Research








Daphne & Apollo
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1622-1625 Borghese Gallery, Rome


The Greek god Apollo insulted Eros, the god of love, by mocking him as a bad shot. In revenge, Eros shot a golden love arrow at Apollo and a leaden one at the nymph Daphne. The golden arrow caused Apollo to fall in undying love with Daphne. The nymph, however, fled from him, since the leaden arrow had caused exactly the opposite in her.Exhausted by the distress, Daphne asked her father, the river god Peneios, to change her shape, so desired by Apollo. Her wish was granted and she was transformed, before Apollo's eyes, into a laurel tree.








Hermaphrodite
Uffizii Galleries, Florence, IT


The Sleeping Hermaphroditus is a Roman sculpture from the 2nd century AD after a Hellenistic original.
In the body of Hermaphroditus, the male of father Hermes and the female of mother Aphrodite coexist harmoniously. Indeed, its dual nature expresses conciliation beyond opposites. The young and sinuous body is stretched out on a feline skin that the sculptor skilfully manages to reproduce in detail.
Praised by Michelangelo himself, it is undoubtedly one of the most sensual works of antiquity.Ovid in his Metamorphoses tells about the transformation of this extraordinary being.
In history, hermaphrodites were revered as superior creatures endowed with both sexes, celebrated as divinities beyond any gender conflicts.







The idea of delegating image production to machines can be traced back to two main developments: the creation of drawing tools for multiplying portraits, like the f. ex. ‘physionotrace,’ and to the conception of machines for reproducing sculpture, both of which were invented around 1800. With the invention of photography, modern reproduction techniques reached their peak. In 1842, the art historian Franz Kugler pronounced the “daguerreotype” and the “Collas’ Reducing Machine” as “machine works” that brought an “unprecedented spread of the sense of art” and “pleasure in artistic representation.”1 The number of new reproductive technologies that appeared during early industrialization affected the traditional working methods of mechanical-minded sculptors. Increasingautomatism, seriality, and labor division, modified sculptural practices in relation to industrial production processes and their advantages and usefulness for the arts.