Apollo Attended by the Nymphs by François Girardon

Thinking Through Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)’s “The Origin of the Work of Art”

This elaborate sculptural ensemble from the gardens of Versailles does not simply illustrate mythology—it stages the Sun King’s cosmic world, where nature, myth, and sovereign order converge. Heidegger would see in it a temple-like grounding of a political cosmology, where Apollo is not just god, but world-center.

The bodies are fluid, symmetrical, classically poised. But they are also caught in theatrical time—a moment of mythic repose, framed by flowing gestures. The earth—marble, placed within the natural landscape—resists with silence, yet is transfigured into world by the context of courtly power.

Heidegger might say this work is not sacred, but ontologically sacred—it gathers the world of Louis XIV not as metaphor, but as truth set into beauty. The sculpture is a space of presencing, where myth serves not escapism but the foundation of terrestrial divinity. The nymphs don’t attend Apollo out of duty—they are emanations of his world, just as courtiers were to the king.