BERNINI AND OVID

Author(s): Paul Barolsky

Source: Source: Notes in the History of Art, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Fall 1996), pp. 29-31
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Bard Graduate Center
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23204950
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 BERNINI AND OVID

Paul Barolsky

Ars est celare artem. Pluto's hands squeezing into the flesh of
Persephone in this way. This squeeze is
"Art lies in the concealment of art," and in perhaps the supreme instance in all of art
the historical criticism of art, which is the history of what Bernard Berenson, speaking
discovery (the uncovering or unveiling of in the idiom of William James, called
such hidden art) of ars as "deception," no "tactile values."
artist is more artful, more cunning than Bernini is nonetheless so tactful, so artful
Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The guile of his here that he conceals the ultimate source of
chisel is evident to us in his uncanny his tactile thinking, which is to be found not
Ovidian Apollo and Daphne, a double in Praxiteles, Michelangelo, or Giambolo
metamorphosis in which we see both the gna, but in Ovid. I am referring to one of
illustration of Ovid's metamorphosis of the most famous passages in all of literature
Daphne into laurel and Bernini's own describing artful hands that press into a
metamorphosis of stone into flesh, meta human body conceived as a statue. This is,
morphosed in turn into tree trunk, roots, of course, Pygmalion caressing the body of
branches, and leaves. Bernini's ostensible his ivory statue, the fingers sinking into the
subject in Ovid becomes the opportunity for limbs of his statuesque beloved as he
the artist to demonstrate the metamorphic touches them: "et credit tactis digitos insi
virtuosity of his own Ovidian art. dere membris" (Met. 10.258). Ovid writes
Bernini s thinking about Ovid cuts with delicious irony here when he says that
deeper, however, and can be uncovered in a Pygmalion fears he will leave bruises on his
work that is even more profoundly Ovidian beloved since, after all, she has been carved
than the explicitly Ovidian Apollo and out of ivory. Recapitulating the passage of
Daphne, although, almost paradoxically, it Pygmalion's caress, however, Ovid writes
is seemingly not inspired by Ovid at all. I that after the sculptor prayed to the gods for
am speaking of his statue of Pluto and Per a wife and Venus responded, the sculptor,
sephone (Fig. 1), closely related in its vir kissing his beloved statue, again caressed
tuosity to the Apollo and Daphne. What is her body; only this time the ivory grew soft
deeply Ovidian about the Pluto and Perse to his fingers, to his very touch, for she had
phone is the unprecedented manner in been turned to living flesh: "temptatum
which the hands of Pluto sink into the mollescit ebur positoque rigore/ subsidit
digitis ceditque" (Met. 10.283-284). Ovid's
yielding flesh of his beloved, most notably
his right hand as it presses into the left
words describing the ivory growing soft to
the touch could be equally well applied to
thigh of Persephone. Nowhere in the history
of sculpture from antiquity through the the marble mollifying under the hands of
Renaissance will we find anything like Pluto or, we might almost say, of the mod

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 30

Fig. 1 Gian Lorenzo Bernini, detail of Pluto and Persephone. Villa Borghese,
Rome

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 31

ern Pygmalion, Bernini. We look with see guity of flesh and stone, of stone like flesh,
ing hands and feeling eyes at Bernini's of flesh petrified, experiencing the startling
deeply Ovidian statue of Persephone not ambiguity of Pygmalion when erotically he
only as the metamorphosis of marble into felt his statue made of ivory suddenly sof
flesh, but as the metamorphosis of one tening under his touch into flesh. In his al
myth, the myth of Persephone, into another, lusion to Pygmalion, Bernini ultimately un
that of Pygmalion. We might almost say veils to us that he is a modem Pygmalion.
that Pygmalion's caresses are evoked by But hidden in turn in this identification is
Bernini's sleight of hand. his final identification with Ovid, for, like
Let us not forget that although Venus ap the artful Ovid, Bernini, exhibiting his art,
parently transformed Pygmalion's beloved ultimately disguises it. In the end, what
into a living woman, it was, at bottom, Ovid says of Pygmalion, which is self
Ovid himself who cunningly effected this reflexively no less true of the poet himself,
metamorphosis in his poetic imagination. is a supreme commentary on the art of his
Likewise, Bernini orchestrated the meta masterful, modern memorializer: "Ars adeo
morphosis of marble into the striking simili latet arte sua"—"Truly, his art conceals his
tude of living flesh. Looking at Bernini's art "{Met. 10.252).
great statue, we perceive the ultimate ambi

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