Apollo and Daphne

In the dialectical relationship of the faces Bernini concentrates the impassioned afflatus that is the expressive motif common to all his fables, and at the same time lays bare, with undisguised satisfaction, the prodigious resources of his craft, which masters the material with unsurpassable bravura, both in the rendering of feelings on the surface of the skin, and in the most skilful piercing of the fluid elements, in movement.