Bernini's Brilliant Sculpture of Apollo and Daphne

Hi, welcome to Stories of Art. My name is Karel Heidenkoper and today I want to tell you the story of this magnificent sculpture by Bernini. It is, well, I think one of the most brilliant sculptures ever made. The Apollo and Daphne in the Villa Borghese in Rome. He finished it around about 1625 but it was likely commissioned already in 1620. So it took him a while to finish it but you can see why. He made it, it was commissioned by Scipione Borghese. Scipione Borghese was a cardinal, an immensely rich cardinal. He was the cardinal nephew, nephew of Pope Paul V, which made him very, very rich. And he built and owned a number of villas in and around Rome where he amassed an enormous collection of art. He commissioned a number of works like this one as part of a large series of commissions to Bernini but he also bought existing art and managed to acquire a number of pieces from the church, very often with the active help of his uncle. Now, he was actually instrumental in the early career of making Bernini a great artist because Bernini started his career probably working for his father and for various masters but one of the earliest jobs that we know he did was he worked in the gardens of the Borghese family, not as a gardener but as a sculptor making the sculptural ornaments and statues and fountains working on all of those in the gardens of the various villas of the Borghese family. Now, of course, Bernini was a brilliant artist but that's not enough. You also have to be able to sell yourself and Bernini apparently was very, very good at that. As a very young man, he was very charming and had no problems in talking to people of much higher rank and he did well at parties and that's most likely how he managed to find his way into the circle of Schipiona Borghese from being just an assistant working on garden ornaments to becoming one of the artists that Schipiona Borghese favoured above all others because Schipiona then started ordering works of art from Bernini and actually acquired quite a big collection of very large, very expensive works. The first job that Schipiona Borghese actually gave Bernini as a private commission was a minor one. Schipiona had this sculpture of Hermaphrodite and then Hermaphrodite in the ancient world was often depicted as this figure lying down which has both male and female characteristics and he had this sculpture but he needed something to put it on, basically a pedestal, but a pedestal wouldn't be really fitting and so he asked Bernini to make something and Bernini made this mattress. You can see it's now in the Louvre but you can still see the Hermaphrodite is ancient, is from probably the first century CE and the mattress is made by Bernini. And then came this portrait of Pope Paul V, the uncle of Schipiona Borghese and he finished it probably just after Pope Paul V died in 1621 but he also ordered a series of very large, very expensive sculptures and this I think is the best of all of them. And this one actually was to be placed in the Villa Borghese. They had many villas but this is the one that still exists and is still called the Villa Borghese in Rome. It was outside Rome at the time, it had huge gardens and nowadays, well, the city grew around it but it's still set in a park and has some of the gardens of the Borghese family still around it. Now of course there you can visit it and one of the cool things is that this sculpture still stands in probably the room it was made for. There are some different theories of where it was to be placed. Some say it was in a doorway where it was particularly well lit and you would see it exactly from this angle that you can see it now. Others have suggested that it was placed next to a wall so it would be lit by a window again lighting out this part of the sculpture because this is the essence of the story. But it's not a sculpture that should be placed up against a wall. You have to walk around it and that is what it has. It's the sort of main view which is this side but if you walk around it, it starts to tell you its story and in a very theatrical way. And it's probably of the early works of Bernini it's his most theatrical work and I use the term theatrical because that's so much part of the work of Bernini in general. He was of course a sculptor, a painter, an architect but he actually also wrote and directed and actually played in a number of theatrical productions in plays. And much of his sculptural work is not just very virtuoso, brilliantly carved work but it tells stories in a particularly fascinating way. Now what is the story that we see here? This of course is Apollo and Daphne. Apollo, the god from mythology, he was probably the god that the Greek loved more than any of the other gods. He wasn't the main god, that would be Zeus, Jupiter to the Romans, but Apollo was the god of everything that the Greek favoured most. He was the god of poetry, of art, of philosophy, of thought, of temperance, of justice. He made balance and that's something the Greek admired a lot. And he was always in control, he was always the hero. And there was one point in this one story where he killed this huge snake called the python. That python, he took a bow and arrow and he shot that python. There's actually a very famous sculpture of that in the Vatican collection called the Apollo Belvedere. Because this sculpture made around the first century CE, you can see that he is shooting an arrow, that's what he's doing there. He holds his hand out holding this bow that we don't see anymore and with the other he has just released an arrow with much ease. You can see it doesn't take much strain, which of course is because he is this god of peace and equilibrium and balance and that's why he never exerts himself. Now this sculpture was very, very famous at the time, still is of course today. It was kept in the Belvedere, that's where he got his name. It used to be a separate villa as part of the Vatican complex, but over time it grew attached to the entire Vatican, it's now the Vatican Museum. The python actually fell into a chasm and there it rots and it would emit these fumes and that's part of the Oracle of Delphi, which of course is dedicated to Apollo. Now the story is that Apollo had this great big bow and arrow and he boasted that he had killed this snake with it and then he saw Cupid who had a tiny little bow and arrow and he said well you couldn't do that with your tiny little bow and arrow and that enraged Cupid. And Cupid, Eros for the Greek, took his revenge because Cupid has two types of arrows. He has a golden one and if you're struck by that you fall in love, you get infatuated and apparently you can get very, very, very much infatuated. You can be overcome with lust for instance. But he also has lead arrows and a lead arrow, if you get struck by that, that means you're very much repulsed by someone. It is kind of weird though that repulsion and attraction to the Greek apparently were given by the same god. Anyway, he had these two types of arrows. He took his revenge on Apollo, Cupid did, by shooting Apollo with a golden arrow and making him fall desperately in love with Daphne. Daphne was a nymph, a daughter of a minor river god, Penias, and she had vowed to be chaste. She wanted to keep her virginity, she wanted to be a bit like Diana Artemis, the sister of Apollo. So she was not interested in getting married to begin with, but she was also struck by a lead arrow by Eros. So when Apollo approached her, and he couldn't stop himself from approaching her, she was very much repulsed and he started to chase her and she started to run away. And depending on the reading of the story, that is either a chase full of loving words that he shouted after her, or it is a... he's overcome with lust and actually more or less tries to jump her, try to grab her, own her, or rape her. And that's the version that Ovid wrote, because in Ovid's version he likens the chase between the two as a wolf chasing a lamb and an eagle chasing a dove. So very much a predator going after a prey. And you can see that in her face, she tries to get away, she's really fearful, she's horrified by it. And Apollo, who not by accident actually, looks a lot like the Apollo Belvedere. It's the same face, same hairdo. It's of course definitely a reference to that sculpture. Apollo can't help himself but run after her because of this, well, arrow of Eros. And they are evenly balanced all the time. She has all the godly powers to run away, he has all the godly powers to run after her. And so they chase each other for a long, long time. But Eros tries to intervene, he tries to trip Daphne, he tries to push on Apollo, so he gets closer and closer and closer. And she then begs her father, Penias, as I said, a river god, to save her, to make her ugly, to transform her from this form that made her a victim. Just a strange way to put it, I know. But that's the story the way Ovid tells it. And he does. He transforms her into a laurel tree. And right at the moment that Apollo gets to her, she's suddenly transformed. And that's the moment that we see here. And that's the moment that's so brilliantly captured by Bernini. And you see that Apollo comes after her, and he's sort of, he has a calm face really, for someone who has been chasing her forever. And she is terrified. She is horrified that she will be grabbed by what she perceives as a predator. And just as he gets to her, he tries to touch her, tries to grab her, but he can't, because she turns into a tree. And what I talked about earlier, this theatrical part of it, this is the most dramatic view where you can see both of their faces, her terror and his confusion, amazement. He doesn't understand what's happening. But the really beautiful thing about it is you can walk around a sculpture and you can actually see it happening. For instance, if you start at their feet, so really at the back of the sculpture, you pretty much only see their bodies. You see Apollo and you see Daphne, well, getting away. And as you walk past this side, you can start to see him getting to her and her transforming. And the more you walk around it, the more of the transformation you start to see. And in fact, when you get all the way to that part, you can see that he never touches her. Actually, his hands only touch her bark when she has changed into a tree. You can even start looking for the details, such as these roots that start to grow out of her toes. And of course, all these little branches and all the leaves that grow out of it. By the way, in recent years, there's been much talk about one of the assistants of Bernini, Finnelli, who most likely sculpted large parts of this work, actually doing the actual chiseling. And they've fallen out afterwards and he never got any credit. That's sort of a fashion within art history to try and find out who amongst all the assistants of people like Bernini, because he worked with a lot of assistants, who did what, and to try and give them credit. But the real credit here is not just the sculpting of all kinds of details. The real thing is, of course, the real art in this is its conception, the way it was designed so that you can actually see this whole story come together. So although Finnelli did a fantastic job, I still would say it's really a Bernini sculpture, because he conceived of the whole idea. Well, the story, by the way, ends with her, well, she has become a laurel tree, so she has gotten away from him. And he is left in confusion and in sorrow, because he will now never get to her, and he will always be in love with her. And then he does something that doesn't make him the most sympathetic figure, I think. He decides to possess her anyway. So he takes, first of all, he makes her never lose her youth. And that's why it's a laurel tree, because laurel, of course, is never green. And even if you cut off the leaves, they stay green for a very, very long time. And he vows that he will always carry laurels in his hair and laurels around his leer, and all kinds of places he will always carry laurels. But of course, the real moral of the story is no matter how powerful you are, or how composed you always are, or how wise you always are, anyone can be made mad with love. And there's no power stronger than love. This is, of course, one of those sculptures you really have to see for yourself one day. Which, of course, you can. It's in the Villa Borghese. It's a museum you can just visit. And when you do, you have to walk around and just find that storyline and see just how amazing that is by Bernini. Unfortunately, I wanted to make a video of that, but I couldn't, because the Villa Borghese wouldn't allow me to make a video. They don't even allow you to take photographs these days. Which is unfortunate, but that's the way they decided to do things. So, one day, perhaps you can go and see it for yourself. In the meantime, I hope you can at least look at this version. And I'd like to thank you for watching. And of course, you could decide to subscribe to my channel, which is easy enough. There's a button right below this video. There's also one in the corner there. You could also push that one, and then you get subscribed. And when you do, you see suddenly this little bell, and that bell appears, and you can click that icon as well. And then you suddenly get notified every time I post a new video. So, that would be a win-win, wouldn't it? If you like this video, give us a like as well. And if you have any suggestions for subjects in my videos, leave them in the comments, and I hope I can get back to you. So, again, thanks for watching. See you soon.