Detail, Brabo Fountain, Antwerp, Belgium, 2005 by Phil Douglis

Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Five: Stimulating the imagination with “opposites and contradictions” > Detail, Brabo Fountain, Antwerp, Belgium, 2005

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15-JUN-2005

Detail, Brabo Fountain, Antwerp, Belgium, 2005

This 1887 fountain, which stands in the midst of Antwerp’s town square, features a number of classical goddesses, each sculpted in bronze in classical Victorian form. I moved in to emphasize the detail on the face of one of them, contrasting the 19th century standard of feminine beauty with the reality of 21st century environmental wear and tear. Her classic beauty has become a grotesque contradiction. Her bronze face is now green; soot blackens her cheeks and pits her skin, while brownish patches scar her arm and forehead. The water spewing from her open mouth seems to suggest regurgitation more than mythical allegory. She has become exactly the opposite of the Victorian ideal, and therein lays the tale of this image.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20
1/200s f/4.0 at 72.0mm iso80 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto

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Phil Douglis		13-Jul-2005 21:31
Thanks, Marisa, for adding to your comments on this image. As I noted in my caption, this figure began as an icon of great beauty but today is the very opposite of that Victorian ideal. She is indeed decadent and sad. And yes, she is overwhelmed. She has given in, surrendered. Her soul is, as you say, running out of her body. I love the way you link the centuries here, when you tell us that this 19th Century fountain has become a sister to the bloated lips and stone faces that you and Ruthie shot in Paris.

Guest		13-Jul-2005 10:44
Looking again at this picture, it is all about decadence and a profound sadness. It is not about beauty, because what touched me a lot is the expression of the face: she looks overwhelmed; her eyes looking down, her right arm trying to hold the whole self -but we can't see from where is she going to hold herself, and that gives the sensation that the falling is inminent; the scrambled hair made me remember more to the Medusa's story than to some kind of an excited moment; the scars all over her body... And that's why I wrote that the mouth maybe is spitting "enormous tears of that imprisoned and defeted soul". I feel that the woman is draining her soul -the spiritual content- from her body... until arriving at the time of the existencial emptiness... After two hundred years of a drained soul, your 19th century fountain has turned into Ruthie's and Marisa's new millenium images: cold, lusty, lonely and empty lips.

Phil Douglis		07-Jul-2005 18:46
Thank you, Dirk. It is my pleasure to bring my own view of Belgium to a great Belgian photographer such as yourself. What you say here is very true. We often become oblivious to the familiar. We look only for the unfamiliar. To me, the Brabo Fountain was a study in the unfamiliar. To you, it is part of your neighborhood. I always tell my students to look at the familiar with the eyes of a stranger. Easier said than done, of course. It takes work to see things with new eyes. One way to begin is to break a subject down. I began by shooting the whole fountain, but it looked like just another fountain. I had to discover its essence by abstracting it, piece by piece. This is one of those pieces.

Guest		07-Jul-2005 12:48
Hi Phil, I saw this in real life a few days ago, the week before and lots of times a year but never looked close at this statue, it becomes to common if you see it very much and that's why I'm glad to see this wonderfull and strong image, a piece of art on his own, it shows me that I have to look at everything around me. I've seen so much uninteresting pictures from Brabo, it must have been photographed millions of times but this is the first time that I'm stunned. Thanks a lot for that Phil, and what a pity that I wasn't there at that moment to meet you, I'm living quite close to the center of Antwerp. With kind regards, Dirk

Phil Douglis		06-Jul-2005 23:05
You must be a mind reader, Marisa! I was thinking about both Ruthie's stone faces and your image of those spitting lips while making this photograph. Ruth's photo (which is now can be found at:http://www.pbase.com/ruthemily/image/43932703 ) was about echoes of rejection and loss to me, while yours spoke of the mechanization of sexuality. While their meanings differ from what I intended to say here, each of those images used symbols of allure, lipstick in Ruth's case and lips in yours, to express the very opposite -- repulsion. I wanted to use the symbolic classical beauty of this sculpture to express the opposite as well. Decadence is a good word for it, Marisa. She has been ravaged by time and the environment. I find your description of the black markings on her face as "bitter tears of old beauty that has disappeared" as a perfect metaphor for this image. I also am intrigued by your remark about the spitting mouth representing "enormous tears of an imprisoned and defeated soul." Your own image athttp://www.pbase.com/mlt/image/43688055 was, in my view, spitting back into the face of a greedy, technologically advanced system that has dehumanized human sexuality. I am saying something very similar here by contrasting a classical 19th century ideal with a harsh 21st century reality. Thanks for pointing it out in your comment.

Guest		06-Jul-2005 22:02
When I first saw this image I thougth of Ruth Hanson's 'Hearts of stone, lips of lust' athttp://www.pbase.com/ruthemily/image/43932703 , and my own photograph 'french kiss' athttp://www.pbase.com/mlt/image/43688055 . This picture has become an extraordinary contradiction and paradox in itself! The fountain and the woman's face particulary shows a profound and amazing decadence...she's breaking in pieces, slowly, day by day.. the black marks in her face became bitter tears of an old beauty that has already disappeared... Her expression is the one of a deep discouragement, when nothing else can be done to recover the old power. On the other hand, that spitting mouth has nothing to do with beauty... maybe are the enormous tears of that imprisioned and defeated soul.

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