Kanaris At Chios (sculpture)
History and description
The Greek War of Independence stirred Romantic artists in Post-Napoleonic Europe, including Eugène Delacroix in his painting The Massacre at Chios (1824), musician Gioachino Rossini in his opera Le siège de Corinthe (1826) and many writers, such as Victor Hugo, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron (who died in Greece during the war). Civiletti was apparently inspired by the recently published Scene Elleniche antica e nuova Grecia, written by Angelo Brofferio, which included a description of the burning of the Ottoman flagship off Chios. For Civiletti, the topic may have resonated with the nationalistic fervor in Italy after its unification; in retrospect however, the individualistic firebrands could also be viewed as anarchist patriots.
The work was first made in a stucco and exhibited in Palermo in 1875, where it was purchased by Prince Umberto di Savoia, who requisitioned a marble copy which he donated to the Comune of Palermo. In 1878, the sculpture was awarded a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle of Paris. Initially placed in the gardens of Villa Giulia in Palermo, it was later moved to its current location, where it is displayed, albeit in a vandalized state, in a small Neo-Moorish pavilion in the Giardino Inglese public park.
Gallery
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The sculpture in Villa Giulia, Palermo, 1898.
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The sculpture in Villa Giulia, Palermo, 1900s.
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The sculpture in the Giardino Inglese, Palermo, 2014.
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The sculpture in the Giardino Inglese, Palermo, 2014.
See also
References
- ^ Non sono "due fratelli": la statua al Giardino Inglese di Palermo commemora un evento article in Balarm, by Santi Gnoffo 13 may 2019.
- ^ Bernardo Civiletti, article in Harper's Magazine, Volume 63, number 373 (1881), pages 82-87.