Archibald Fountain
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The Archibald Fountain, widely regarded as the finest public fountain in Australia, is located in Hyde Park, in central Sydney, New South Wales. It was built in 1932 with funds bequeathed by J F Archibald, owner and editor of The Bulletin magazine. Archibald specified that it must be designed by a French artist, both because of his great love of French culture and to commemorate the association of Australia and France in First World War. The artist chosen was Francois Sicard.
The Archibald Fountain has gained a curious notoriety in Sydney because for many years at has been at the centre of a gay men's cruising area. The veteran Sydney gay activist and journalist Bob Hay wrote:
"From the moment it was unveiled the fountain was an attraction for homosexuals, showing as it did several superb male nudes of heroic proportions. Whatever other interpretations were intended by the sculptor, for those who knew about such things, some of the figures of the Archibald Fountain also symbolise the manly virtues of the homosexual Golden Age of Ancient Greece. As in his sanctuary at Delphi, in the centre of the fountain and dominating all else, is the god Apollo, the very symbol of youthful male beauty, patron of poets and leader of the Muses. Lower down is Poseidon, god of the sea and brother of both Zeus and Hades. When it came to sharing the universe, Zeus took the heavens, Poseidon the sea and Hades the underworld; all three shared the earth among them as they desired. Poseidon was never young, but was always represented by the figure of the older, bearded man.
"Of course Sicard, the sculptor of the Fountain, probably intended Poseidon to symbolise Sydney's affinity with the harbour but there are other ways of looking at the two gods. In Classic Greek sculpture, Apollo is generally taken as the epitome of the eromenos, or youth who is the beloved while Poseidon was often the model of the erastes, the "lover", the older, bearded man whose duty it was to pass on to his beloved the manly virtues so essential for war and good citizenship. On the southern side is the heroic figure of Theseus, son of Poseidon, shown in the act of slaying the Minotaur. In these figures alone are strength, wisdom and culture expressed in the beauty of men's bodies. What more powerful attraction could there be on a warm Sydney night?
"The Fountain, although it was a focal point and a meeting place in its own right, it was also the northern-most extremity of a much larger homosexual territory whose pathways and bushes made up the Hyde Park beat.
"For many of us who were boys in the 30s and 40s, the Archibald and the [nearby] "Sacrifice of War" [sculpture] at the War Memorial were the only nude male sculptures on public view. I can remember visiting Sydney with my father during the early 1940s and seeing the Fountain for the first time. I instantly fell in love with Theseus - particularly the rear view - and have been faithful to him, in my fashion, ever since."