1. receipt code: 76C6ABCB
Maria Grigorea
The Hague, 19/03/2015
For The Open University UK
Personal Identifier: C8819592
Module A843 towards MA in Art History
TMA03
Using no more than 2,500 words answer the following:
Analyse and assess the interpretation of work(s) of art (and/or architecture)
developed in one article not mentioned in the module material.
In your answer, you should discuss some of the approaches to interpretation
explored in Block 3.

2. This essay’s article under analysis is ‘Bernini's metamorphosis: sculpture, poetry, and the
embodied beholder’ by J., Joris Van Gastel , published in the journal ‘Word and Image’ in
July 2012. The interpreted work of art is the baroque sculpture of Apollo and Daphne by
GiovanLorenzoBernini.
The article’s abstract reads: ‘Taking as a case study the marble group of Apollo and Daphne,
sculpted by Giovan Lorenzo Bernini for Cardinal Scipione Borghese in the 1620s, this paper
discusses the exchange between sculpture and poetry in determining how the beholder
engages the sculpted object. More in particular, the question is addressed how the image's
infringement on the beholder's world and body can both be activated and channelled by text
and discourse, and how, at the same time, the artist seeks to relate to such a discourse with
his work. To map this complicated exchange, first several contemporary poems are
discussed, focusing in particular on the manner in which they thematize the beholder's
encounter with sculpture. Subsequently, the Apollo and Daphne is scrutinized to gain
understanding in the ways it engages with and presupposes literary discourse and the
embodiedbeholder’.
Already from the abstract, we are given some keywords about the content of the text:
‘the exchange between sculpture and poetry’, ‘the (embodied) beholder’, and the ‘literary
discourse’. The methodological outline of Van Gastel defends an unquestionable link
between text andimage. I will argue below, though, that he borrows terms quite contrasting
to iconology in his attempt to interpret Apollo and Daphne. On a first level I will try to
analyze hisargumentsandlaterassessthem critically.
The article’s writer mentions that the poetic discourse ‘informs the beholder’s responses’1
to the sculpture. That means that spectatorship is fundamentally indebted in poetry.
According to Panofsky and his heritage, ‘iconographical analysis, {…..}presupposes a
familiarity with specific themes or concepts as transmitted through literary sources’2
. Van
Gastel is primarily concerned to pay ‘particular attention to the artist’s (Bernini) literary
environment’3
, searching for an informed meaning. He presents a number of contemporary
to the artwork poems from Bruni to Petrarch, which he analyses in detail. Apart from ‘a
profound interest in the relationship between the visual and the literary arts’4
in the
baroque period, texts play a far more crucial role in the reception of Apollo and Daphne,
according to the writer. Interestingly enough, the literary sources on Van Gastel’s disposal
manage a further goal than identifying the allegory of metamorphosis in Apollo and Daphne:
they testify ‘the power of the poet over that of the artist’5
and they seem to dictate and
prescribe the inter-relation between artist, poet and beholder. In this context, the poet does
not simply express contemporary, to the sculptor, meanings and concepts but is one of the
three powers completing the art work, as ‘he takes over when the chisel’s work ends,
showing the work as it truly can or even should be’6
. The implications of this conception are
summarized to the phrase: ‘the chisel is beaten by the word’7
. How does, then, the
spectator emerge?
1 Van Gastel, 2012:193
2 Panofsky in Presiozi,2009:225
3 Van Gastel, 2012:193
4 Van Gastel, 2012:195
5 Van Gastel, 2012:194
6 Van Gastel, 2012:194
7 Van Gastel, 2012:195

3. Although, in the article is argued that ‘poetry may broaden the aesthetic realm, the poet,
sometimes even addressing the spectator directly, opens the senses to the effects of sound,
space, air, colour, light, water and so forth’8
, Van Gastel seems to dare a big turn in his
analysis about the active spectator of Daphne and Apollo. There, he prompts us to ‘step
outside the poetic discourse that surrounds the Apollo and Daphne and ask how the artist
himself addresses the spectator’9
. In other words, he takes some considerate distance from
iconology, towards the receptionaestheticsof Kemp andthe embodiedspectator.
Van Gastel agrees that for the spectator there is no ‘ideal viewpoint’to grasp the work and
‘almost all sculpture can be viewed from various sides’10
, as there were many entrances to
the room when the sculpture was displayed. He defends therefore the mobility of the
spectator in the space of display, around the artwork. Here, we have a clear reminder of
Hegel’s viewpoint about any sculpture contrasting to any drawing, as the former is
‘predominantly independent on its own account, unconcerned about the spectator who can
place himself wherever he likes’11
. ‘One could argue, then, that the work of art and the
beholder come together under mutually imbricated spatial and temporal conditions’12
. We
can relate these temporal conditions, mentioned by Kemp, with the very interesting dual
element of time in the article: ‘ the intrinsic time of the work and the time of the spectator’s
contemplation’13
. ‘The intrinsic time’ refers to a ‘function of beholding’ that ‘has already
been incorporated into the work itself’14
, while ‘the time of the spectator’s contemplation’
acknowledges that ‘there is a beholder who wants to see the painting and who takes
appropriate steps in order to do so’15
. Reception aesthetics manifest in between these two
kindsof time.
According to Van Gastel, ‘contrasting moments are blended together visually, thus
resulting in a convolution of dramatic moments forming a fluid, poetic whole, extending
beyond the marble into the space of the beholder’16
. It is exactly when the Hegelian work of
art exists now also "for us". The notion of drama can imply the element of theatricality, but
the writerdoesnotget explicitaboutit.
Van Gastel, in spite of his insistence in literary sources, in agreement with recent
scholarship and issues connected to the ‘pictorial turn’ in interpretation, identifies
successfully non-visual, but rather physical responses to Apollo and Daphne by the beholder:
‘We actively project our bodily experiences into the work’17
. ‘The ‘naked flesh’, ‘the soft
skin’ , ‘the braids’ and ‘the strands of curly locks’18
‘the tilting of the marble’19
are all
descriptions related to touch and rather sensory perception, that ‘address the tactile rather
than the optical aspects of the experience of art’20
. Another example to this tendency are
‘the strictly non-visual (e.g. vestibular, kinaesthetic) components of our visual experience’ of
8 Van Gastel, 2012:197
9 Van Gastel, 2012:197
10 Van Gastel, 2012:196
11 Hegel in Barker, 2014: 10
12 Kemp, 1998:181
13 Van Gastel, 2012:196
14 Kemp, 1998:181
15 Kemp, 1998:180
16 Van Gastel, 2012:196
17 Van Gastel, 2012:198
18 Van Gastel, 2012:196
19 Van Gastel, 2012:197
20 Barker, 2014: 24

4. Apollo and Daphne, ‘the loss of balance’ that ‘invites a physical response’21
, ‘the instability’
and ‘the sense of movement’. ‘These are all aspects that are part of our perceptual
experience: we do not interpret or read them but understand them physically’22
. Van Gastel
quite far from iconography in this point refers to phenomenology and validates the
importance of the senses in feeling the artwork. In this way he acknowledges that the
spectator he describes is not solely embodied or implied, but also empirical and that the
sculpture acts like a ‘nomad’23
inhabiting the bodies of the spectators and communicating
withthemlike aphysical and mental,object.
Later in the article, the writer returns to the literary sources and iconology to extract ‘the
Medusa topos’24
and construct the notion of ‘the petrified spectator’25
. Pre-assumed by
Petrarch’s poem the spectator stands ‘in a state of shock, a state of immobile stupor’26
and
although he has been invited to participate actively , he ends up in the consciousness that
the liveliness that in the beginning attracted his attention is nothing but an illusion. What is
fruitful to deduce from this extract is that the look of Medusa could possibly imply a
returned gaze (or psychoanalytically a mirror effect) to the spectator and that maybe
supposedly also Daphne gives it back. Van Gastel, though, does not invest in this direction
at all. Towards the end of the article, we read a summary of the spectator’s fate, similar to
that of ‘the petrified’ one rather than ‘the active’, concluded by Barberini’s distich in the
bottomof the sculptedgroup.
If we start assessing Van Gastel’s article from methodological point of view, we will
encounter a very wide agenda of employed tools. On his defence, no matter how concrete
his interest in literary sources is and although he places them as the starting point and core
of his analysis, he is open enough to embrace phenomenology and sensory responses to
Apollo and Daphne, admitting consciously in this way that the literary sources are not
enoughtoprovide a complete interpretationof the artwork.
Arguably, the most obvious critique to his analysis is identical to that against iconography
for over- textualising the image-in this case the sculpture of Apollo and Daphne. That is the
reason why sometimes the focus seems to be more on Bernini’s ‘fortuna poetica’27
than on
the actual artwork and its reception. Paraphrased, this riposte gives us very interesting
assumptions, according to Kemp: ‘literary testimonials have only a limited value as sources
with regard to the reception of visual art, since they are above all beholden to their literary
mission and can only be expressed through that genre’, and also because: ‘we possess such
sources only for a minimal number of works of art’, while ‘whole art-historical eras remain
silent in this respect’28
. But again, with this case study we have a wealth of available texts.
However, literary sources do not simply grant us with recognisable symbolic forms and
allegories in this article: they tell us that the sculpture’sliveliness is because of the poet and
that the spectator’s response is already planned. Under this tendency Bernini, as an artist ,
seems not to act mainly according to his own intention, but to disciple himself to the
dictums of poetry, even to be another spectator himself. Consequently, the beholder has the
same limitedspace.
21 Van Gastel, 2012:197
22 Van Gastel, 2012:198
23 Christian,2014:29
24 Van Gastel, 2012:199
25 Van Gastel, 2012:198
26 Van Gastel, 2012:198
27 Van Gastel, 2012:193
28 Kemp, 1998:182

5. If we want to be fair in this point, though, we should recognize that Van Gastel is well
aware of this over-textualising tendency in his article, when he writes: ‘Neither poetry, nor
theory can dictate a definite style. Having said this, we must not dismiss the relevance of
Bernini’s literary environment’29
. His phenomenological concerns about the beholder are
valuable and to the point, but they cannot be extracted as an independent element of
analysis, since ‘the impact of the work {...} cannot be understood if we do not presuppose a
fully embodied beholder’30
. Here in my opinion there is a conflict experienced: in his ‘active
spectator’ section the beholder is fully empirical and has stepped outside the literary
discourse. This spectator should be verbally recognised as empirical and be distinctive of the
embodied beholder. In order to manage ‘to console the two’31
, he resorts again to literary
tradition. This renders his focus a negation of the senses, since the two kinds of beholding
are not received equally. Phenomenology is rather a helping hand than a organic
instrument.
The spectator in ‘Bernini's metamorphosis: sculpture, poetry, and the embodied beholder’
is always a ‘he’. Gender does not seem to worry Van Gastel and only at the conclusion of his
article he places a ‘his/her’32
for the spectator’s reaction to the sculpture, hinting that there
is also a female spectator that cannot be absorbed in the male personal pronoun. Of course
this is obviously not enough. A feminist reading of the article, would explore many gaps in
the male-centered thought and analysis of Van Gastel, but at the same time would propose
veryinterestingalternativestothe receptionof Apollo and Daphne.
What the article does not tell us is that the myth behind Apollo and Daphne is not
sufficiently covered by the allegory of the metamorphosis. Van Gastel, while he explores
various texts, forgets to refer to the myth itself in detail. Daphne and Apollo, with the
heroes’ names reversed this time, is a story about a chase against Daphne’s will. Eros, while
trying to take revenge on Apollo for his arrogance, made him fall in love with the nymph. She
was appalled by him and instead sought pleasure in nature, opposing to her father’s
pressure to marry in order to give him grandkids. The dramatic moment of the sculpture
refers to Daphne’s fright and desperation, even the threat of a rape and finally to her
salvation as she turns into a bush. According to the myth, even when she turned into wood,
the branches, were her arms used to be, still pushed Apollo away. The sensual effect of
Daphne’s ‘naked flesh’ is sensual only for a male voluptuous gaze. Female spectatorship will
arguably imply a totally different response to this scene. Moreover, it is impossible to
disregard that Daphne is viewed as an object, of bodily pleasure for Apollo, of taking revenge
for Eros, of reproduction for her father that wanted grandkids, and of visual pleasure for the
male spectator. In contrast, a literary aware female spectator would have a bodily response
to the unwanted touch of Apollo, as well as of the feeling of relief when the male venery is
finally cancelled and even by turning to wood, now Daphne is safe to use her body as she
wishes. So Daphne’s metamorphosis could be considered as an allegory of denying and
gettingridof an imposedandconstructedsexuality.
Last but not least, one could possibly imagine that Van Gastel would use or refer to the
way in which Warburg would approach the meaning of the sculpture, by recognising the
29 Van Gastel, 2012:197
30 Van Gastel, 2012:193
31 Van Gastel, 2012:198
32 Van Gastel, 2012:201

6. pathos33
in the figures’ movement and by contemplating them parallel or against other
similararchetypesof movementcontemporaryornotto the statue of Apollo and Daphne.
In conclusion, Van Gastel undoubtedly progresses a very rich analysis of Bernini’s
sculpture, Apollo and Daphne. The statue stands within its baroque legacy mobilising
‘particular kinds of subjectivities’34
. Whether agreeing with his arguments or not, many
aspects of the artwork’s interpretation come to light in a detailed and careful way in this
article. The invocation of perspective is as always more than necessary not only about the
way a text is written, but also in the way it is read. What we are left to realize at the end, is
than any methodology is questionable and can be critiqued. Interpretation and the beholder
are notions wide enough, to request in any context further scrutinising and alternative
meanings, because quite clear as Kemp puts it: ‘What his archetypal beholder really felt
while contemplatingthe workremainseternallyunspoken’35
.
-WORD COUNT:2.466
33 Christian,2014:25
34 Law, 2011: 3
35 Kemp, 1998:181

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Barker,E., (2014), ‘Block3: Section2: Reception’,inA843 MA Art History,Part1, available
from(accessedonthe 3rd
January 2015):
https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=606351
Christian,K.,‘Block3: Section1: Warburg,Panofskyandinterpretation’, inA843MA Art
History, Part 1, available at(accessedonthe 10th
January2015):
https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=605591
Kemp,W.,‘The Work of Artand Its Beholder:The Methodologyof AestheticReception’in
Cheetham,MarkA. (1998): ‘The subjectsof art history: historical objectsincontemporary
perspectives’,Cambridge,pp:180-196, available at(accessedonthe 11th
January2015):
http://archiv.ub.uni-
heidelberg.de/artdok/1916/1/Kemp_The_work_of_art_and_its_beholder_1998.pdf
Law, J.,(2011), ‘Assemblingthe Baroque’,Centre of ResearchonSocio-Cultural Change, The
OpenUniversity.Available at(accessedonthe 4th
November2014):
http://www.cresc.ac.uk/medialibrary/workingpapers/wp109.pdf
Preziosi, D., (2009), ‘The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology’, Oxford University Press, pp.
220-235
Van Gastel, J., J., (2012), ‘Bernini's metamorphosis: sculpture, poetry, and the embodied
beholder’, Word & Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry, 28:2, 193-205. Available online
at (accessedon the 18th
March, 2015): http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666286.2012.679494