Pluto and Proserpina

To provide the sculptural equivalent of the poetic narrative, not in allusive terms but as an immediate representation of the event, means solving the problem of the dynamic relationship of the figures with space and offering every foothold for perfect verisimilitude. If the complex articulation of the figures powerfully enlivens the ideal cubic box of the representational scene, of the imaginary stage on which the protagonists gesticulate, the prodigious technical skill that had already astounded all Rome at the first revelation of the enfant prodige achieves an illusionistic execution that had had no equal even in the production of the most skilful Alexandrian sculptors. The chisel pursues the light in the subtlest vibrations of the skin and marks its yielding elasticity; in the modelling it seeks the pulsations of life, with sensual excitement.