A quickening of tempo appears in the figures on the 4 river gods designed by Bernini within the fountain in the center with the Piazza Navona when compared with Giovanni Bologna's figures over the Fountain of Oceanus while in the Boboli Back garden. In Tribolo's river god in the Villa Corsini, Bernini experienced a good nearer possible prototype for his sprawling figures, symbolizing the four continents of the earth thrown into attitudes of wonder at beholding the obelisk erected by the munificence of Harmless X. During this instance the figures are of white marble, contrasting with their rocky location, as in Montorsoli's rustic fountain on the triton at Genoa. The quite allegory in the 4 river gods follows a long Florentine tradition, which evidently commenced in 1536 Along with the short-term figures erected at the Ponte Santa Trinita in honor of Charles V, and was continued by Montorsoli and Francesco Camilliani.
For that triton which he modeled in 1633 for the middle of the fountain erected in the late sixteenth century at a person stop of The nice Piazza Navona, Bernini selected the outdated motif of a figure by using a spouting dolphin. The standing central figure dominating lesser creatures of the sea, present in numerous Tuscan fountains, is below brought to perfection, not merely from the naturalism and impetuous motion in the statue, but additionally in its Exercise, in the torsion of your body since the central ornament to some freestanding fountain. The skilful usage of contrapposto, the intensity of the facial expression, and the tossing with the tousled locks reinforce the impact of impassioned movement.
The pathos and agitation of baroque sculpture, like that of Scopas in antiquity, appear especially adapted to the representation with the restless creatures of The ocean. To start with look, it may well appear a significantly cry from the Neptunes of Ammannati and Giovanni Bologna, with their challenging modelling, to the liberty and verve of this determine; but Bernini's triumph would've been not outdoor water fountain possible without the extended and arduous exploration of your Florentine sculptors of the prior century in the issues introduced by a figure put at the center of the freestanding fountain.
Two of Bernini's isolated fountains are decorated with central figures of tritons spouting upward by way of a conch shell  the dropped fountain on the Villa Mattei, produced about 1629, regarded only from an etching in Falda, along with the popular Fontana del Tritone, erected inside the Piazza Barberini in 1640. As We've seen in an previously chapter, the motif of the triton spouting upward was recognised to Florentine sculptors while in the Cinquecento, and was even used as the central motif about freestanding fountains.
In his afterwards and a lot more monumental triton fountain, Bernini turned down the plurifacial treatment of his Tuscan prototypes for a simpler frontal conception far more Consistent with the colossal proportions of his determine. His utilization of travertine for a medium is especially joyful. Darkened by the h2o, and overgrown with moss until it seems a Portion of nature, this stone dissolves into the bordering environment far more commonly than the white marble usually made use of at Florence.