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# 74 •nECEMBER 14 , 2015
The further and final turn toward what
would later be the Italian realism, sees
Tenerani (among the first ones at that
time) portraying subjects not naked or
in imperial style, but in modern clothes:
Simon Bolivar and Pellegrino Rossi are
not represented in bombastic classical
Roman clothes, but with contemporary
outfit and cape, embracing a naturalism
so much more consonant with the social
This big change will appear especially in facts of the time: this happened, in fact,
his large statues intended for outdoor, during the war of independence.
while in the small ones for private clients,
he will remain faithful to a classical vein, In those years, from 1946 to the annexaalso dictated by the subjects, mainly tion of the Papal States to the Italian nation, Tenerani strengthens its reputation
from mythology.
and its high artistic profile covering the
In 1843 he signed the manifesto of "Puri- highest offices of arts facilities in Rome.
smo nelle arti" (Purism in the arts) written In 1856 he became president of the Acby Antonio Bianchini, finally sanctioning cademia di San Luca; two years later he
the approaching of the sculpture (by was appointed in head of the Capitolinow he was one of the most requested ne Museums; and finally in 1860 he beartists) to the Renaissance model, thus came director of the Vatican Museums.
actually getting closer to the pictorial Pietro Tenerani was a great innovator,
world of the Nazarenes, who in Rome belonging to a generation that few people know.
had been already active for years.
grounds of his eminent predecessors.
He was the founder of an anticlassical
reaction which wanted to return to the
center of the taste of Renaissance sculpture parameters, highlighting not only
the anatomical shapes of Michelangelo,
but primarily the emotional rendering of
the figures. From the wrath to languor,
from despair to pride.
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