A quickening of tempo appears during the figures in the 4 river gods produced by Bernini over the fountain in the middle from the Piazza Navona compared with Giovanni Bologna's figures over the Fountain of Oceanus within the Boboli Backyard garden. In Tribolo's river god for the Villa Corsini, Bernini experienced an excellent nearer doable prototype for his sprawling figures, symbolizing the 4 continents of the world thrown into attitudes of question at beholding the obelisk erected through the munificence of Innocent X. During this occasion the figures are of white marble, contrasting with their rocky placing, as in Montorsoli's rustic fountain on the triton at Genoa. The quite allegory with the four river gods follows a long Florentine custom, which seemingly commenced in 1536 Using the temporary figures erected at the Ponte Santa Trinita in honor of Charles V, and was ongoing by Montorsoli and Francesco Camilliani.
For that triton which he modeled in 1633 for the center of the fountain erected from the late sixteenth century at just one conclude of the great Piazza Navona, Bernini selected the previous motif of a determine using a spouting dolphin. The standing central determine dominating lesser creatures of the sea, existing in a great number of Tuscan fountains, is listed here brought to perfection, not simply inside the naturalism and impetuous movement on large water fountains the statue, and also in its Physical fitness, through the torsion of your body as the central ornament to your freestanding fountain. The skilful use of contrapposto, the intensity of your facial expression, along with the tossing of the tousled locks reinforce the impact of impassioned motion.
The pathos and agitation of baroque sculpture, like that of Scopas in antiquity, appear specially adapted on the illustration in the restless creatures of The ocean. Initially glance, it could seem to be a considerably cry from your Neptunes of Ammannati and Giovanni Bologna, with their really hard modelling, to the liberty and verve of the determine; but Bernini's triumph would have been unattainable without the prolonged and arduous investigate of the Florentine sculptors in the preceding century in the problems offered by a figure placed at the center of the freestanding fountain.
Two of Bernini's isolated fountains are decorated with central figures of tritons spouting upward via a conch shell  the shed fountain of the Villa Mattei, built about 1629, identified only from an etching in Falda, along with the popular Fontana del Tritone, erected while in the Piazza Barberini in 1640. As We've got noticed within an previously chapter, the motif in the triton spouting upward was recognized to Florentine sculptors in the Cinquecento, and was even used because the central motif over freestanding fountains.
In his afterwards plus much more monumental triton fountain, Bernini rejected the plurifacial procedure of his Tuscan prototypes for a less complicated frontal conception a lot more Consistent with the colossal proportions of his figure. His usage of travertine like a medium is especially satisfied. Darkened by the drinking water, and overgrown with moss until it seems a Component of nature, this stone dissolves in the surrounding environment extra easily compared to white marble usually employed at Florence.