A Baroque Tradition, Continued in 2002

Arion Fountain looks as though it belongs to the same mythological conversation as the Baroque fountains — and that is exactly why it matters — but it arrived in 2002. Sculptor Ivan Theimer used the ancient story of the poet and musician Arion, rescued at sea by a dolphin, to complete the city’s long-planned set of mythological fountains in a contemporary language. This is a useful antidote to the idea that a historic centre has one authentic date and everything newer is intrusion. Olomouc actively continued an old urban programme centuries later. Walk around rather than reading it frontally: turtles, figures, water and relief details create a fountain designed to be discovered from several angles, more like a small inhabited world than a heroic statue on a pedestal.