Apollo and Daphne: myth and its reflection in art

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Who are Apollo and Daphne? We know the first of this pair as one of the Olympic gods, the son of Zeus, the patron of the muses and high arts. And what about Daphne? This character of the mythology of Ancient Greece has no less high origin. Her father was, according to Ovid, the Thessalian river god Peneus. Pausanias considers her the daughter of Ladon, also the patron of the river in Arcadia. And the mother of Daphne was the goddess of the earth Gaia. What happened to Apollo and Daphne? How is this tragic story of unsatisfied and rejected love revealed in the works of artists and sculptors of later eras? Read about it in this article.

The myth of Daphne and Leucippe

He crystallized in the Hellenistic era and had several options. The most detailed story called "Apollo and Daphne" is described by Ovid in his "Metamorphoses" ("Transformations"). The young nymph lived and was brought up under the auspices of the virgin goddess Artemis. Like her, Daphne also took a vow of chastity. A certain mortal, Leucippus, fell in love with her. To get close to the beauty, he put on a woman's outfit and braided his hair into braids. His deceit was revealed when Daphne and the other girlswent swimming in Ladon. The offended women tore Leucippus to pieces. So what about Apollo? - you ask. This is just the beginning of the story. The sun-like son of Zeus at that time only slightly sympathized with Daphne. But even then the treacherous god was jealous. The girls exposed Leucippus not without the help of Apollo. But it wasn't love yet…

The myth of Apollo and Eros

One day the son of Zeus began to mock the god of love. Say, what power does a teenager have over people with his childish arrows? The son of the goddess of beauty Aphrodite (among the Romans - Venus), Eros was seriously offended. To show that his power extends not only to people, but also to the celestial Olympians, he threw an arrow of love for the nymph Daphne into the heart of Apollo. And he launched into her an edge of antipathy, disgust. It was love that was doomed to failure. If not for the second arrow, Apollo and Daphne might have reached closeness. But disgust, coupled with a vow of chastity, forced the nymph to show resistance to the sun god. Not accustomed to such a reception, Apollo began to chase the nymph, as Ovid describes, like a hunting dog after a hare. Then Daphne prayed to her parents, the gods of the river and the earth, to help her change her appearance. So the beautiful nymph turned into a laurel. Only a handful of green leaves remained in the hands of the pursuer. As a sign of his rejected love, Apollo always wears a laurel wreath. These evergreen branches are now a symbol of triumph.

Influence on art

The plot of the myth "Apollo and Daphne"refers to the most popular in the culture of Hellenism. He was beaten in verse by Ovid Nason. It was the transformation of a beautiful girl into an equally beautiful plant that amazed the Antikovs. Ovid describes how the face disappears behind the foliage, the tender chest is covered with bark, the arms raised in prayer become branches, and the frisky legs become roots. But, says the poet, beauty remains. In the art of late antiquity, the nymph was most often also depicted at the moment of her miraculous transformation. Only sometimes, as, for example, in the house of the Dioscuri (Pompeii), the mosaic represents her overtaken by Apollo. But in subsequent eras, artists and sculptors illustrated only the story of Ovid that has come down to posterity. It is in the miniature illustrations for the Metamorphoses that the plot of Apollo and Daphne is encountered for the first time in European art. The painting depicts the transformation of a running girl into a laurel.

Apollo and Daphne: sculpture and painting in European art

The Renaissance is called so because it revived interest in Antiquity. Since the Quadrocento century (fifteenth century), the nymph and the Olympian god literally do not leave the canvases of famous masters. The most famous creation is Pollaiolo (1470-1480). His “Apollo and Daphne” is a picture depicting a god in an elegant camisole, but with bare legs, and a nymph in a flowing dress with green branches instead of fingers. This theme became even more popular during the Baroque era. The pursuit of Apollo and the transformation of the nymph were portrayed by Bernini, L. Giordano, Giorgione, G. Tiepolo and even Jan Brueghel. Rubens did not shy away from this frivolous theme. In the Rococo era, the plot was no lessfashionable.

"Apollo and Daphne" by Bernini

It's hard to believe that this marble sculptural group is the work of an aspiring master. However, when the work graced the Roman residence of Cardinal Borghese in 1625, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini was only twenty-six. The two-figure composition is very compact. Apollo almost overtook Daphne. The nymph is still full of movement, but the metamorphosis is already taking place: foliage appears in fluffy hair, velvety skin is covered with bark. Apollo, and after him the viewer, sees that the prey is escaping. The master skillfully transforms marble into a flowing mass. And we, looking at the sculptural group "Apollo and Daphne" by Bernini, forget that in front of us is a block of stone. The figures are so plastic, so directed upward that it seems they are made of ether. The characters don't seem to touch the ground. To justify the presence of this strange group in the house of a clergyman, Cardinal Barberini wrote an explanation: "Whoever seeks the pleasure of fleeting beauty runs the risk of finding himself with palms full of bitter berries and leaves."