Brewer Fountain
Saturday, March 1st, 2014I guess I’m a little obsessed with Brewer Fountain, but can you blame me? It’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s a fountain in Boston Common, right near the Park Street station, at the foot of the hill where the red-brick gold-domed State House sits. It depicts two aquatic couples from Greek Mythology, Neptune and Amphitrite, and Acis and Galatea. While the four figures sit with their backs to eachother facing in all four directions, the couples lean around to glance at eachother. The details are magnificent, and it’s picture perfect from absolutely every single angle.
I did a drawing of this fountain in 2006, a few years after the fountain had stopped working. About two years later, after being inspired by an artist who draws in dark pencil directly on his paintings, I spent the Fall of 2008 creating a painting of the fountain from the same angle as the drawing. Continuing a series of sculpture-paintings that I’ve been working on for many years, I depicted the bronze figures with flesh tones and colorful drapery. I gave that painting to my boyfriend at the time, now my husband.
In 2009, I was deprived of the chance to visit my favorite fountain when they began a huge restoration project of the fountain and the surrounding plaza. In May 2010, the restored fountain was unveiled as a shiny new functioning fountain!
Last summer, I happened to be in Boston Common at that perfect dusk moment when the street lights have come on, but it’s still light enough out for the sky to be a gorgeous shade of deep blue. I snapped a photo that ended up turning in to a painting, which I finished this morning.
Here’s a handful of photos that I’ve taken of my beloved Brewer Fountain over the last few years, including photos that I took to help me with the painting.
