The Godfather Of Roman Water Fountains

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There are many famous fountains in Rome’s city center. Practically all of them were designed, architected and constructed by one of the finest sculptors and designers of the 17th century, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. His abilities as a water fountain designer and also as a city designer, are obvious throughout the streets of Rome. Bernini's father, a renowned Florentine sculptor, mentored his young son, and they ultimately moved to Rome, in order to fully express their art, primarily in the form of public water fountains and water features. The juvenile Bernini was an great employee and earned praise and patronage of significant painters as well as popes. His sculpture was originally his claim to popularity. Most particularly in the Vatican, he made use of a base of expertise in historical Greek architecture and melded it flawlessly with Roman marble. Though many artists had an influence on his work, Michelangelo had the most profound effect.

Bernini: The Genius Behind Italy's Greatest Water Fountains

Bernini: The Genius Behind Italy's Greatest Water Fountains One can find Bernini's earliest masterpiece, the Barcaccia water fountain, at the foot of the Trinita dei Monti in Piaza di Spagna. This spot is still filled with Roman locals and visitors who enjoy exchanging gossip or going over the day's news. Bernini would undoubtedly have been happy to know that people still flock to what has become one the city's trendiest areas, that around his amazing water fountain. In around 1630, Pope Urbano VIII helped Bernini start off his professional life with the construction of his very first fountain. People can now see the fountain as an illustration of a great ship gradually sinking into the Mediterranean Sea. According to 16th century reports, a great flood of the Tevere covered the entire area in water, an event which was memorialized by the tremendous fountain. In 1665 Bernini journeyed to France, in what was to be his sole extended absence from Italy.

Architectural Statues in Historic Greece

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Architectural Statues in Historic Greece Even though most sculptors were paid by the temples to embellish the elaborate columns and archways with renderings of the gods of old, as the time period came to a close, it became more prevalent for sculptors to depict common people as well because plenty of Greeks had started to think of their religion as superstitious rather than sacred. Wealthy families would often times commission a rendition of their ancestors for their big family burial tombs; portraiture also became frequent and would be appropriated by the Romans upon their acquisition of Greek society. A time of aesthetic progression, the use of sculpture and other art forms transformed during the Greek Classical period, so it is not entirely accurate to suggest that the arts served only one function. Greek sculpture was a modern component of antiquity, whether the explanation was religious fervor or aesthetic fulfillment, and its contemporary excellence may be what endears it to us today.