Fountain of youth

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Lucas Cranach the Elder Ä. : The Fountain of Youth , 1546, Gemäldegalerie , Berlin
Al-Chidr (right) and Elias watch the resuscitation of a salted fish at the source of life.
The Fountain of Youth (La Fontaine de Jouvence) , painting by Paul Jean Gervais (1859–1936)

The fountain of youth ( Lebensbrunnen ; from Middle High German brun (ne) , source, fountain) as well as the source of eternal youth and the source of eternal life are often overlapping mythical or popular ideas of a source , whose water is available to those who drink it or who bathes in it, promises healing and rejuvenation (up to eternal youth or even eternal life ).

origin

The search for the source of eternal youth is already described in the Alexander novel and was used, among other things, in the Orient - especially in Syrian literature, according to some interpretations also in the Koran (Sura 18: 60–64) - and in the Occident .

Early German-language evidence can also be found in the Trojan War of Konrad von Würzburg (13th century).

The Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León searched in vain for the promised fountain of youth on his expedition to Florida in 1513. Perhaps he was following rumors of a Bimini island with a fountain of youth on it.

Fountain of youth in art

The illustrative representation of fountains of youth can already be found in the 14th century.

The fountain of youth is the title of a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder from 1546. The picture depicts a bath in which women aged from one side step into the water, which they leave on the other side rejuvenated. The work is in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin .

A large fresco of a fountain of youth from the 15th century can be seen in the castle of Manta in Piedmont .

Fountain of Youth, Hans Sebald Beham , around 1500

Hans Sachs wrote the poem Der Jungbrunn in 1557 and a fountain of youth is also shown on the 500 Swiss franc banknote from 1956 (back).

The search for the fountain of youth is also in pop culture a popular motif, as in adventure movies , the hunt for the fountain of youth ( The Spring , 1989), Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stranger Tides (2011), Orson Welles ' television series The Fountain of Youth ( 1958) or the computer game Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth .

Colloquial language

Fountains of youth in the figurative sense are experiences, objects or behaviors that make a person feel youthful or young.

See also

The meaning of the fountain motif is described in detail in a separate main article, see: Fountain as a motif

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wolfgang Wegner: Fountain of Youth. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 711.
  2. ^ Wolfgang Wegner: Fountain of Youth. In: Encyclopedia of Medical History. 2005, p. 711.
  3. ^ Fountain of youth in the Roman de Fauvel , around 1317 .
  4. ↑ Castello della Manta ( Memento of the original dated December 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , better picture  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fondoambiente.it
  5. ↑ Hans Sachs : The Jungbrunn in the Gutenberg-DE project

Web links

Commons : Fountain of Youth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files