Download or read book Antonio Canova and the Politics of Patronage in Revolutionary and Napoleonic Europe written by Christopher M. S. Johns and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sculptor Antonio Canova was the most celebrated artist of a perilously protean and fractious era. In revolutionary and Napoleonic Europe, while other artists bent to the will of the political powers that commissioned their work, producing art in the service of the state, Canova managed to resist both threats and blandishments. Although he held strong opinions on the issues of his day, he avoided direct political or ideological engagement in his sculpture. Christopher M. S. Johns presents the first sustained study of Canova's career in relation to his patrons and contemporary politics. In it he enlarges our understanding of an artist whose work is crucial to the evaluation of European art and political history.