

ence in Wiedewelt’s and Thorvaldsen’s use of an-

tique models. Ibid. 126-135.23 Thiele 1851, I, 16-17.24 Ibid. 21, 38-39.25 Fischer 2008, 15-16. The two prints are reproduced


Fig. 1. B. Thorvaldsen: Peter and John Healing a Lame Man, 1793, pencil and sepia on paper. 19,3 x 24,7 cm, inv. no.: NysøIr, The Thorvaldsen Collection at Nysø (photo: Thorvaldsens Museum).

Fig. 2. N. Abildgaard: Sitting nude male with a poodle and agave, 1794-1796, Pencil, pen, brown ink, brush and brown wash, 151 x 216 mm, inv. no.: KKSgb3985, The National Gallery of Denmark (photo: SMK foto).


The distorted upper body of the tormented hero is modelled on the ancient Belvedere Torso, but the overly stretched back and the dislocated limbs gives the muscular body a less than ideal appearance. Another drawing, dated to around the time when Thorvaldsen helped Abildgaard decorate Prince Frederik’s Palace, demonstrates that though the drama lessened over the years, Abildgaard’s drawn bodies kept this look of fragmentation (Fig. 2). The influence of Abildgaard in Thorvaldsen’s sketch is most evident in the long, broad back of the spectator to the right, and the stretched body of the lame man, whose lower body is strangely disconnected from the upper body, his elevated right leg hinged to the hip in the wrong place. But where the teacher sometimes carried this trait to his paintings, Thorvaldsen corrected it in the relief that he submitted for the 1793 competition. Now each body part is integrated fully into the overall composition.

This sitting position shared by Abildgaard’s drawn male figure and Thorvaldsen’s lame man is often used by the painter in his drawings.26 Though Thorvaldsen never copied the fragmented look into his own men and women, this position reappears many times in the work of the sculptor. Julius Lange has

described this particular configuration – the left leg stretched and the right leg bent, so that the knee is visible above the left thigh – and the numerous times that Thorvaldsen chose this for his relief-figures. A famous example is the work Priam Pleads with Achilles for Hector’s Body from 1815 (Fig. 3), where it is given to the nonchalant hero in the centre of the scene. Lange calls this a plastic formula, one that the artist would use and reuse when wishing to describe his sitting figures harmoniously in the two dimensions that the relief allows.27 Though the influence of Abildgaard is often said to have worn off, the use of these artistic formulas evidently stayed with Thorvaldsen and this particular one is found many times throughout his creations.

Jason: The last finished antique workThe relief Peter and John Healing a Lame Man earned Thorvaldsen the gold medal, and with this, his official academic training ended. The next step for an ambitious young artist was to travel to Rome, the cultural capital of Europe at the time, which Thorvaldsen was able to do in 1796 on a grant from the Copenhagen Academy. Travelling to Rome meant the chance to see all the famous works

in the article.26 Examples from The Collection of Prints and

Drawings at the Danish National Gallery include:

Acqu. no KKSgb3638, KKSgb3986, KKSgb3982.27 Lange 1886, 177-185.

Fig. 3 B. Thorvaldsen: Priam Pleads with Achilles for Hector’s Body, 1868-1870, executed by Georg Chri-stian Freund under the supervision of C.C. Peters after Thorvaldsen’s original plaster model 1815, Marble. 96,0 x 198,5 cm, inv. no. A775, Thorvaldsens Museum (photo: Thorvaldsens Museum).


he had studied in prints and plaster at home, now in their original setting, and the first years after Thorvaldsen’s arrival in Rome in 1797 are often summed up as a time of gathering inspiration and finding his feet. He practised the art of marble cutting by copying antique busts and studied sculptures and decorations from the famous villas of Rome, copying them in drawings where he would ignore the damages caused by time, thus instinctively continuing the act of unification he knew from his training at home.28

The literature on Thorvaldsen’s first major work in Rome, Jason and the Golden Fleece, is extensive, and the topic discussed is often its relationship to Antiquity. It will be briefly described once more because the making of Jason illustrates so well the young Thorvaldsen’s method of creative accumulation, and because the reactions to the sculpture demonstrate the contemporary audience’s view on imitation. The idea for the unusual choice of subject seems not to have come from an antique source, but a contemporary one. In Rome, Thorvaldsen was introduced to Carstens, whose work Thorvaldsen had already admired in Copenhagen.29 In the last years of his life, Carstens was working on a series of drawings illustrating the Argonauts traveling to Colchis to help Jason secure the Golden Fleece and reclaim his kingdom. One drawing shows Jason returning to his men waiting by the ship, proudly showing off the Golden Fleece that he has managed to procure from the dragon, with a pose very similar to that of Thorvaldsen’s Jason.30

In addition to Carstens’ design, Thorvaldsen’s Jason is often linked to two antique works, Apollo Belvedere and Doryphoros, two of the most celebrated works from the classical canon. Thorvaldsen would have seen in person, and probably copied on paper, the famous statue of Apollo, first as a fragmented reproduction in one of the Academy’s drawing books and later as a three-dimensional copy

in the collection of plaster cast. Much later, Thorvaldsen himself credited his antique sources when he told one of his students that, when working on Jason, he would run back and forth to the Vatican, taking in all he could from the ancients.31

A description from Friederike Brun, Thorvaldsen’s friend and admirer, of her experience of first seeing the work is a good representation of the contemporary view on imitation:

His Jason ascended the depths of Antiquity, and appeared suddenly before us, a vision from the most glorious age of art; and never can I forget the blissful feeling, with which the sight of this high work of art filled me: it stood, once again endowed with spirit before me, what I thought had been forever lost in the past, the high heroic ideal, in all it’s simplicity, strength, calmness and greatness!

(…) – Jason is entirely himself; only related to Apollo, but by nothing more than similarity.32

Brun easily identifies the references to the antique models, but sees this not as an act of copying, but rather as a way of writing oneself into an important tradition. She also calls Jason “the last finished antique work”33. The use of antique models was a way of indicating affinity with an esteemed prototype and addressing an enlightened audience, one that valued the references while still expecting an original piece of art. Brun praises Thorvaldsen for his revival of the antique hero, and associates Jason with the famous Apollo, though emphasizing that it is entirely its own.34 As described above, the process of selection from nature and the art of the past was legitimized by the legendof Zeuxis and transformed into a conscious creative act. A hundred years later, Emil Hannover describes in more general terms

28 Eg. inventory no. C769 as mentioned in the text in Thorvaldsens Museum’s online catalogue, accessed August 25th, 2016.

29 Thiele 1851, I, 28 and 103-109.30 Today in the Collection of Prints and Drawings at

the National Gallery of Denmark.31 Zahle 2012, 98.32 Brun 1812. My translation of: “ – Sein Jason entsti-

eg den Tiefen des Alterthums, und trat plötzlich vor uns hin, eine Erscheinung aus dem schönsten Al-

ter der Kunst, und nie werde ich das selige Gefühl vergessen, mit welchem der Anblick dieses hohen Kunstwerkes mich erfüllte: es stand wieder neu be-seelt vor mir da, was ich in den Schoß der Vorzeit auf ewig versenkt glaubte, das hohe Helden-Ideal in aller Einfalt, Kraft, Ruh‘ und Größe! (…) – Alle-in Jason ist ganz er selbst; nur dem Apoll verwandt, doch um nichts mehr als Geschlechtsähnlichkeit.”

33 Brun 1812, “die zuletzt fertig gewordene Antike!”.34 See also the discussion in Zahle 2012, 127-147.


the sculptor’s use of models, highlighting the uniqueness of the work and style:

Everything that his genius received from outside – impressions from Nature and impression from Antiquity – he recreated in his own image. Everything was brought together in a higher unity, in one great synthesis: his style.35

Between the making of Jason and these words from Hannover lies a century where artists had abandoned many of the artistic conventions of neoclassicism, and had moved out into nature in the quest for original subjects to depict. He emphasises the artist’s own style, which brings together his impressions from nature and from Antiquity, two conventional inspirations for the artist working in the classical tradition. But Hannover, like many writers on Thorvaldsen, leaves out another important source of inspiration, which are the works of contemporary artists.

Theseus (and Canova’s Theseus)In search for themes to depict, the sculptor did not just look to the ancients. Contemporary

artists also provided ideas and inspiration for new work. Carstens was an important influence when developing Jason, and in many other instances it is in the work of his rival, the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822), that Thorvaldsen found his subjects. One example is found in a series of drawings that he produced around 1806 of Theseus, a mythic king of Athens, slaying a centaur. These are most likely preparatory sketches for a monumental sculpture commissioned by Giovanni Raimondo Torlonia. It was to counter Canova’s dramatic Hercules and Lichas, today in the Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna in Rome, so it seems likely that Thorvaldsen would initially try to challenge the overwhelming presence of Canova’s sculpture with his own battle scene. A few years earlier, Canova had finished another monumental sculpture depicting Theseus battling a centaur (Fig. 4), and it must be from here that Thorvaldsen took the idea as well as the general configuration for his own version.36 In a pencil sketch (Fig. 5) he has outlined the overall features of the composition: Theseus to the left, his chest facing us while his face is turned towards the centaur that he his holding down using his knee and the weight of his own body. The placement of the centaur below the

35 Hannover 1907, 5. My translation of: “Alt, hvad hans Genius modtog udefra – Indtryk af Naturen og Indtryk af Antiken – det skabte den om i sit eget

Billed. Altsammen gik det op i en højere Enhed, i en eneste stor Synthese: hans Stil”.

36 Stig Miss in Campbell & Carlson 1993, 317-318.

Fig. 4. A. Canova: Theseus Defeats the Centaur, (1804–1819), Marble, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien (pho-to from Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canova_-_Theseus_defea-ts_the_centaur.jpg).

Fig. 5. B. Thorvaldsen: A Hero (Theseus?) Fighting with a Centaur, pencil on paper. Inscription in pen, 131 x190 mm, inv. no.: C563,4r, Thorvaldsens Museum (photo: Thorvaldsens Museum)


Fig. 6 B. Thorvaldsen: A Hero (Theseus?) Fighting with a Centaur. c. 1806, pencil, pen and ink on paper, 108 x 172 mm, inv. no.: C9, Thorvaldsens Museum (photo: Thorvaldsens Museum).

Fig. 7 B. Thorvaldsen: A Hero (Theseus?) Fighting with a Centaur, c. 1806, carbonpencil, pen and ink on paper, 135 x 155 mm, inv. no.: C10r, Thorvaldsens Museum (photo: Thorvaldsens Museum).

Fig. 8 B. Thorvaldsen: A Hero (Theseus?) Fighting with a Minotaur, c. 1806, pencil, pen and brown ink with grey wash on paper, 493 x 614 mm, inv. no.: C702r, Thorvaldsens Museum (photo: Thorvaldsens Museum).


hero’s knee reveal that Thorvaldsen integrated another model into the composition, an ancient emblem of the Persian god Mithras slaying a bull, often found on antique shrines in Rome.37

From these two models Thorvaldsen developed his version of the scene. An easily noticeable difference from Canova’s sculpture to the pencil sketch is the position of the right arm that is not raised behind the head, but pulled back as to gain more force in the stroke. In two other sketches in pen and ink you see that Thorvaldsen experimented with the arm, letting it shift between raised and lowered (Fig. 6 & 7). The lines and tensions that primarily seem to have occupied the sculptor are the placement of the right arm, the direction of the torso, turned either towards his opponent or away from it, and the direction of the centaur’s upper body. Together, these drawings demonstrate Thorvaldsen’s use of the medium to develop his form – working from a general composition and after correcting details, changing directions and positions of isolated body parts.

An additional three large drawings of this scene exist, and here Thorvaldsen has worked in much greater detail, which potentially implies that a decision regarding the composition had been made.38 One of these is a large, finely detailed ink drawing. The opponent is now the Minotaur, the beast with the body of a man and the head and lower body of a bull that terrorized Athens (Fig. 8). The use of grey wash as a painterly effect; the precise rendering of contour and the detailed description of the hero’s determined face are unusual features among Thorvaldsen’s drawings, which were more often focused on the overall features of entire compositions. Though this could be indication that Thorvaldsen was nearing an expression that he liked, a sculpture of Theseus battling the Minotaur was never realised, and Thorvaldsen seems to have abandoned Theseus and instead chosen Venus and Mars as potential subjects for the commission. In the end the commission was never completed.

Though a sculpture of Theseus battling the Minotaur was not made, many other sculptures by Thorvaldsen show the direct influence of Canova on both choice of

subject and composition. Examples include Hebe from 1806 and 1816 (in Thorvaldsens Museum, there is a drawn copy of Canova’s Hebe (1805), where the goddess’ chest is covered), Cupid and Psyche (c. 1807), and notably The Three Graces (1817-19), where Thorvaldsen copied a central feature from Canova’s version (1813-16): the placement of the sister in the middle behind the two others facing the viewer as opposed to antique tradition. This obvious thematic overlap has not been overlooked in the literature on Thorvaldsen, though Canova is rarely mentioned on the list of Thorvaldsen’s direct inspirations. On the contrary, the treatment of the relationship between the two is most often focused on rivalry and the differences in style. Thiele explains that Thorvaldsen, when he did not approve of Canova’s treatment of a subject, would make his own version to show his point of view.39 Thorvaldsen would deliberately repeat the themes of Canova in his own style, a more chaste version to oppose Canova’s sensual sculptures.40 Other related explanations for the differences in style are nationality and religion.41 Regardless of Thorvaldsen’s intentions it is impossible to ignore Canova as a major inspiration and in several cases a direct influence on the conceptualization of new work. This is evident from the drawings of Theseus and the centaur, where the creative starting point for both theme and configuration was an existing sculpture by Canova.

Venus: A composed goddessThe Zeuxian method is nowhere more present in Thorvaldsen’s work than with the creation of Venus holding an Apple (1813-1816). It starts with the very subject: where Zeuxis was trying to represent the most beautiful woman in the world; Thorvaldsen sought to create a contemporary version of the goddess of love and fertility. This particular version of Venus treats precisely her beauty as a subject. The apple she is contemplating is her prize for winning a divine beauty contest judged by the human prince Paris. Venus was a well known subject, and the most important antique varieties were the famous Capitoline Venus and Venus Medici, both of which Thorvaldsen had replicas of in his collection of plaster

37 Ibid. Miss refers to Peter Gerlach.38 Ibid.39 Thiele 1832, II, 136-137.

40 E.g. an English reviewer cited in Kjøbenhavns-Posten 15.12.1832, 1003.

41 E.g. Jørnæs 2007, 123-125; Licht 1992.


casts.42 In 1811, Canova had made his own modernized version of the sensual goddess, which was to replace the Medici Venus at the Uffizi in Florenze that had been taken to France by Napoleon. These sculptures might have had a general influence on Thorvaldsen’s choice of subject, but from his drawings we know of a different descent.

A sketch to a relief of the scene (Fig. 9), dated 1802-03, where Paris presents Venus with her prize reveals Thorvaldsen’s two models: a print by Raphael, of which Thorvaldsen owned a copy43 and a design by the English sculptor John Flaxman.44 The relief was never realized, but Thorvaldsen worked on the group with Venus and Cupid in many drawings from then onward. These sketches reveal some particular traits in Thorvaldsen’s working process: the casual use and reuse of the same sheet for many different sketches, as well as a tendency for repetition. If we isolate two of these sheets, one dated by Thorvaldsen’s Museum to 1804-05 (Fig. 10) and one to 1813-16 (Fig. 11), we get eight versions of the goddess that are strikingly similar, though there are several more.45 Small corrections are made and tested, mostly in regards to the head of the goddess and the size and position of Cupid. One drawing takes us closer to the sculpture that eventually became one of his most popular works (Fig. 12). In this general description of line and contour the boy-god is replaced by the cloth that Thorvaldsen made Venus reach for in his final sculpture. He thus selects the attribute from The Capitoline Venus and Canova’s Venus Italica. In the sheet’s upper sketch, the sway in the female body is accentuated and the different directions of the sculpture demonstrated. It illustrates well Thorvaldsen’s use of sketching in his artistic process as the place where the overall configuration is established.

These drawings do not reveal the 30 models that Thorvaldsen, according to Thiele, used to shape his Venus.46 Thiele’s description even gives us the impression that the sculpture took

three years to finish because of the extensive study of the female form. Thorvaldsen is thus further connected to Zeuxis, mirroring the ancient painter’s intellectual treatment of the visual reality he sought to correct. Another quote by Thorvaldsen himself serves to illustrate his use of live models, this time in connection with another mythological theme: The Three Graces:

I have, also, always found a great lack (in female models), so that for example for my Graces I had to have many different models; when the shoulders were beautiful in one, then the legs would have a flaw or vice versa.47

In his modelling of the Graces, Thorvaldsen thoroughly isolate each body part, thereby repeating an academic technique and a prerequisite for the execution of the Zeuxian method of creative assemblage. This bodily fine-tuning, which clearly occupied the artist, appears to be employed at a stage in the process when the sculptor was working in three dimensions instead of two. Thorvaldsen’s drawings of the Three Graces reveal no connection to a visible reality, but only an artistic one: Canova’s sculpture from 1817. Most often they represent, like the drawings of Venus, the artist’s reflections on different positions and movements. There are in fact no preserved drawings to indicate that Thorvaldsen, like his rival Canova or his renaissance predecessors, used drawings to study the details of the nude body as a part of his artistic practices. However, from his accounting books it is evident that the use of models was common in his studio.48

A few drawings in Thorvaldsen’s Museum testify to the fact that Thorvaldsen used models in his studio. One example is a sheet with seven sketches of male models in different more or less expressive positions (Fig. 13). It would, however, be difficult to try

42 Zahle 2012, 21.43 Kronberg Frederiksen 2015.44 As mentioned in Thorvaldsens Museum’s online ca-

talogue, inventory no. C61. It has to do with a design by Flaxman, engraved by Tommaso Piroli. A photo can be seen here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Flaxman_-_The_Judgment_of_Pa-ris,_from_the_Iliad.jpg, last visited May 31st 2017

45 Reproduced in Kronberg Frederiksen 2015.46 Thiele 1831, I, 65 and 163, n120.

47 Zahle 2012, 130. Zahle’s bracket. My translation of: “Jeg har desuden altid fundet store mangler (ved kvindelige modeller), saa jeg f. Ex. til mine Grat-ier haver maattet have mange forskiellige Model-ler; naar Skuldrene vare smukke hos Én, saa havde gierne Benene en Fejl eller omvendt.”.

48 See the article about Thorvaldsen’s live models in The Online Thorvaldsen Archive: http://arkivet.thorvaldsensmuseum.dk/artikler/levende-model. Visited August 24th, 2016.


Fig. 9. B. Thorvaldsen: Paris and the three Godesses, 1802-1803, pencil, pen and ink on paper, 151 x 235 mm, inv. no.: C61, Thorvaldsens Museum (photo: Thorvaldsens Museum).

Fig. 10. B. Thorvaldsen: Paris and the three Godesses. Venus and Cupid, 1804-1805, pencil on paper. Inscriptions in pen. 324 x 250 mm, inv. no.: C63, Thorvaldsens Mu-seum (photo: Thorvaldsens Museum).

Fig. 11. B. Thorvaldsen: Venus and Cupid. Cu-pid's Arrows Forged in the Smithy Vulcan, 1813-1816, pencil on paper, 264 x 189 mm, inv. no.: C64r, Thorvaldsens Museum (photo: Thor-valdsens Museum).

Fig. 12. B. Thorvaldsen: Venus with the Apple, pencil on paper, 206 x 58 mm, inv. no.: C224r, Thorvaldsens Museum (photo: Thorvaldsens Museum).


and categorize these as nude studies because none of them show any detail or reveal any traits from the model. They are, like most of Thorvaldsen’s drawings, studies of positions and movements. Interestingly enough, the model in the top right corner is placed in a position similar to the one he used in the relief Priam Pleads with Achilles for Hector’s Body (Fig. 3). This sheet has a lot in common with two popular anecdotes about Thorvaldsen’s creative process, both told by Thiele. They are the ones recounting the two stories of the creation of Mercury about to Kill Argus (1818) and Shepherd Boy (1817), where the artist in both cases finds his composition in a model who is unaware of his gaze.49 In these stories it is the position of the figure, which is copied by Thorvaldsen, not anything from the personal appearance of the model.

One more story will serve to illustrate Thorvaldsen’s use of models, this time not in his studio, but in the Roman house of the German Minister Franz Ludwig Wilhelm von Reden. On one occasion he and the German sculptor Rudolph Schadow modelled in clay the beautiful girl Vittoria Caldoni, while the painters present drew her. The Danish Prince Christian Frederik (later Christian 8th) was there and he since wrote in his diary that Thorvaldsen, with his genius, had produced a head more ideal than a close resemblance of the girl.50 The implication is that Thorvaldsen was not completely true to his model, but rather reworked her face to fit his own ideal. When relating this to the remark by Thorvaldsen quoted above and the many models he used for his Venus, you might conclude more generally that the sculptor had trouble finding real life models that matched his ambitious classicist ideals.

Working with fragmentsDuring his time in Rome Thorvaldsen was commissioned to restore rediscovered ancient work. This represents another aspect of Thorvaldsen’s artistic endeavours, one that was also greatly discussed in the contemporary art world.51 In the 19th century, restoring ancient work often meant interfering quite

drastically with the original antique work. The aim was to restore the fragmentary piece to an undamaged whole, an assignment that had the artists adding new parts of their own design to the surviving remains. Canova held many prejudices against the copy or restoration of ancient statues52 and Thorvaldsen himself explained his troubles with this type of work, calling it ungrateful as it either disappeared, if good, or, if bad, made the piece worse.53 Nevertheless, between 1815 and 1817 he was commissioned by the Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to restore a pre-classical group of sculptures that had been recovered from the Temple of Aphaia on the island of Aegina. An attempt at an arrangement of the group had been made, and Thorvaldsen’s job was to construct the missing pieces, so that the group would return to its supposed original appearance. This required thorough study of the remaining parts. What was left was to give an idea of the original group as an unbroken whole. Thorvaldsen modelled the missing pieces in clay, which were then carved in marble somewhere else. Though he based his solutions on the remains at his disposal, many of the additions later proved to be wrong and somewhat unfortunate and they have been removed from the group on display today at the Glyptothek of Munich.54

This restoration method is similar to that employed by Carstens in Copenhagen, though for Carstens the aim was always to conceive of new and original designs, never to rebuild an existing one, however ideal and admired. But the idea that working with the revered art of the ancients in fragmentary form could act as a catalyst for new original art also proved to be true for Thorvaldsen. Two female figures from the group from Aegina clearly influenced the modelling of the sculpture Goddess of Hope (Fig. 14 and 15) from 1817, which mirrors the static composition and highly stylized expression of the archaic original. Though the statue readily reveals the use of artistic models, Thorvaldsen’s use of a pre-classical language appears highly innovative for an artist otherwise working in the naturalistic language of the high-classical period and in an age that held exactly this language as its

49 Thiele 1832, II, 29 and 36.50 From Prince Christian Frederik (later Christian VI-

II)’s journal 26.08.1821. Reproduced in The Thor-valdsen Museum Archives: http://arkivet.thor-valdsensmuseum.dk/documents/ea8987. Visited

August 29th, 2016.51 See a discussion of this in Melander 1992.52 Johns 2003, 128.53 Thiele 1851, II, 293.54 About the commission, Melander 1992, 27-30.


Fig. 13 B. Thorvaldsen: Male Models, pen and ink on light greenish paper, 216 x 188 mm, inv. no.: C205r, Thorvald-sens Museum (photo: Thorvaldsens Museum)

Fig. 14. Kore from Acroterion, 500 BC-480 BC, from antique Greek sculpture, plaster. 90,5 cm, inv. no.: L7, Thorvaldsens Museum (photo: Thorvaldsens Mu-seum).

Fig. 15. B. Thorvaldsen: Goddess of Hope, 1859, executed by H.W. Bissen after the original plaster model 1817, inv.no. A47, Thorvaldsens Museum (photo: Thorvald-sens Museum).


highest ideal. This process thus illustrates in very practical terms how fragments could stimulate new ideas.

Thorvaldsen had a large collection of plaster cast, and this collection included many fragments of heads, arms, legs and torsos. Jan Zahle has described how Thorvaldsen used his collection of casts as an arsenal of details he could chose from and add to compositions that were his own. He compares this to the artist’s use of live models, as described above, where he would choose one detail from the first model, and another detail from the next one.55 In this way the fragmented or dislocated models could be said to play a part in both the conceptualization and the perfection of the work. To this list of inspirations you might add the designs of Carstens and Flaxman studied by Thorvaldsen in his first years in Rome. Their works represent a tendency in neoclassical art around the turn of the century, where the motif is stripped of any inessentials and reduced to pure design. These contour drawings were viewed as expressions of a firm and unchanging ideal form, not open-ended fragments in need of restoration or reintegration. Yet one could still speculate how these minimalist line drawings, devoid of colour and the illusion of three dimensions, might have sparked a desire for completion.56 Thorvaldsen would also know the style of the colourless designs from the prints he would have copied during his academy training where they were meant to be integrated into the process of composing.

Describing Thorvaldsen as an artist working with fragments goes against the general perception of his marble sculptures as complete, uniform entities. Julius Lange has said of Thorvaldsen’s work that if at some point his sculptures were found in bits and pieces, none of their supreme value would be comprehensible from these. He thus argues that it is from the wholeness and harmony that the works should be judged, whereas the individual parts and details are subordinate to the whole.57 This places an important part of the artistic process in his sketching as they are, following Lange’s definition, about “wholeness, the whole composition or the whole figure.”58 The sketch of a swaying Venus holding a cloth (Fig. 12),

where the figure is described in shapes and movements, but without any indication of detail, could be an example of this. At the same time, the medium of drawing was no doubt used by Thorvaldsen as a tool for copying, for gathering new visual models, and for stimulating new ideas. The same drawing of Venus can be traced back to a relief Thorvaldsen was planning in 1805, one that was clearly inspired by a design by Rafael and one by Flaxman, which Thorvaldsen probably copied during his first years in Rome. Similarly, in the sketches of Theseus and the centaur different elements from two artistic models are reintegrated into a new composition. Though his drawings might portray an artist working towards a compositional unity, this unity was very often composed from many isolated models, formulas and fragments.

Conclusion: Thorvaldsen and his modelsWhen Thorvaldsen returned to Denmark in 1838, the artistic ideals had in many ways changed. The Danish painters were moving outside into nature in their quest for original subjects to depict, or they were starting to portray the everyday life around them. Two reliefs showing the daily activities of the Stampe Family, with whom Thorvaldsen often stayed during his last years in Denmark, demonstrate that this tendency was not completely absent from the sculptor’s world.59 But, or course, this is the exception. The subjects depicted by Thorvaldsen were ancient Greek gods and heroes, and his models the beautiful men and women he studied in his studio, the revered art of Antiquity, or art works by contemporary artists. As some of the retold anecdotes illustrate, Thorvaldsen did not easily find live models that matched his standards, and would have to search through many models – taking a shoulder from one, and a foot from the next – to create his ideal god or goddess. Another time, a correction of the model in front of him was necessary to bring her representation closer to his own concept of ideal beauty. Through these examples Thorvaldsen emerges as a 19th century Zeuxis, extracting perfect beauty from imperfect nature.

At the European Art Academies the Zeuxian method also took another form.

55 Zahle 2012, 142.56 See note 3.57 Lange 1886, 216.

58 Ibid. “Alt gaar lige ud paa Helheden, den hele Kom-position eller den hele Figur.”

59 Thorvaldsens Museum, inv. nr. A637 og A636.


Thorvaldsen was introduced to – if not the legend, then its practical implications – at the Copenhagen Art Academy, where the medium of drawing was used as a tool for copying the ancients, and for the close study of ideal form and the human body. Through the legend of Zeuxis, this dissection of art works and bodies was elevated to a conscious strategy of separation, selection and assemblage. Due to their imperfect or fragmentary nature, these academic models lent themselves easily to a process of completion, thus becoming instruments for the invention of new original art as well as for achieving ideal form. The contour drawings of canonical works in the Academy’s drawings books, the colourless designs by esteemed artists, the dislocated body parts or fragmented ancient sculpture in plaster, and the less than perfect male bodies in need of idealization, all these models would have spiked a desire for completion. The sketch for the relief Peter and John Healing a Lame Man testifies that Thorvaldsen too employed these methods. Two designs by Raphael lay at the foundation of this composition, as well as a certain sitting position similar to one often drawn by Abildgaard, and one that Thorvaldsen himself would use and reuse as a “plastic formula”. The lame man echoes the fragmentary look, which often characterized Abildgaard’s drawn figures, making the body appear as if the different elements had not yet been fully integrated into the overall whole. But this irregularity did not match Thorvaldsen’s artistic view and was erased in the final relief.

Though Thorvaldsen’s classicist ideal was one of completeness and unity, his drawings show that this ideal continued to be produced through a process of assemblage. This source also reveals that his creative process included on several occasions some form of copying as a tool for inventing new compositions. His Jason originated from a design by Carstens and the famous Apollo Belvedere; his idea for Theseus battling a Centaur/the Minotaur from a work by Canova and a known antique emblem; and his Venus from designs by Raphael and Flaxman, possible the esteemed antique types he had as reproductions in his collection, and of course 30 live models. Though these many visual sources challenge a present day notion of creativity and artistic originality, the reception of Jason demonstrates that for the contemporary audience the correct imitation of revered models was expected and appreciated. Within this 19th century framework, Thorvaldsen emerges not as a copycat, but as an artist skilled at the process of creative assemblage elevated by the legend of Zeuxis to an intellectual and inspired activity. In this process his drawings served an important medium of both appropriation and artistic innovation.

Annika Skaarup LarsenMA History of Art

[email protected]


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analecta romana instituti danici xliia present day notion of artistic originality, but by framing...

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