The Cajal fountain in the Retiro Park (Madrid, Spain)

The Cajal fountain in the Retiro Park (Image: AFM, 2006).

This is the Cajal fountain in the Retiro Park, funded by public subscription on the occasion of Cajal’s retirement as professor, at the age of 70. Reclining on a couch, resting on a pedestal in the middle of the pool lies the scholar, the torso naked, as superior as an Assyrian bull.  He is protected by Minerva, goddess of wisdom and a thousand crafts, no longer with weapons or aegis, her fasces and a crown in one hand. And enclosing the back, two walls with allegorical reliefs, Fons Vitae and Fons Mortis, each with its water spout.

The monument, the work of Victorio Macho, was inaugurated in 1926, although Cajal’s head and one of the reliefs had been displayed the previous year in the Salón de Artistas Ibéricos. The exhibition manifesto, signed not only by Macho but also by Lorca, Falla, Vàzquez Dìaz and thirteen others, proclaimed the culture of sensitivity and the spirit. This group of ibericos renewed Spanish art in the 1920’s and was the germ of the avant-garde in our country. Victorio Macho, the silvan, as he was dubbed in the Escuela de San Fernando, was for decades the main figure of the veta brava of Spanish sculpture.

The Cajal fountain, one of the first mature works in the production of Victorio Macho, lies between the modernist avant-garde and the art déco, with gentle curves, symmetries and motifs of the ancient Mediterranean world, and a clear demonstration of the nationalism that inspired this sculptor, with typically Spanish epic tones, with a certain religious feeling. Thus, the bas-relief of Fons Mortis in the Cajal fountain is no more than a Hispanic pieta; Margarita Nelken likened it to the Virgen de las Angustias, who gazes face to face at death, accompanied by the image of the sage, immobile, serene, and silent.

Water is an essential allegorical element in this Cajal monument. The waters from it two fountains maintain a continuous dialogue as they gush forth, extolling with their murmur the figure and work of the scientific hero. Fons Vitae speaks to us here about the knowledge that is born of science and the fruits it gives to persevering effort; and Fons Mortis about the far reaching nature of scientific work and the immortality with which science rewards its heroes, who on their death remain eternally ageless.

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