''Neptune and Triton'' is an early sculpture by the Italian artist

Gian Lorenzo Bernini Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (, , ; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 159828 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his ...

. It is housed in the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

of London and was executed c. 1622–1623. Carved from

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...

, it stands 182.2 cm (71.7 in) in height.

History

The marble sculpture group was originally commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Damascenti-Peretti Montalto in 1620, and executed March 1622 to February 1623, serving as a fountain to decorate the pond in the garden of his Villa Peretti Montalto on the

Viminal Hill The Viminal Hill ( ; la, Collis Vīminālis ; it, Viminale ) is the smallest of the famous Seven Hills of Rome. A finger-shape cusp pointing toward central Rome between the Quirinal Hill to the northwest and the Esquiline Hill to the southeast ...

in Rome. The group was placed in the pre-existing oval pool (called the Peschiera or Peschierone), designed by

Domenico Fontana Domenico Fontana (154328 June 1607) was an Italian architect of the late Renaissance, born in today's Ticino. He worked primarily in Italy, at Rome and Naples. Biography He was born at Melide, a village on the Lake Lugano, at that time joint p ...

in 1579–81. It was purchased by the Englishman Thomas Jenkins in 1786, from whom it was purchased later that year by the painter

Joshua Reynolds Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depend ...

. The work had been called "Neptune and Glaucus" following

Filippo Baldinucci Filippo Baldinucci (3 June 1625 – 10 January 1696) was an Italian art historian and biographer. Life Baldinucci is considered among the most significant Florentine biographers/historians of the artists and the arts of the Baroque period ...

's biography of the artist, but appears as "Nettvno, e Tritone" in Domenico de' Rossi's engraving (1704), and also later corrected to "Neptune and Triton" following Reynolds' notes. After Reynolds's death in 1792 it was sold to

Charles Anderson-Pelham, 1st Baron Yarborough Charles Anderson-Pelham, 1st Baron Yarborough FRS FSA (3 February 1749 – 22 September 1823) was a British politician. Early life Anderson-Pelham was born Charles Anderson in Broughton, Lincolnshire, the eldest son and heir of Francis Anders ...

, who kept it in the garden of his home in

Chelsea, London Chelsea is an affluent area in west London, England, due south-west of Charing Cross by approximately 2.5 miles. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the south-western postal area. Chelsea histori ...

, Walpole House. His descendants moved it in 1906 to their country house, Brocklesby Park,

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

. It was bought from the family by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1950, although it had appeared at an exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 1938.

Literary reference

The scene is thought to be making loose allusions to

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...

and

Triton Triton commonly refers to: * Triton (mythology), a Greek god * Triton (moon), a satellite of Neptune Triton may also refer to: Biology * Triton cockatoo, a parrot * Triton (gastropod), a group of sea snails * ''Triton'', a synonym of ''Triturus' ...

aiding Trojan ships as described, by

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

, or

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

or both, together with additional material. In Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'', Neptune bids Triton to blow his shell to calm the waves, In Virgil's ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...

'', Neptune calms the waves and afterwards, the nereid Cymothoe and

dislodge Aeneas's ships, helped in the effort by Neptune using the

trident A trident is a three- pronged spear. It is used for spear fishing and historically as a polearm. The trident is the weapon of Poseidon, or Neptune, the God of the Sea in classical mythology. The trident may occasionally be held by other marine ...

. But neither passages precisely match and the artist must have patched together a version using other sources.

Iconography

The composition of Bernini's ''Neptune and Triton'' consists of Neptune standing astride over Triton; Triton lies in sort of a "crouching" position; the two figures mounted on a large half-shell, which serves as socle. Neptune aims his

seawards, while Triton is blowing his conch. The conch was designed to spurt out gushing water, in order that the sculpture could serve as a fountain. The posture of Neptune's stance, the filling-in of the reverse-V-shaped

negative space Negative space, in art, is the empty space around and between the subject(s) of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and su ...

by another figure (of Triton), were "radical" departures from for Bernini, as it was his "first work in which the silhouette (i.e. block-shape) is broken", and his achievement of "full Baroque freedom", in the words of

Rudolf Wittkower Rudolf Wittkower (22 June 1901 – 11 October 1971) was a British art historian specializing in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture, who spent much of his career in London, but was educated in Germany, and later moved to the Unite ...

. However, Wittkower also qualified that Bernini was yet to attain the dynamism ("the great sweeping movement which animates both ''David'' and ''Pluto'' 'and Daphne''") in his subsequent works.

Neptune

Neptune is represented as a "mature bearded", muscular figure of male authority, twisting his torso as he is about to thrust his trident in downward motion towards water.: "(H)e turns his , which gushes forth at his feet, imposing his command by thrusting down with his trident". Neptune sports a cloak, but is otherwise naked. His "touseled hair and beard", suggests the storminess in this scene. Wittkower who subscribed to the view this was a reenactment of Virgil, was satisfied that this gesture was Neptune, with an "angry look towards the water", calming the waves with his trident.;

John Pope-Hennessy Sir John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy (13 December 1913 – 31 October 1994), was a British art historian. Pope-Hennessy was Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum between 1967 and 1973, and Director of the British Museum between 1974 and 1976. ...

pointed out the defect that Bernini did not include the nereid if he was reenacting Virgil's passage, and suggested a quote from Ovid as basis; it was then counter-argued that this Ovid passage too was defective in failing to mention the trident explicitly. Collier pointed out it was peculiar that Neptune should wear a wrathful expression calming the sea, and suggested a different passage from Ovid where Neptune was in wrath, but this too was flawed as it did not mention Trident. Collier also remarked that if Virgil was the source, Neptune might not have been waving the trident at the sea, but rather using the instrument to dislodge the ships from the rocks, as stated in the poem. But since Bernini's work failed to hint at any presence of ships, this proposition seemed untenable to him. As a side-note, it has also been noticed that ends of Neptune's drapery are made to look like a dolphin's head. It has been suggested this pays homage to the classical writing by Ovid, at a different passage that mentions the Neptune and dolphins (but not Triton), as well as to the general Ovidian theme of transformations in the ''Metamorphosis'' and other works. Barrow on the other hand perceived light-heartedness in the artistic touch here, which was "evocative of the spirit of Hellenistic Rococo".

Triton

Triton, Neptune's son, is positioned below Neptune's legs, thrusting himself forward to blow the conch shell. He is noticeably younger, maybe a teenage boy, though also with defined musculature. He blows his shell as a horn to announce that the king of the earth and oceans is approaching. Triton grasps Neptune's leg and ducks his left shoulder between the thighs of Neptune. Bernini's Triton is double-tailed, simulating the two-legged human, both in this sculpture group and in his later work, the

Triton Fountain Fontana del Tritone (''Triton Fountain'') is a seventeenth-century fountain in Rome, by the Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Commissioned by his patron, Pope Urban VIII, the fountain is located in the Piazza Barberini, near the entrance to ...

in Rome.

Naturalism

The naturalism of the figures suggests the artist's intention to elicit an immediate emotional response to the viewer. Neptune's furrowed brow gives a sense of his fierce strength. His stance is set in stone, solidifying his divine power. In contrast, Triton looks somewhat submissive while he is grabbing Neptune's thigh. His face looks to be full of anxiety as if he knows that he should obey whatever Neptune commands him to do. His timid nature and Neptune's dominate presence display the reality of human emotion and brings back the point of Bernini's plan to convey myths coming to life. Bernini gave the audience the chance to "see" these gods in person; in movement. This was Bernini's first sculpture to " …work where the silhouette is broken, where the climax of a transitory action is given and where the action extends beyond the physical limits". The point of the sculpture is to bring the viewer to face a myth or story to be true and real by its dramatic tension in the body positions and subtle hints at natural life. He was making the myths, rumours and stories an opportunity to be true and demand its viewer to believe in its truth.

Gallery

Image:Detail of Triton from Bernini's Neptune and Triton, 1622-3.JPG, Detail of Triton Image:Bernini's Neptune and Triton, 1622-3.JPG, (front view) Image:Bernini's Neptune and Triton, 1622-3 (2).JPG, (side view)

Explanatory notes

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * * * * * * * * *

External links

Web Gallery of Art
{{Use British English, date=February 2015 1620s sculptures Sculptures of the Victoria and Albert Museum Fountains in Rome Marble sculptures in the United Kingdom Sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini Sculptures of Neptune Sculptures of Triton (mythology) Seashells in art Sculptures based on Metamorphoses Works based on the Aeneid