Apollo and Daphne: myth and its reflection in art

Who are Apollo and Daphne? The first of these pairs we know as one of the Olympic gods, the son of Zeus, the patron of the Muses and the 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 Penee. Pausanias considers her to be the daughter of Ladon, also the patron of the river in Arcadia. And Daphne's mother was the goddess of the land of Gaia. What happened to Apollo and Daphne? How does this tragic story of unquenched and rejected love unfold in the works of artists and sculptors of later eras? Read about this in this article.

The myth of Daphne and Leucippus

It crystallized during the Hellenistic era and had several options. The most detailed story of "Apollo and Daphne" is described by Ovid in his "Metamorphoses" ("Transformations"). The young nymph lived and was brought up under the auspices of the goddess virgin Artemis. Like her, Daphne also made a vow of chastity. A certain mortal fell in love with her - Leucippus. To get closer to the beautiful, he put on a woman's outfit and braided her hair in braids. His deception was revealed when Daphne and the other girls went swimming in Lado. The insulted women tore Leucippus. Well, what does Apollo have to do with it? - you ask. This is only the beginning of history. Sun-like son of Zeus at that time only slightly sympathetic to Daphne. But even then the insidious god was jealous. The girls exposed Leucippus not without the help of Apollo. But it was not love ...

The Myth of Apollo and Erote

Once the son of Zeus began to mock the god of love. Say, what kind of power does a teenager have over people with his children's arrows? The son of the goddess of beauty Aphrodite (in the Romans - Venus) Eros was offended in no small measure. To show that his power extends not only to people, but also to the Olympians, the celestials, he threw an arrow of love to the nymph Daphne into the heart of Apollo. And in it he let the tip of antipathy, disgust. It was love, doomed to refusal. If it were not for the second boom, Apollo and Daphne might have reached proximity. But disgust, along with a vow of chastity, caused the nymph to show resistance to the sun god. Not accustomed to such a reception, Apollo began to chase a nymph, as described by Ovid, like a hunting dog for 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 became a laurel. Only a handful of green leaves remained in the hands of the pursuer. As a token of his rejected love, Apollo always wears a laurel wreath. These ever-green 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 the poems of Ovid Nason. Anthikov was struck by the transformation of a beautiful girl into an equally beautiful plant. Ovid describes how the face disappears behind the leaves, the tender breast is clothed with bark, the hands raised in supplication become branches, and the quick legs are rooted. But, says the poet, beauty remains. In the art of late antiquity, the nymph was also most often depicted at the time of its miraculous transformation. Only sometimes, as, for example, in the house of the Dioscuri (Pompeii), the mosaic represents it overtaken by Apollo. But in subsequent epochs, artists and sculptors were illustrated only by the story of Ovid, which reached the descendants. It is in the miniatures-illustrations for "Metamorphosis" that the first time in European art is the plot "Apollo and Daphne". The picture depicts the transformation of a running girl into a laurel.

Apollo and Daphne: sculpture and painting in European art

The era of the Renaissance is so called, because it revived interest in Antiquity. Since the century Kvadrochento (the fifteenth century), the nymph and the Olympian god literally do not descend from the paintings of famous masters. The most famous is the creation of Pollajolo (1470-1480). His "Apollo and Daphne" - a picture depicting God in a smart coat, but with bare legs, and a nymph - in a fluttering dress with green branches instead of fingers. This theme became even more popular in the Baroque era. The persecution of Apollo and the transformation of the nymph were portrayed by Bernini, L. Giordano, Giorgione, J. Tiepolo and even Jan Brueghel. Rubens was not averse to this frivolous topic. In the era of rococo the plot was no less fashionable.

Apollo and Daphne Bernini

It's hard to believe that this marble sculptural group is the work of a beginning master. However, when the work in 1625 adorned the Roman residence of Cardinal Borghese, 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 under way: in the fluffy hair appears foliage, the velvety skin is covered with bark. Apollo, and after him and the viewer, sees that prey eludes. Master masterly turns marble into the current mass. And we, looking at the sculptural group "Apollo and Daphne" Bernini, forget that before us - a stone block. The figures are so plastic, so upwards they seem to be made of ether. Characters do not touch the ground. To justify the presence of this strange group in the house of the clergyman, Cardinal Barberini wrote an explanation: "Anyone who is looking for enjoyment with fleeting beauty, runs the risk of being left with palms full of bitter berries and foliage."