Top Pieces of Art

Alexander Calder- Mercury Fountain

I saw this on a recent trip to Barcelona where we visited The Joan Miro Foundation. At first I thought that it was a sculpture by Miro but after doing more research into Miro I found out it was by Alexander Calder.

It looked like water at first glance but looking closely at the ‘water’ you could see it was acting differently to water would act. It behaves like oil on water creating little droplets on the surface of the sculpture. I found out it was actually liquid mercury. The sculpture is now behind a glass wall because of the dangerous vapours from the mercury. I like how the liquid Mercury adds reflection to the sculpture.

I really like how the sculpture has a cycle where the mercury travels down the sculpture into the pool and is sucked back up to the top to start again. This motion also adds movement to the sculpture.