Mrs. Charles MacVeagh

“ The ideas which Bernini strove to express cannot be portrayed. Music is the only artistic medium by which they can be rendered, and in looking at the Bernini sculpture as well as architecture it is impossible not to wish that this artist of such undeniable genius and immense facility had been a musician. As the composer and interpreter of great brio music Bernini might have given no less pleasure to the men of his time and have secured from posterity a kindlier appreciation. ”

“ Men were made to live on the surface of things, and in proportion as they hecame formal and superficial in themselves they demanded excitement and extravagance in their art. This was the secret of Bernini's immense success. He was exactly fitted to his time. Men wanted " Sound and fury, signifying nothing," and he gave it to them in full measure.
In this fountain he strove to produce the effect of a wild concourse of waters. ”

“ On top of one of the rocks crawls a serpent, and a mass of cactus grows upward from behind one of the rivers. In the lower basin two monstrous travertine fisb are disporting themselves in characteristic Bernini contortions. Escutcheons bearing the arms of Leo X (three fleur-de-lis and a dove with an olive-branch) of course are not wanting. All this sculpture is in travertine. ~*~This fountain has been called Bernini's masterpiece, and it deserves that title as an example of the utmost length to which the Bernini idea of artistic invention can be carried. ”