Mermaid in ‘t Zand Square Fountain – Bruges, Belgium
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 51° 12.287 E 003° 13.054
31U E 515199 N 5672620
This mermaid form one of four groups of figurative sculptures surrounding a large fountain in the middle of the square.
Waymark Code: WMFE4P
Location: West-Vlaanderen, Belgium
Date Posted: 10/05/2012
Views: 9
‘t Zand is the largest public square in Bruges. It is situated where the old railway station used to be. It is used as an open air market at weekends and as a venue as an open air concert site.
In the middle of the square is a large fountain with 4 separate sculptures by the husband and wife sculptors Stefaan De Puydt and Livia Canestraro.
This sculpture represents the coastal Polders, defensive structures that are used on the coast that were built to reclaim land from the sea.
Lying half in and half out the water, whilst leaning against one of the Polders is a reclining mermaid, spouting water from her mouth.
When the market is on the main jets of the fountain are turned off to prevent spray being blown onto the stalls. However on other days the fountain sprays are quite dramatic.
The Mermaid Myth
“A
mermaid (from the Middle English mere in the obsolete sense 'sea' + maid(en) is a legendary aquatic creature with the head and torso of human female and the tail of a fish. The male version of a mermaid is called a merman; the gender-neutral collective noun is merfolk. Various cultures throughout the world have similar figures.
In some ancient cultures Mermaids were regarded as semi-divine aspects of the Goddess, connected to the sea from which life arises and honoured in seaside temples. The earliest Mermaid story comes from Assyria around 1000 BCE. Atargatis, an Assyrian priestess, jumpred into the sea to wash away the shame of an unwanted pregnancy and emerged as a fishtailed goddess. In the 2nd century BCE, the Greek historian Lucian reported that the statue of the Great Goddess at the temple of Hieropolis (which is now modern Turkey) had a fishtail instead of legs. In Greece, Aphrodite, the goddess of love, as born from the sea foam and rode to land on a half-scallop shell.
In the 1st century CE, Pliny wrote convincingly of the existence of Mermaids, but said that their bodies were 'rough and scaled all over'. But by the 5th century CE, the bestiary Physiologus described Mermaids in terms that accord fully with their contemporary image. Mermaids are 'wonderfully shaped as a maid from the navel up and fish from the navel down'.
Mermaids were often sighted by seamen during the middle ages, Christopher Columbus among them, who reported seeing three Mermaids on his first voyage to the Americas in 1493. Mermaids figured prominetly in sailors' lore, because of such travellers' tales. The most common story was that Mermaids were incredibly skilled at seducing lonely sailors and dragging them down to their underwater kingdom. It was also believed that they could cause storms and shipwrecks. These beliefs were reinforced by the medieval Church, to which Mermaids were an emblem of vanity, lust and the spiritual perils of women and of sexuality.“