Fountain of Life
The Fountain of Life, or in its earlier form the Fountain of Living Waters, is a Christian iconography symbol associated with baptism and/or eucharist, first appearing in the 5th century in illuminated manuscripts and later in other art forms such as panel paintings.
Blood from the Five Holy Wounds[edit]
In Flanders at the close of the Middle Ages an intense devotion to the Precious Blood of Christ gave rise to an iconographic tradition of the 15th and 16th centuries, which rendered the theological concept of Grace,[4] expressing Roman Catholic dogma allegorically as a fountain of blood. This transformation was first addressed in Evelyn Underhill in 1910, taking her point of departure an Assembly of Saints and the Fountain of Life of 1596 in Ghent,[5] in which blood from the five Holy Wounds of Christ flows into the upper basin of a "Fountain of Life"[6] and streams out through openings in the lower "Fountain of Mercy". Saints and martyrs, patriarchs and prophets hold golden chalices of blood, which some empty into the fountain. Below the faithful hold out their hearts to receive droplets of blood.