These extraordinary figures in high relief are personifications of the four mythological winds Aeolus, Boreas, Zephyrus, and Eurus. They are recent additions to the oeuvre of the highly original Venetian Baroque sculptor Giovanni Bonazza and were attributed to the artist for the first time in 2015, together with two reliefs of river gods in the Musée du Louvre and a design for another figure in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.

These four reliefs derive from Venetian Mannerist sculptor Alessandro Vittoria’s stucco ceiling panels and lunettes with gods and nudes that decorate the interior of the Palazzo Thiene and the Palazzo Bissari-Arnaldi in Vicenza, as well as his oval reliefs in the Scala d’Oro in the Venetian Palazzo Ducale. Each of those figures is characterized by voluminous and contorted shapes, much like the present personifications of the Winds. However, Vittoria’s 16th-century works have been transformed here and display a creative freedom that is entirely original and highly idiosyncratic. The present reliefs do not merely represent the Winds but they appear to have captured and contained their force, a typically Baroque stylistic device, and Giovanni Bonazza was the foremost sculptor of such Baroque inventions in Venice. The Winds’ exaggerated anatomy, the design of their physiognomy, and their grotesque features are similar to his profile reliefs of the tyrants Attila the Hun and Ezzelino III da Romano in the Musei Civici in Padua. A further stylistic, typological, and physiognomic parallel can be found in Bonazza’s San Girolamo penitente from the Franciscan convent in Rovigno, in which the sculptor represents the saint as a powerful bearded old man lying on the ground. Zephyrus is the only subject that Bonazza seems to have treated often; a version of Zephyrus in the round is located in the garden of Villa Vendramin Cappello in Noventa Padovana and it has a similar appearance to the present relief of Zephyrus.

In addition to the present set of the Winds, two further reliefs in the Musée du Louvre can now be attributed to Bonazza. The Louvre reliefs, previously attributed to the French sculptor Guillaume Boichot (1735 - 1814), represent two Rivers contained within marble ovals much like the present figures. They were probably coupled with two further reliefs, now lost, to form a group representing the canonical Four Rivers. They were part of the collection of the French painter Gabriel-François Doyen (1726 - 1806) who moved to Russia shortly after the French Revolution. In the process, his collection was confiscated by the revolutionary government and deposited in the École des Beaux-Arts. There, the Rivers were used by art students as models, which is why molds and bronze casts of the compositions exist. Research into the present reliefs has yielded one further discovery: a drawing for one of the Rivers in the Louvre in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. Previously attributed to the painter Giovanni Angelo Borroni (1684 - 1772), this drawing must be a preparatory drawing for the Louvre relief (fig.1).

Representations of the Winds are rare and usually confined to architecture. In Vincenzo Cartari’s influential 1556 treatise Imagini colla sposizione degli dei degli antichi, artists are directed to represent the winds with their wings and hair tousled. Cartari also mentions that the Winds should be differentiated from each other by illustrating their individual effects. Here, Bonazza gave each Wind its own set of attributes, which are subtly hidden in the backgrounds of the reliefs. The foremost figure, Aeolus, reclines majestically on soft clouds and is identifiable by his crown, scepter, and key. Aeolus is technically not a Wind but their ruler. His key unlocks the cave in which he keeps the Winds captive. The dauntless bearded man that turns his agitated face towards the spectator, huddled and clenching his fist, is Boreas, the frosty and impetuous wind that blows from the North. Zephyrus personifies the westerly wind that carries warm and sweet air in spring, and its fertile nature is underlined by the flowers and fruits which he holds between his fingers. He has butterfly wings and a youthful appearance, and he puffs his cheeks and reclines on light clouds with a radiant sun and a hint of a rainbow in the background. Eurus, the wind blowing from the South-East, is depicted by Bonazza as a contemplative old man. This Wind tends to bring rain which is illustrated on the far right, as well depicted in figure’s long wet hair.

The four reliefs have been attributed to Giovanni Bonazza by Dottor Maichol Clemente. The sculptures, as part of the information shared here, will be published in an forthcoming scientific article by the scholar.

RELATED LITERATURE:
V. Cartari, Le Imagini de i dei de gli antichi, Venice, 1580, pp. 260-261;
R. Tomic, 'Dva djela iz ostavstine Gaspara Kraljeta u ckrvi sv, Antuna Opata u Velom Losinju,' Umjetnost no Istocnoj obali Jadrana u kontekstu eropske tradicije, Rijeka, 1993, p. 24, fig. 4