Giovanni Bonazza

Essay by Dr Maichol Clemente

In excellent state of conservation, the present terracotta bust is an allegorical portrayal of one of the four seasons, Winter. In his Iconologia (first published in 1593), Cesare Ripa describes the figure of Winter as “an old man, or woman, with white hair and wrinkles, dressed in rags and leather”, adding that Winter is known as “the old age of the year” (1645 edn, p. 600).

Here represented with a thick and long beard, Winter is enveloped in a soft, fur-lined cloak fastened to his chest, which covers his entire right shoulder, leaving the left one and part of his chest exposed. His face emaciated, his forehead lined with wrinkles and his thin lips pursed, the old man – whose head is crowned with a wreath featuring fruits – looks out, as if the artist had decided to portray “the old age” described by Ripa as an elderly figure meditating on the human condition, overcome by the fatigue of many years.

This figure of Winter is certainly the work of Giovanni Bonazza, one of the foremost interpreters of the Venetian Baroque, whose vocabulary stands out as one of the most distinctive within the Serenissima (Semenzato 1959; Semenzato 1966, pp. 49-51, 119–212; Guerriero 2010; De Vincenti 2017, for an extensive study of Bonazza’s work in terracotta). In the fitting words of Camillo Semenzato, Bonazza had “a truly unique ability as a sculptor, facilitated by a temperament that … must have been good-natured as well as good-humoured, and by a fluid style … that had developed its distinctness rather early on, in his Venetian period, before the artist moved to Padua” (Semenzato 1978, p. 394).

Having trained in Venice, close to the sculptor Michele Fabris, known as Ongaro (on this, see Guerriero 2010), Bonazza moved to Padua in the 1690s and opened what would become one of the most prolific sculpture workshops in the Republic of Venice. Bonazza’s early works can be admired to this day in the Serenissima – with examples ranging from the Sibyls for the façade of Santa Maria del Giglio to the Angels on that of the church of the Scalzi, and from the Monument to Girolamo Garzoni in the Basilica de’ Frari to the Theological Virtues beneath the altar in Santa Maria degli Angeli – but the core of his production, and his most prominent works, are certainly to be found in Padua. The attribution of this previously unpublished terracotta to Bonazza is confirmed by comparison with a select number of marble compositions he carved between the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Strong similarities can be detected with the magnificent Saint Jerome

in the Franciscan convent of Rovigno, dating to the very end of the seventeenth century (see Guerriero in Vicenza 2002, p. 93). The countenance of the present figure displays the same physiognomy and meditative character as that of the hermit saint. Their eyes appear outlined in the same manner, the naturalistic treatment of the wrinkles on both foreheads is identical and so is that of their noses – thin, pointed and with a sharp profile. Just as in the marble St Jerome the curls of the beard are animated by powerful use of the drill and scoring tool, in Winter the artist has used the tip of his spatula to model the clay deeply, thus endowing the beard, parted in two over the figure’s chest, with enhanced depth of field and sculptural quality.

Additional and more stringent correspondences can be found comparing our figure with another Saint Jerome, located by the main staircase in the Benedictine monastery at Praglia, near Padua (see Guerriero 2013, pp. 447–49). Several elements are designed identically in both figures – the strongly profiled cheeks, the heavy, half-closed eyelids, the rapidly outlined eyebrows and the expression and shape of the mouths. This very close connection with the statue in Praglia, which was executed around 1712, suggests a dating to the early eighteenth century for the present terracotta.

Alongside the sculptures in marble, parallels can be also drawn between Winter and Bonazza’s terracotta Aesculapius in the Musei Civici degli Eremitani, Padua (see Guerriero in Padua 2000, p. 157, no. 81), specifically with regards to the portrayal of the beard and the bony arc of the brow and, overall, the treatment of the clay.

Finely modelled and perfectly finished – with the exception of the reverse, which, as was customary, is hollowed out and shows the traces of the sculptor’s fingers in the clay – our terracotta represents a completed model, very close to the final sculpture, rather than a preparatory study, which would have been characterized by a more rapid and sensitive handling (as can be observed in the examples formerly in the Seminario Vescovile in Rovigo).

A representation of Winter by Bonazza, not directly related to the present terracotta, is in the Botanical Garden in Padua, together with the remaining three seasons, Spring, Summer and Autumn (see Semenzato 1978). Seemingly more cheerful, the marble in Padua presents a number of compositional differences, such as the absence of the ribbon fastening the old man’s cloak, the use of the cloak to cover the rear of the figure and the heightened naturalism of the wrinkled chest.

Our model represents therefore a variation on the theme of this specific allegory. As Semenzato noted, far from limiting himself within the boundaries of traditional repertoires, our artist “sought innovation whenever possible. Novelties certainly fascinated Bonazza and not only in stylistic terms, but even more so when they touched on the very essence of a subject” (Semenzato 1978, p. 395).

To conclude, I would like to point out two works, directly connected to the present Winter, which have emerged during my research. One is what could arguably be identified as the first study (primo pensiero) for this composition, a terracotta (30 cm high) that was presented without attribution in a sale at Semenzato, Venice, in May 1998 (lot 17). Catalogued as a Silenus, this small bust is undoubtedly a preparatory, freely modelled, version of our Winter, as evident from photographs. Lastly, a marble bust that qualifies as a later workshop derivation from the present terracotta should be mentioned. Part of the garden decorations at Villa Borin in Este, this work testifies to the legacy of the master’s compositions even after his death.

RELATED LITERATURE

C. Semenzato, ‘Giovanni Bonazza’, Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, 2, 1959, pp. 281–314; C. Semenzato, La scultura veneta del Seicento e del Settecento, Venice, 1966; C. Semenzato, ‘Le Statue dell’Orto Botanico di Padova’, Arte Veneta, 32, 1978, pp. 394–98; Dal Medioevo a Canova. Sculture dei Musei Civici di Padova dal Trecento all’Ottocento, exh. cat., Musei Civici degli Eremitani, Padua, 20 February–16 July 2000, ed. D. Banzato et al., Venice, 2000; Orazio Marinaldi e la scultura veneta fra Sei e Settecento, exh. cat., Palazzo Thiene, Vicenza, 6 December 2002–12 January 2003, ed. M. de Vincenti et al., Padua, 2002; S. Guerriero, ‘La prima attività di Giovanni Bonazza’, Arte Veneta, 67, 2010, pp. 73–101; S. Guerriero, ‘Girolamo Maria Rosa, Bortolo Brasi, Giovanni Marchiori e gli intagli del refettorio con una nota sul “San Girolamo” di Giovanni Bonazza’, in Santa Maria Assunta di Praglia, Storia, arte, vita di un’abbazia benedettina, ed. C. Ceschi et al., Padua, 2013; M. De Vincenti, The Adoration of the Magi by Giovanni Bonazza. The Reliefs of the Chapel of the Rosary in Venice: Studies, Models and D’après Versions, Segrate (MI), 2017