Modern Garden Decor: Large Outdoor Water Fountains and their Roots
Modern Garden Decor: Large Outdoor Water Fountains and their Roots
The amazing or ornamental effect of a fountain is just one of the purposes it fulfills, in addition to supplying drinking water and adding a decorative touch to your property. Originally, fountains only served a practical purpose. Water fountains were linked to a spring or aqueduct to provide drinkable water as well as bathing water for cities, townships and villages. Used until the 19th century, in order for fountains to flow or shoot up into the air, their source of water such as reservoirs or aqueducts, had to be higher than the water fountain in order to benefit from gravity. Acting as an element of decoration and celebration, fountains also generated clean, fresh drinking water. Bronze or stone masks of wildlife and heroes were frequently seen on Roman fountains. During the Middle Ages, Muslim and Moorish garden designers included fountains in their designs to mimic the gardens of paradise. King Louis XIV of France wanted to demonstrate his dominion over nature by including fountains in the Gardens of Versailles. The Romans of the 17th and 18th centuries manufactured baroque decorative fountains to exalt the Popes who commissioned them as well as to mark the location where the restored Roman aqueducts entered the city.
Since indoor plumbing became the standard of the day for clean, drinking water, by the end of the 19th century urban fountains were no longer needed for this purpose and they became purely ornamental. Gravity was substituted by mechanical pumps in order to enable fountains to bring in clean water and allow for amazing water displays.
Nowadays, fountains adorn public areas and are used to recognize individuals or events and fill recreational and entertainment needs.
Architectural Sculpture in Early Greece
Architectural Sculpture in Early Greece Historically, most sculptors were compensated by the temples to embellish the involved columns and archways with renderings of the gods, but as the era came to a close it grew to be more common for sculptors to present ordinary people as well simply because many Greeks had begun to think of their religion as superstitious rather than sacred.
Wealthy families would often times commission a rendering of their forefathers for their big family tombs; portraiture also became prevalent and would be appropriated by the Romans upon their acquisition of Greek civilization. During the the many years of The Greek Classical period, a time of visual development, the use of sculpture and many other art forms changed, so it is incorrect to say that the arts served merely one purpose. Whether to fulfill a visual craving or to rejoice in the figures of religion, Greek sculpture was actually an artistic method in the ancient world, which may be what draws our interest today.