I wonder if anyone could go through Galleria Borghese and leave without being a fan of the sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. His works are amazingly detailed and beautiful.

One of the factors at play in Rome is that you see a lot of statues/sculptures of people who are part of the Christian narrative. However, there are still a good number of pieces that reflect ancient Rome’s dedication to the gods and characters that appear in the Greek myths. Some of these statues/sculptures are at least as interesting (if not more so) than those depicting Christian stories. That may sound heretical to some. But while I’m intrigued and awed by the lives of Christian religious figures such as Peter, Paul and Mary - I still feel a strong enthusiasm for the Greek and Roman myths I read as a child. Let’s just say that a statue of Theseus beheading Medusa is going to catch my attention and interest very quickly - more quickly perhaps than a static standing figure holding a cross or a key or a sword. As I walked through Rome, at times I found myself wishing there were more of the mythology-based statues and sculptures to look at.

The Borghese Gallery has a wonderful sculpture depicting a climactic moment in the story of Apollo and Daphne. In the story, Apollo criticizes Cupid, and Cupid then starts using his arrows to create some mischief on Apollo. Consequently, the ardent Apollo is pursuing Daphne but she has no interest in him. As he is about to overcome her by force, she feels that her beauty has become a curse. She appeals to her father (a river God) that her form will be changed and he changes her into a laurel tree.

Imagine trying to sculpt a statue of a person changing into a laurel tree. That seems like it would be ridiculously hard. Bernini took on that challenge and created something that is truly beautiful. Again, the Borghese Gallery did not allow us to take photographs, so I had to pull an image from the internet.

A sculpture is, of course, a three-dimension work of art. This is one of the reasons that Michelangelo felt that sculpture was a superior art form to painting - and one of the reasons that Michelangelo expressed scorn for Leonardo da Vinci, who favored painting.

In his statue of Apollo and Daphne, Bernini uses that three-dimensional dynamic to its full potential effect. This is a sculpture of a chase - and if you approach it from the Apollo side you can see very clearly that Apollo is doing his utmost to capture her and she is doing everything she can to escape him.

One of my favorite details of the statue was seeing how the toes and feet and fingers of Daphne were turning into a tree trunk, tree roots and tendrils.

The ultimate effect and detail of his work is spectacular. I’m afraid a picture and my words here aren’t doing it much justice.