Bernini's Braids and the Intimacies of Stone.

This article examines the significance of braids in Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini’s early mythological marble sculptures, particularly *Pluto and Proserpina* (1621–1622) and *Apollo and Daphne* (1623–1625). It argues that Bernini’s braids are not merely decorative but serve as complex sites where artistic virtuosity, materiality of marble, and narratives of gender, desire, and power intersect. The braids embody the tension between the technical challenge of carving stone to mimic the fluidity and lightness of hair and the iconographic demands of representing female beauty, restraint, and erotic violence within the constraints of seventeenth-century decorum. Through theoretical and material analysis, the article situates Bernini’s braids as expressions of his mastery over marble—seen as a substance both firm and fluid—and as intimate markers of the sculptures’ emotional and narrative dynamics, reflecting broader cultural attitudes toward femininity, control, and artistic creation.