''Apollo and Daphne'' is a life-sized Baroque marble sculpture by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, executed between 1622 and 1625. Housed in the

Galleria Borghese The Galleria Borghese () is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. At the outset, the gallery building was integrated with its gardens, but nowadays the Villa Borghese gardens are considered a separate touris ...

in Rome, the work depicts the climax of the story of

Apollo and Daphne Apollo and Daphne is a transformation myth from ancient Greek mythology, retold by Hellenistic and Roman authors in the form of an amorous vignette. History The earliest known source of this myth is Parthenius, a Greek poet who lived during t ...

(

Phoebus Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

and

Daphne Daphne (; ; el, Δάφνη, , ), a minor figure in Greek mythology, is a naiad, a variety of female nymph associated with fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of freshwater. There are several versions of the myth in whi ...

) in

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

's ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the ...

''.

History

The sculpture was the last of a number of artworks commissioned by

Cardinal Scipione Borghese Scipione Borghese (; 1 September 1577 – 2 October 1633) was an Italian Cardinal, art collector and patron of the arts. A member of the Borghese family, he was the patron of the painter Caravaggio and the artist Bernini. His legacy is the es ...

, early in Bernini's career. ''Apollo and Daphne'' was commissioned after Borghese had given an earlier work of his patronage, Bernini's

The Rape of Proserpina ''The Rape of Proserpina'' ( it, Ratto di Proserpina), more accurately translated as ''the Abduction of Proserpina'', is a large Baroque marble group sculpture by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, executed between 1621 and 1622, when Berni ...

, to Cardinal

Ludovico Ludovisi Ludovico Ludovisi (22 or 27 October 1595 – 18 November 1632) was an Italian cardinal and statesman of the Roman Catholic Church. He was an art connoisseur who formed a famous collection of antiquities, housed at the Villa Ludovisi in Rome. B ...

. Much of the early work was done in 1622–23, but a pause, possibly to work on Bernini's sculpture of ''David'', interrupted its completion, and Bernini did not finish the work until 1625.Pinton, p. 18 The sculpture itself was not moved to the Cardinal's Villa Borghese until September 1625. Bernini did not execute the sculpture by himself; he had help from a member of his workshop,

Giuliano Finelli Giuliano Finelli (1601–1653) was an Italian Baroque sculptor who emerged from the workshop of Bernini. He was born in Carrara to a family of marble masons in a town associated with mining of the stone, and he initially trained with Michelangel ...

, who undertook the sculpture of the details that show Daphne's conversion from human to tree, such as the bark and branches, as well as her windswept hair. Some historians, however, discount the importance of Finelli's contribution. ''Apollo and Daphne'' was finally completed in the fall of 1625, sparking an immediate enthusiastic reception of the work.

Description

While the sculpture may be appreciated from multiple angles, Bernini planned for it to be viewed slightly from the right because the work would have been visible from the doorway where it was located. Viewing the sculpture from this angle allowed the observer to see the reactions of Apollo and Daphne simultaneously, thus understanding the narrative of the story in a single instant, without the need to move position. However, the sculpture was later moved to the middle of the room. Like Bernini's 1622 sculpture ''

'', ''Apollo and Daphne'' has a

cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the f ...

with a moral aphorism by Pope Urban VIII. Attributing Christian moral value to a pagan subject was a way of justifying the statue's presence in the Borghese villa.

Iconography

When Phoebus (Apollo), fated by Cupid's love-exciting arrow, sees Daphne, the maiden daughter of Peneus, a river god, he is filled with wonder at her beauty and consumed by desire. But Daphne has been fated by Cupid's love-repelling arrow and denies the love of men. As the

Nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label= Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ...

flees he relentlessly chases her—boasting, pleading, and promising everything. When her strength is finally spent she prays to her father Peneus: Yet Phoebus lost none of his passion for Daphne:

Critical reception

The praise for ''Apollo and Daphne'' continued despite the decline of Bernini's reputation after his death. A French traveler in 1839 commented that the group is "astonishing both for mechanism of art and elaborateness, is full of charm in the ensemble and the details." One 19th-century literary journal considered it the only Bernini work worthy of lasting praise. Others were less positive. An English travel writer in 1829 noted Bernini's technical skill but added that the sculpture "bears all the want of judgment, taste, and knowledge of that age", going on to criticize the appearance of Apollo for being too like a shepherd and not enough like a god. More recent historians have been much more positive. Robert Torsten Petersson calls it "an extraordinary masterpiece ... suffused with an energy that works out of the tips of the laurel leaves and Apollo's hand and drapery."Petersson 2002, p. 80.

References

Notes

Bibliography

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External links

3D Model of ''Apollo and Daphne''

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Apollo And Daphne (Bernini) 1620s sculptures Marble sculptures in Italy Sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini Sculptures based on Metamorphoses