The two lives of a fountain

   It is exciting to imagine what the life of a building, a statue, an old memory could have been like in its heyday. We see ruins, worn and broken sculptures that can no longer reflect their original beauty. In addition to contemporary art and architecture, they are impressive even in their ruins, with a half-armed truncated sculpture far more impressive than most modern works. For my part, I love repainted sculptures and rebuilt buildings. This issue opens up dangerous debates, but let’s limit ourselves to digital restorations, which is a more harmless area. With digital help, you can dream of many things without anything wrong with the original, and you can change, vary, try the possibilities. This is a garden fountain here after being found and excavated, and a restored replica of what it might have been like. Obviously, in the case of a fountain, the question arises as to how close it is to the original or to what extent it differs from it. The point is the difference: what we see and what it may have been like in its majestic brilliance. Some of the ancient beauty is given by colors. Maybe they saw it that way too ...