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The Neptune fountain was commissioned by Kaiser Wilhelm II,
made more than a hundred years ago (1886-91) by Reinhold Begas,
and originally placed on the south side of the Berlin City Palace,
the former Royal Palace. It was severely damaged during the War,
thoroughly restored, and re-erected at its current location in
1969.
You can see the Neptune fountain in the center of East Berlin
if you walk from Alexanderplatz through the windswept square
between the TV Tower (Fernsehturm), the Red City Hall (Rotes
Rathaus), and the Palace of the Republic (Palast der Republik).
Surrounded by faceless socialist architecture, the baroque fountain
in bronze and granite seems slightly out of place here, yet this
simply adds to its fascination.
Neptune is the Roman name for
Poseidon, the Greek god of the Sea.
When Begas made the Neptune fountain over 100 years ago, the
Kaiser was interested in turning Germany into a sea power. Kaiser
Wilhelm II is conventionally portrayed as an anti-Semite and
a reactionary whose policies, particularly the buildup of the
German navy, inevitably led to World War I.
"In the first biography of the last kaiser in over 30
years, Giles MacDonogh describes a more complex man with far
more in common with his English mother, Queen Victoria's daughter
Vicky, than is usually acknowledged. 'He had inherited her memory,
her lack of snobbery, openness, vivacity, moodiness, over-estimation
of her own importance, her cleverness without wisdom,' writes
MacDonogh, characteristically listing both good and bad traits
without moralizing" (amazon.com).
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Weichsel III
According to classical mythology, Poseidon was
swallowed by his father Cronos. Cronos was the son of Uranus
who was the first ruler of the universe.
It is told that Uranus hated his own children
and kept them imprisoned underground. This grieved their mother
Gaia who encouraged a revolt against him. Uranus was overthrown.
However, the new ruler Cronos shut his siblings up in the same
dark depth again. His parents prophesized that he would be dethroned
by his own son. In order to escape his fate, Cronos began to
swallow his children at birth. This enraged his wife Rhea because
she was always pregnant and never a mother.
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Oder II
There are different versions of these classical myths. Sometimes
it is told that Cronos did not swallow Poseidon, that Cronos
cast Poseidon under the sea or that Rhea told Cronos that she
had given birth to a horse and gave him a foal to swallow instead
of the child. When Zeus was born, she prevented him from being
swallowed by giving Cronos a stone wrapped in clothes instead,
as if it were the newborn child.
Metis, the goddess of all wisdom and knowledge, is rarely
mentioned although she plays a very important role in classical
mythology. After she helped Zeus against his father, he forced
her to become his first wife. Zeus became concerned over prophecies
that their child would replace him when she was pregnant with
Athena and swallowed Metis to prevent this. It is rarely recognized
that Metis was the mother of Athena because the Greeks discounted
the women´s role and because Zeus swallowed Metis before
Athena was born. The Greeks used to believe that children evolve
from their fathers sperm and women were nothing more than a vessel
for the fetus to grow in.
The bronze sculptures are covered with green patina and highlighted
by the red clinker brick from the mark Brandenburg that was used
to build the City Hall in the background. Their charisma, openness,
and transparency is magnified by the closed dealings that are
associated with the Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall) where the East
Berlin SED top mayor resided until 1990.
Reinhold Begas was born in 1831 in Berlin and studied sculpture
in Italy (1856-1858). After 1870, Begas dominated the plastic
art in Prussia, especially in Berlin. The Neptune fountain belongs
to his major works during this period.
In the midst of sculptures and water cascades, the ten meter
high god Neptune, trident in hand, reigns supreme in a huge shell
carried by tritons and surrounded by ocean nymphs. Denizens of
the deep (a seal, an alligator, snakes and turtles) are spraying
water while four female figures which represent the four rivers
that once ran through Prussian territory (the Rhine, the Weichsel,
the Oder, and the Elbe) are pouring water into the fountain.
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For us to get the science we need, independent research that
does not ignore or trivialize cultural and social variables must
continue.
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"In
giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude"
(A Guide for Grown-ups: Essential Wisdom from the Collected Works
of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) |
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Elbe
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Alligator
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Weichsel I
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Weichsel II
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Weichsel IV
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Oder I
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Oder III
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Oder IV
<
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Snake
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Fernweh
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Gender
identity is linked
to bulimia
According to classical mythology, the course of
life is fixed, an inevitable fate, an unavoidable sequence of
events. In this tragedy, the future is predetermined. Human beings
can feel afraid of coming events, but they cannot prevent anything.
Events that take place are interpreted as evidence that it had
to be this way and that the law was confirmed.
The mainstream idea of science as advances in knowledge
that inevitably take a predesigned course is comparable. According
to the mainstream, there is only one science, and if Newton or
Einstein had not made the great discoveries they did others would
have made the same findings sooner or later.
A different model of science which is in stark
contrast to the Greek concept is based on the epic theater of
Bertolt Brecht. According to this model, only necessary, but
not sufficient conditions can be "reconstructed". Walter
Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht developed this idea independent of
each other: "It
could be this way, however, something entirely different could
happen as well."
The
Last Kaiser:
The Life of Wilhelm II
Italian
Baroque Sculpture
(World of Art)
Das
Gastmahl
oder von der Liebe |