The Athlete Kreugas, Antonio Canova

Exhibition Label:
"Corpus," Apr-2012, Kris Ercums
The Athlete Kreugas, a bronze statuette cast from a gesso model after Italian sculptor Antonio Canova, embodies the three main hallmarks of the neoclassical style: an interest in the human nude, an insistence on simplicity and quiet grandeur, and a celebration of the noble and public gesture. As a proponent of neoclassicism Canova studied Greek sculpture and had classical texts read to him while working in his studio. This sculpture depicts the final moment in a fight between Kreugas and Damoxenus, who, wishing to end their stalemate, arrive at an agreement: each must face the other’s blow undefended. Canova heightens the drama by depicting Kreugas after he has failed to strike down his opponent. Facing Damoxenus and certain death with a determined glare, our hero courageously readies himself by assuming a firm and open stance that makes his body vulnerable to attack.

Archive Label 1999:
Canova’s sculpture, The Athlete Kreugas, represents the neo-classical trend in eighteenth-century sculpture. During Canova’s lifetime, the world of the Greeks became an ideal model for the eighteenth century to imitate. Wisdom, friendship, good citizenship, piety, national ceremonies, and tragedy all seem to combine into one harmonious society.

The bronze statuette The Athlete Kreugas is a free replica of a life-size marble statue by Canova, which is now in the Vatican Museum. Canova’s work was inspired by a reading of the “Descriptions of Greece” of Pausanias, a handbook on travel from the second century A.D. The particular passage describes the heroic death of Kreugas, the boxer of Epidamus.