From 25 October 2019 , the Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Milano presents the Canova exhibition. The ideal faces , a precious path that for the first time reconstructs in its rooms the genesis and evolution of the famous "ideal heads" , the particular and successful strand of Canova's work dedicated to the many, different variations of female beauty and realized at the height of his career.

Guardian of one of the most important collections of neoclassical art nationwide, the Gallery of Modern Art is the perfect setting for Canova's works, of which it preserves three masterpieces: the original plaster model of Hebe, the bronze bust of Napoleon and the marble herm of the Vestal Virgin, the centerpiece of the exhibition.

Curated by Omar Cucciniello and Paola Zatti , the exhibition is promoted and produced by the Municipality of Milano-Cultura, Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Milano and the Electa publishing house, and tells the story of this genre through 39 works, 24 of which by Canova . Among these, 5 sculptures never exhibited in Italy before, such as Corinna and the Musa of 1817.

The works on display come from the main national museums (Uffizi Galleries of Florence, Gipsoteca Canoviana of Possagno, Gallery of Modern Art of Turin, National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Correr Museum of Venice) and international ones (State Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg, J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, Musée des Beaux Arts in Lyon, Musée Fabre in Montpellier).

Born in Veneto, after moving to Rome in 1781 Antonio Canova (Possagno, 1757 - Venice, 1822) became the most important sculptor between the 18th and 19th centuries, interpreting Winckelmann's lesson and founding modern sculpture . Courted by the sovereigns of all of Europe, from Napoleon to the Popes, from the King of England to the Tsar, Canova has modified and oriented the taste of an entire era, to which he has provided models of idealized beauty, interpreted above all in his sculptures of mythological subjects. .

In the last twelve years of activity, when he is the most famous and most requested sculptor in Europe, Canova dedicates himself to a series of female effigies of ideal characters that has immediate success among contemporaries, both among the client and among the critics of ' epoch. The exhibition is dedicated to these, which he himself called " ideal heads ".