Apollo and Daphne (Bernini)

Apollo and Daphne

Artist	Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Year	1622-1625
Type	Marble
Dimensions	243 cm (96 in)
Location	Galleria Borghese, Rome

Apollo and Daphne is a baroque life-sized marble sculpture by Italian Gian Lorenzo Bernini housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.

It depicts the climax of the story of Daphne and Phoebus in Ovid's Metamorphoses. When Phoebus (Apollo), fated by Cupid's love-exciting arrow, sees 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 flees he relentlessly chases her, boasting, pleading and promising everything. When her strength is finally spent she prays to her father River and mother Earth:

“‘Destroy the beauty that has injured me, or change the body that destroys my life’. Before her prayer was ended, torpor seized on all her body, and a thin bark closed around her gentle bosom, and her hair became as moving leaves; her arms were changed to waving branches, and her active feet as clinging roots were fastened to the ground – her face was hidden with encircling leaves”.

—Ovid, 8

Phoebus loved the graceful tree, clung to it and kissed the wood:

But since thou canst not be my spouse surely thou shalt be my tree. Thee O laurel my hair, thee my lyres, thee my quivers shall always have ... And as my head is youthful with unshorn locks, do thou likewise wear always evergreen honours of foliage. The laurel nodded assent with its branches lately made

—Ovid, 8

Bernini's sculpture captures Daphne's transformation with intense emotion and drama by portraying the different stages of her changes. The interlocking components and chiaroscuro create more narrative, reflecting foundations of Hellenistic Greek art.

Also during the Hellenistic period was the androgynous depiction of Apollo. He was slender, young, and had a feminine hair style, all of which are portrayed in this sculpture. Part of Apollo's iconography is the laurel tree and the wreath, originating from Ovid's story and illustrated in Bernini's work.