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Bernini's Four Rivers Fountain |
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written
by acz / 09.13.2004 |
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Conclusion |
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Part of the reason the fountain is able to have such a strong impact on people today, far removed from the political context of the 17th Century, is the way in which it involves the viewer. Bernini’s fountain creates a relationship between its forms and the beholder, primarily through the use of multiple viewpoints and the way the carvings direct the eye. By using such devices as complex axial relationships, broken contours, and protruding extremities, Bernini was able to stress specific viewing places as well as to heighten the effect of momentary motion. This structures the viewing experience so that every space, real and artistic, is ‘charged with significance’. For example, with the lion and the horse, their rears appear in one gap and their fronts in the diagonally adjacent one. This encourages the viewer to walk around the fountain searching to resolve the image. Such encouraged interaction includes the viewer in the action of the sculpture and thus creates a link between real and artistic space. Also, the diagonal, spiraling poses of the gods, as well as their gestures and glances, directs the viewer’s eyes in several directions so that he or she experiences the whole fountain rather than one isolated part. Thus, the beholder becomes intimately involved in viewing the fountain and cannot remain an indifferent bystander.
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