 |
| Andrea Zoan Fountain with Statue of Neptune ca. 1480-84 engraving National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
 |
| Raffaellino da Reggio (Raffaele Motta) Design for a Fountain before 1578 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Domenico Parasacchi Fountain, Piazza di S. Pietro in Vaticano 1637 etching Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
 |
| Giovanni Battista Falda Fountain, Piazza di S. Pietro in Vaticano ca. 1691 etching British Museum |
 |
| Anonymous Artist Design for a Fountain 17th century drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
 |
| Anonymous Dutch Printmaker Fontana della Barcaccia, Piazza di Spagna, Rome (seen shortly before the building of the Spanish Steps) ca. 1675-1700 etching Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
 |
| Anonymous Italian Artist Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, Piazza Navona, Rome ca. 1700-1750 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Anonymous Belgian Needleworker Cap Crown with Fountain Motif ca. 1750 bobbin lace (linen) Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
 |
| Charles-Albert Lespilliez after Jean-François Cuvilliés Design for Interior Niche with Fountain before 1768 engraving Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
 |
| Antoine-Alexandre-Joseph Cardon after Antoine-Jean Ansiau Design for Fountain with Triton ca. 1772-73 etching Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
 Francis Frith Fountain, Champs-Élysées, Paris ca. 1865 albumen print Princeton University Art Museum |
 |
| Robert Hope The Fountain, Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh ca. 1895 oil on board McManus Gallery, Dundee, Scotland |
 |
| John Singer Sargent Fountain of Neptune, Piazza della Signoria, Florence 1902 oil on panel Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Constant Montald Fountain of Inspiration 1907 oil on canvas Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
 |
| Baron Adolf De Meyer Fountain of Saturn, Versailles 1912 photogravure Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia |
 |
| Blanc et Demilly Fontaine des Jacobins, Lyon ca. 1930 photogravure Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Carl Van Vechten Fountain, Villa Communale, Naples (copy of antique Castor and Pollux in Madrid) ca. 1935 gelatin silver print Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Forget How to Remember How to Forget
"I have a rotten memory" began
The American version of that long
French novel; and save for the telling word
Leaping in all its colors out of the
Grayish blank, or for the mad turn of phrase
That I, unyielding judge, committed to
My bedlam memory, I cannot come
Up with exactly what was said even
In a recent conversation. Books can
Remember, for they have written it all
Down – they are in themselves all written down –
And, as Phaedrus was famously told in
That lovely grove (and this was written down),
Writing is remembering's enemy.
Writing it down – thereby writing it up,
The "it" here being language or event –
Allows what was told to recall itself.
The flux of our experience will dry
Into mere flecks; once-great spots of time now
Are filmy moments of place, on the page,
In the full course – or somewhere on the banks –
Of all that streams behind me. And the dear
Name of oh, Whatshername, herself – oh, yes
Mnemosyne (lost for a minute in
An overstuffed, messy drawer, crammed with names)
Is all I have to call on for a guide
To wherever back up the relentless
River I might momently have to go.
And who, when hindsight frays, would want the most
Obvious compensation of foresight,
Prophecy creeping into the places
Recall was slowly vacating? Only
The young with so much to look forward to
And little to remember could call it
A reasonable deal, and better to
Go on climbing, as steps on steps arise
And it all keeps dissolving into that
Father of Waters that every fresh
Moment originates anew, the while
Some sort of sweet, silent judgment commutes
All that, accessible or not, streams out
Behind you into time already served.
– John Hollander (1994)
