(upbeat piano music)
- [Man] We're in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.
And we're looking at one of Bernini's
first major commissions, Apollo and Daphne.
- [Woman] This is a fabulous story of Eros, the god of love
causing quite a bit of mischief.
- [Man] People may know Eros as Cupid.
- [Woman] And what happens is Apollo,
the god of music and poetry insults Eros
and Eros takes his revenge.
- [Man] Eros fashions two arrows.
One made of gold and one made of lead.
He pierces Apollo with the golden arrow,
which makes him fall in love with the nymph, Daphne.
And he pierces Daphne with an arrow of lead,
which makes her repulsed by Apollo.
- [Woman] Now Daphne, we should say,
has dedicated her life to being a virgin,
to remaining unmarried, this was very important to her.
- [Man] And so she flees Apollo's advances.
- [Woman] But Eros gets involved again,
and while Daphne is very swift and is able to flee
from Apollo, Eros gives Apollo a bit of a push
and he catches up to Daphne.
- [Man] Daphne has beseeched her father,
a river god, to help her escape
and he intervenes so that at the moment
that Apollo catches up with her, she turns
into a laurel tree.
- [Woman] And that's what Bernini gives us,
this is the very moment
when Apollo catches up with Daphne,
wraps his hand around her torso
and she begins to transform into that tree.
And we can see the bark growing out of the earth
coming up around her hurt fingers
turning into branches and leaves.
Her toes forming into roots.
- [Man] Even as Apollo reaches around her waist
to touch her belly, his hand touches only bark.
And so it is at this moment of transformation,
what a perfect subject for Bernini,
who transforms this rock of marble
into something that looks as if it's in motion
and it's living flesh.
- [Woman] Typical for Baroque art,
this caught moment in time, figures in motion.
Apollo on one leg, the other leg behind him.
The drapery flowing up behind him in mid air.
Daphne's hair also pushing back.
We feel them moving through space,
we feel the atmosphere around them.
- [Man] We forget that this is marble,
an unforgiving stone that is brittle and heavy.
- [Woman] Well, especially those laurel leaves
that grow between them.
They are so delicate and so easily broken.
It's true, with a hammer and chisel,
it is so easy to chip away and have something break.
- [Man] This stands in such contrast to the Renaissance
where you have a sense of stability,
you have a sense of clarity.
Here is a wonderful sense of disorder,
a sense of confusion,
a sense of change and motion.
- [Woman] Or we could think, for example,
of an early work by Michelangelo, like the Pieta,
where the forms take the shape of a pyramid,
the most stable of forms.
But here in Baroque art,
we're interested in instability.
- [Man] We see arcs, we see the arcs of the body,
the arcs of the arm, the arcs of the drapery.
- [Woman] The drapery is my favorite,
because if you follow it,
and have to move around the sculpture
to see where it goes.
Starting at Apollo's hip wrapping around,
going over his shoulder, and then finally,
moving around Daphne herself.
- [Man] But it's important to note
that this sculpture was intended
to be against a wall and it originally was.
The sculpture is now in the center of the room,
which allows us to move around it.
But it does have its most perfect view in front.
- [Woman] And also to the side is a lovely view.
And what's especially interesting to me,
it is the difference in the expressions
between Daphne and Apollo.
- [Man] Apollo seems to have just the beginnings
of a recognition of the tragedy
that is taking place.
That he's both catching up with
and also losing forever his beloved Daphne.
- [Woman] Although it seems to me
he's on the side of, I'm still going to have Daphne,
I'm still going to have what I want.
His face still looks mostly tranquil to me.
But his right arm reaches behind him
and the way that his wrist is flexed
feels to me as though there's that moment
of, oh no, something is happening.
- [Man] A bit of surprise,
especially the way those fingers splay out
and simultaneously, Daphne's face
is both an expression of horror
and of a kind of blankness.
We see both her recognition and her loss of her humanity.
- [Woman] This is a tragic thing,
she has chosen to return to the earth
to a non-human form rather than be beloved
by the god Apollo.
- [Man] But Apollo will continue to love her.
And in fact, Ovid writes,
- [Woman] Apollo loved her still.
He placed his hand where he had hoped and felt
the heart still beating under the bark.
And he embraced the branches, as if they still were limbs
and kissed the wood.
And the wood shrank from his kisses
and the god exclaimed, "Since you can never be my bride,
"my tree at least you shall be.
"Let the laurel adorn, henceforth, my hair,
"my lyre, my quiver.
"Let Roman victors in the long procession,
"wear laurel wreaths for triumph and ovation.
"Beside Augustus' portals, let the laurel
"guard and watch over the oak
"and as my head is always youthful,
"let the laurels always be green and shining."
He said no more.
The laurel, stirring, seemed to consent,
to be saying, yes.
(upbeat piano music)