Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts
Year: 2023
DOI:
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Time is on Our Side: An Exploration of Augustinian Temporality in Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne
Linda Steele
ABSTRACT:
St. Augustine of Hippo devotes much of Book XI, of his Confessions, to a narrative defining what is meant by “time” within the theology of Christianity. Augustine notes, “we measure the passage of time when we measure the intervals of perception. But who can measure times past which now are no longer, or times future which are not yet…Therefore, while time is passing, it can be perceived and measured; but when it is past, it cannot, since it is not.”
He further extrapolates “[it is] clear that there are neither times future nor times past…it is not properly said that there are three times, past, present, and future…it might be said rightly that there are three times: a time present of things past; a time present of things present; and a time present of things future. Renaissance and Baroque artists employed naturalism combined with temporal interpretations, to illustrate these ideas of collapsing space and time proposed by St. Augustine. Alfred Acres defines mundane/worldly time as the temporal passage of years or moments that are depicted on one plane of existence. It is a concrete narrative that occurs in a singular dimension. As Acres notes, “time is construed on patently experiential terms and bound into the articulation of the world from—or to—a specific point of view, which invites a comprehensive involvement of the observer.”
Thus, the challenge for the artist was finding new ways to create images that would convey to the Christian worshipper Augustine’s theology. Their artworks must envelope the ideas of Augustine and others, of collapsing Christian temporality. This paper will explore how Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne sculpture uses Augustinian concepts of Christian temporality in order to transform a pagan myth into a Christian allegory. In doing so, he is able to sculpt a moment “frozen in time” while still showcasing the fluidity of temporal concepts.
keywords: Augustine, Borghese, Ovid, Sculpture, Temporal