Talk:Bertel Thorvaldsen

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Untitled

Very few people out of Carrara, my city, know that there are some beautiful terracotta reliefs, by Thorvaldsen and his best pupil Pietro Tenerani of Carrara made when the danish sculptor was in my town for marble. The reliefs are on the facade of an old bilding, once sculptor Vaccà house and atelier,near Cybo-Malaspina castle, since eighteen century the Fine Art Academy of Carrara. friendly Prof. Renato Vita I.I.S. "Leonardo da Vinci", Villafranca Lunigiana, Massa-Carrara

Spelling Thorwaldsen vs. Thorvaldsen

Rival article:

There is another article on this artist, under a variant (incorrect?) name: "Bertel Thorwaldsen." Should that title be corrected, and the two articles merged? Logologist 18:37, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Done. Parallel article is now redirected. Lee M 18:48, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Here's the relevant discussion from the parallel article:

It appears that his name was spelled with a "v": Thorvaldsen. Should the title be corrected--and perhaps this article merged with the "Bertel Thorvaldsen" article? Logologist 18:23, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes. Lee M 00:31, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think there is a pretty good chance that he himself spelled it Thorwaldsen. Danish spelling reforms dropping the W from normal use came after his time. Gene Nygaard 14:45, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Before the early nineteenth century, Danish spelling was a complete mess, and Rasmus Rask was the first to begin standardizing it. This happend in the early nineteenth century. Before that, both the V and W were used for the same sound (IPA: /v/) but since then, the W was limited to proper names derived from German. Other Germanisms weeded out included the use of Sch instead of Sk (IPA: /sk/). Reading through a sixteenth-century text is even worse, with the spelling being a mix of Latin and German practices. Rasmus Rask made an early attempt to standardize Danish spelling, but the first government-approved standard was only introduced after the reform of 1875. The W never died out completely due German proper names, e.g. the important Reventlow (sic!) family. Until the spelling reform of 1980, the W was merely considered a variation of the V, not an actual letter in its own right. No doubt people used both forms during the (first) part of his life, starting somewhere around the 1830s, it would most likely have been considered incorrect to use a "W". Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 23:08, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Additional text

The following is material from the parallel article which was not merged with this article because it was semi-redundant, but included here for completeness:

On the whole Thorwaldsen was the most successful of all the imitators of classical sculpture, and many of his statues of pagan deities are modelled with much of the antique feeling for breadth and purity of design. His attempts at Christian sculpture, such as the tomb of Pius VII in St Peter's and the "Christ and Apostles" at Copenhagen, are less successful, and were not in accordance with the sculptor's real sympathies, which were purely classic.
Thorwaldsen worked sometimes with feverish eagerness; at other times he was idle for many months together. A great number of his best works exist in private collections in England. His not very successful statue of Lord Byron, after being refused a place in Westminster Abbey, was finally deposited in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. The most widely popular among Thorwaldsen's works have been some of his bas-reliefs, such as the "Night" and the "Morning," which he is said to have modelled in one day.

LEGO

A group at the new Önsta-Gryta church (opened at Easter, 2007) of Önsta Parish in Västerås, Sweden, is planning in the fall 2007 to build a copy of Thorvaldsen's Christ in all-white LEGO. Some 20,000 bricks will be required for the man-size statue, and they are asking for donations of LEGO bricks. Reference: [1]. According to the parish newsletter issue 4/2007 (församlingsblad (PDF), julen 2007), a project group at ABB Industrigymnasium highschool in Västerås has made a 3D scan of a copy of the statue. The resulting 3D model has been sliced into 221 horizontal planes. Each slice, corresponding to a unit height LEGO brick, is then segmented into squares corresponding to 2×2 sized LEGO bricks. --LA2 12:53, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nu är Lego-Jesus på plats, Swedish news website Nyheter24, April 12, 2009. --LA2 (talk) 16:30, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Icelandic?

His father was icelandic yes, but Thorvaldsen never set foot on Iceland and Iceland was a part of Denmark-Norway at that time. The article gives much too much weight to his icelandic heritage, which by no means was an important influence on his work - it would be more reasonable to describe him as danish/italian - he lived 40 years in Rome and his work is distinctly in a neo-classicist tradition.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:38, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. Not only was he most likely born in Iceland but his father was a great wood carver and an obvious source of his artistic skills.-130.208.183.161 (talk) 08:24, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is no evidence to suggest that he was born or Iceland, or ever visited Iceland for that matter. His father's skill or influence has little relevance for the question of his son's nationality.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:53, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the article should have even more Icelandic twist. It seems that the name Bertel Thorvaldsen is an Icelandic name and the article should be marked with the template {{Icelandic name}}. Likewise, all references to Thorvaldsen in the article body should be removed and replaced with Bertel. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 21:42, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thorvaldsen is not an Icelandic name, but a Danish one - the corresponding Icelandic name would be Þorvaldsson. But his fathers name was not Thorvald but Gottskalk, so if he had been named according to Icelandic patronymic naming custom his name would have been Bertel Gottskalkson. But he was not, he was named according to Danish naming family custom and his fathers Icelandic surname was Danified to its Danish equivalent and became a family name.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:53, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The most commonly used form of his name in Danish as well as in English is the non-Icelandic (referring to Thorvaldsen as a surname). This was even the case during his own lifetime as can be seen in the letter archive of his personal letters where everyone refers to him as "Thorvaldsen" in letters that Thorvaldsen himself received. So in my opinion replacing the current form with the Icelandic one would be undue weight. --Saddhiyama (talk) 13:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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E book available

The following is now available in English from Amazon - currently E-book only as paperback (2019) reissue is out of stock. I get lost trying to see where it would fit in the current article, so please may I leave that to others?

The Life of Thorvaldsen, Collected from the Danish of J. M. Thiele, by M. R. Barnard Paperback – 8 Aug. 2019 This is a reproduction of the original artefact from 1865 translated by M R Barnard.

If someone has a copy, and can authenticate the story of the cakes at Malta - see Lorentz Fisker - a better reference on Lorentz Fisker's page would be appreciated! Viking1808 (talk) 10:49, 11 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

birth date

The article has an entire paragraph about his birth date being unknown, yet there is one given in the infobox and at the beginning of the article (without a citation). So what is it? --jonas (talk) 19:02, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]