View Article: How Should Life Be Lived?

	How Should Life Be Lived?
	written by leahs2 / 10.24.2005

Sculpture and movement

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Assignment

http://www.students.sbc.edu/mckinney03/gmm/images/berniniproserpina.jpg

Pluto and Persephone

I hesitate to put a single-framed picture here, as the statue should be experienced from all angles. However, this image gives an general idea of the statue.

http://www2.oakland.edu/users/ngote/images-full/bernini-apollo.jpg

Apollo and Daphne

I hesitate to put a single-framed picture here, as the statue should be experienced from all angles. However, this image gives an general idea of the statue.

I enter the realm of Bernini’s Pluto and Persephone to backs arched in movement and Hades’ dog staring me down. The stage is set, and anticipation builds as I realize that I must walk around the statue to see the story unfold: so begins my counter-clockwise journey. Pluto’s massive left leg comes into view and his body is revealed in folds of skin and muscle. Another few steps and a hint of Proserpine’s beauty is exposed through the gaps of Pluto’s limbs. In a crash of steps her shocking face emerges: she is in pain, pushing away from him. I am swept up in the transient revelation of the sculpture’s zenith: he is grabbing her with impregnable hands; she is fighting back with her arched back and pleading eyes. Yet her body is still beautiful as I continue circling, despite (or even more so because) it is wrapped in the naked motion of twisting struggle and clash of will. In my last steps I am left with the terrifying monster dogs of Hades, snapping at Proserpine’s lifted feet.

My entrance into the world of Apollo and Daphne is again to the backs; Bernini knew how to draw emotion and movement out of every part of the body. Each limb, muscle, sinew, tells a part of the story. Apollo’s back is stretching to reach her in a moment of light, his right arm out to balance. I circle in the counterclockwise direction again and Daphne’s body appears at a similar, harmonious angle to Apollo’s, but slightly higher. Again I am shocked by the face: Daphne’s distress flies from her mouth and eyes and somehow her hair is on fire. Like a strong wind rustling the trees on the banks of the Fiume Tevere, I am drawn in with her vertical motion: her arching back is higher than his, and her hair flies up with a flare of life. Their bodies meet to clash in contrasting lines: Apollo leans horizontally to reach her, and Daphne grows vertically into a tree, the pinnacle her hair and hands of flowering leaves.

On the original base for the sculptures laid an inscription that instructed the viewer to beware of earthly pleasures. However, these moral scripts must have been a flimsy disclaimer in comparison to the romantic tragedy of Bernini’s sculpted marble. The statues scream dream-like motion; they force the viewer to fall in love with the form and motion of earthly bodies. The real warning lies in the stories themselves: the passion of these forms is laced with faces of anguish.

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