Metamorphosis and the aesthetics of loss: II. Lady of the woods--the transformative lens of Francesca Woodman

As interpreted by the celebrated American photographer, Francesca Woodman, the myth of Apollo and Daphne forms an allegorical locus for the transitions and tensions of adolescence and young adulthood. Woodman's employment of this myth and related themes is also expressive of a preoccupying topos of regressive longings. Seamlessly extending Ovid's transformation of the metamorphic myths into poetic epic, her work delves deeply into their driving purpose: to make sense of change, of loss, and of life itself. Over the millennia, classical myth is infused and enriched with personal meaning by the reanimating, clarifying and transformative lens of art.     

Metamorphosis and the aesthetics of loss: I. Mourning Daphne--the Apollo and Daphne paintings of Nicolas Poussin

The myth of Apollo and Daphne, as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is viewed through the self‐referential eye of the seicento painter, Nicolas Poussin. Collectively, the tree‐metaphoric myths are argued to metaphorically represent, mourn, and negate unbearable realities, including the developmental challenges of adolescence and adulthood – in particular, loss. Examined in the context of their aesthetic precedents and a close reading of Ovid ’s text, the two Apollo and Daphne paintings that bracket Poussin’s oeuvre are interpreted as conveying the conflict and ambiguity inherent to Ovid, as well as connotations more personal to the artist. The poetic and aesthetic reworking of the regressive, magical experience of metamorphosis restores it to the symbolic world of metaphor: for reparation, remembrance, and return.     

Metamorphosed characters in dreams: constraints of conceptual structure and amount of theory of mind

Dream reports from 21 dreamers in which a metamorphosis of a person-like entity or animal occurred were coded for characters and animals and for inner states attributed to them (Theory of Mind). In myths and fairy tales, Kelly and Keil (1985) found that conscious beings (people, gods) tend to be transformed into entities nearby in the conceptual structure of Keil (1979). This also occurred in dream reports, but perceptual nearness seemed more important than conceptual nearness. In dream reports, most inanimate objects involved in metamorphoses with person-like entities were objects such as statues that ordinarily resemble people physically, and moreover represent people. A metamorphosis of a person-like entity or animal did not lead to an increase in the amount of Theory of Mind attribution. We propose that a character-line starts when a character enters a dream; properties and Theory of Mind attributions tend to be preserved along the line, regardless of whether, metamorphoses occur on it.     

THE BLOSSOMS OF LOSS: OVID'S FLORAL METAMORPHOSES AND POUSSIN'S REALM OF FLORA

Alluring and fertile, the flower connotes a locus of desire. The floral metamorphic myths narrated in Ovid's Metamorphoses (AD 8a) thematize the price of desire—the shame, grief, and rage of rejection and rivalrous defeat—and symbolize the generative transformation that frustrated desire and competitive loss can promote. In the deceptively beautiful painting Realm of Flora of 1631, Nicolas Poussin enlists these myths as allegories of his own great creative leap, an aesthetic metamorphosis that followed shattering defeats. Extending the association between creativity and object loss to competitive loss, Poussin holds a mirror to our powerful drive to prevail and create anew from the ashes of loss.