0564Hermes_Giambologna

The depiction is very much dependent upon the first description of Hermes in Odyssey5, the descent of the messenger from the heights of Olympus: "He fastened on the supple sandals, ever-glowing gold, that wing him over the waves and boundless earth with the rush of gusting winds ... swooping down from Piera, down the high clear air, plunged to the sea and skimmed the waves like a tern."

Giambologna depicted many classical figures in his Renaissance works. In Giambologna's bronze, the weightless fleet god is held aloft by the likeness of a lithe spray from the mouth of a figurative personage.

Narrative gain: The artist has created here "a masterpiece of Late Renaissance Mannerism". What this means may be gleaned from Janson's History of Art [on the "Abduction of the Sabines"], in the chapter on "Mannerism and Other Trends" discussing another bronze by this same artist: "Bologna's purpose was virtuoso display. His self-imposed task was to [create] ... a sculptural composition that was to be viewed not from one but from all sides... figures, spiraling upward ...perform[ing] their well-rehearsed choreographic exercise with ease..." (p. 498) In other words: Giambologna was determined to create living realism in his artwork.

Further, on narrative gain:
The figure under his left foot a representation of a wind god, or a symbol of evaporation, or maybe a representation of the element mercury. "This [latter] is the sculptor's allusion to molten metal, which is transmuted and exhaled in the casting process into a new creation." (National Gallery infopage.) By this assessment, Giambologna's sculpture creates Mercury; the artist depicts the figurative creation of the artform; the consumate artist shapes molten metal into the form of a lively deity.