A quickening of tempo seems from the figures on the four river gods made by Bernini over the fountain in the middle on the Piazza Navona when put next with Giovanni Bologna's figures about the Fountain of Oceanus during the Boboli Back garden. In Tribolo's river god with the Villa Corsini, Bernini experienced an even nearer achievable prototype for his sprawling figures, representing the four continents of the globe thrown into attitudes of speculate at beholding the obelisk erected through the munificence of Innocent X. With this occasion the figures are of white marble, contrasting with their rocky environment, as in Montorsoli's rustic fountain of your triton at Genoa. The pretty allegory on the four river gods follows a lengthy Florentine custom, which evidently commenced in 1536 Together with the short term figures erected for the Ponte Santa Trinita in honor of Charles V, and was continued by Montorsoli and Francesco Camilliani.
To the triton which he modeled in 1633 for the center of a fountain erected from the late sixteenth century at one conclude of The nice Piazza Navona, Bernini selected the old motif of the figure using a spouting dolphin. The standing central figure dominating lesser creatures of the sea, present in numerous Tuscan fountains, is here introduced to perfection, don't just during the naturalism and impetuous movement on the statue, but additionally in its fitness, from the torsion of the human body because the central ornament to the freestanding fountain. The skilful use of contrapposto, the depth of your facial expression, as well as the tossing from the tousled locks reinforce the perception of impassioned movement.
The pathos and agitation of baroque sculpture, like that of Scopas in antiquity, seem to be notably adapted towards the representation with the restless creatures of The ocean. At the beginning glance, it might appear a significantly cry in the Neptunes of Ammannati and Giovanni Bologna, with their tough modelling, to the freedom and verve of this determine; but Bernini's triumph would have been unattainable with no lengthy and arduous study in the Florentine sculptors on the earlier century in the problems presented by a figure placed at the middle of a freestanding fountain.
Two of Bernini's isolated fountains are decorated with central figures of tritons spouting upward by way of a conch shell  the missing fountain in the Villa Mattei, constructed about 1629, recognised only from an etching in Falda, plus the famed Fontana del Tritone, erected from the Piazza Barberini in 1640. As Now we have witnessed within an earlier chapter, the motif with the triton spouting upward was known to Florentine sculptors from outdoor water fountains the Cinquecento, and was even used as being the central motif above freestanding fountains.
In his later on plus much more monumental triton fountain, Bernini rejected the plurifacial cure of his Tuscan prototypes for an easier frontal conception much more in keeping with the colossal proportions of his figure. His utilization of travertine as being a medium is particularly pleased. Darkened through the h2o, and overgrown with moss until It appears a Element of mother nature, this stone dissolves in the surrounding ambiance far more easily than the white marble usually utilized at Florence.