Apollo and Daphne

Bernini began this for Cardinal Scipione Borghese at twenty-three, already the most famous sculptor in Rome. He chose the one instant no sculptor had dared: Ovid's metamorphosis at its exact midpoint — Apollo's hand closing on Daphne's waist in the same breath her prayer to escape him is answered.

The transformation reads at the speed of walking. Circle the group as the Borghese hang intends: from behind Apollo it is a chase; a quarter-turn and her fingers are lengthening into laurel twigs; another and bark is climbing her thigh, her toes rooting, her hair bursting into a crown of leaves. Marble is made to do what bronze and paint could not — show time.

The technique remains barely believable. The laurel leaves ring when struck; the bark is undercut until it floats free of the leg; drapery and hair thin to translucency against the window light. Bernini's workshop drilled and carved Carrara to the thickness of a coin and the gallery has kept the sightlines that prove it.

It is the Baroque's whole argument in one group — sculpture as theater, stone as flesh in motion — and a strange, sad poem about pursuit: the moment desire finally touches its object is the moment the object becomes something else entirely.