Description
Thorwaldsen Relief Ancient Greek Warriors Horsemen 46″ Long. This is one of the most famous depictions of Alerxander the Great’s army by an equally famous master sculptor Thorvaldsen, an outstanding representative of the Neoclassical period in sculpture in the early 19th century. (Albert) Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770 – 1844) was a Danish/Icelandic sculptor. Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen in 1770, the son of an Icelander who had settled in Denmark and there carried on the trade of a wood-carver. This account is disputed by some Icelanders, who claim Thorvaldsen was born in Iceland. Motifs for his works (reliefs, statues, and busts) were drawn mostly from Greek mythology, but he also created portraits of important personalities, as in his statue of Pope Pius VII. His works can be seen in many European countries, especially in the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen, where his tomb is in the inner courtyard. His statue of the resurrected Christ, commonly referred to as Thorvaldsen’s Christus (created for Vor Frue Kirke) has appealed to the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a 3.4 m replica is on display at Temple Square and images of the statue are used in official church media, such as the internet site LDS.org Thorvaldsen’s Lion Monument (1819) is in Lucerne, Switzerland. This monument commemorates the sacrifice of more than six hundred Swiss Guards who died defending the Tuileries during the French Revolution. The monument portrays a dying lion lying across broken symbols of the French monarchy. Thorvaldsen produced some striking and affecting statues of historic figures, including two in Warsaw, Poland: the equestrian statue of Prince Józef Poniatowski that now stands before the Presidential Palace the seated Nicolaus Copernicus, before the Polish Academy of Sciences building, and the seated Nicolaus Copernicus, before the Polish Academy of Sciences building, both located on Warsaw’s Krakowskie Przedmie?cie. A replica of this sculpture of Copernicus was recast in bronze installed in 1973 on Chicago’s lakefront along Solidarity Drive in the city’s Museum Campus. A statue of Johannes Gutenberg by Thorvaldsen can be seen in Mainz, Germany.Part of Thorvaldsen’s work is informed by a pronounced classicist sensibility, traditionally encoded in European art in the myth of Zeus and Ganymede. Illustrative are his Eros, several versions of Ganymede, the Shepherd Boy with Dog, and his bas relief of Hylas and the Nymphs, depicting a shapely Hylas terrified of the nubile nymphs embracing him. Thorvaldsen was often compared to Antonio Canova, but in fact he embodied the style of classical Greek art more than the Italian artist. The poses and expressions of his figures are much more stiff and formal than those of Canova’s.
