Modern Garden Decoration: Fountains and their Beginnings
Modern Garden Decoration: Fountains and their Beginnings A water fountain is an architectural piece that pours water into a basin or jets it high into the air in order to supply drinking water, as well as for decorative purposes.
Pure practicality was the original role of fountains. Water fountains were linked to a spring or aqueduct to provide drinkable water as well as bathing water for cities, townships and villages. Until the late nineteenth, century most water fountains operated using gravity to allow water to flow or jet into the air, therefore, they needed a supply of water such as a reservoir or aqueduct located higher than the fountain. Fountains were not only utilized as a water source for drinking water, but also to decorate homes and celebrate the designer who created it. Bronze or stone masks of wildlife and heroes were commonly seen on Roman fountains. During the Middle Ages, Muslim and Moorish garden planners incorporated fountains to create smaller depictions of the gardens of paradise. To demonstrate his dominance over nature, French King Louis XIV included fountains in the Garden of Versailles. The Romans of the 17th and 18th centuries manufactured baroque decorative fountains to glorify the Popes who commissioned them as well as to mark the location where the restored Roman aqueducts entered the city.
The end of the 19th century saw the increase in usage of indoor plumbing to provide drinking water, so urban fountains were relegated to strictly decorative elements. The creation of special water effects and the recycling of water were two things made possible by replacing gravity with mechanical pumps.
Modern-day fountains function mostly as decoration for community spaces, to honor individuals or events, and compliment entertainment and recreational gatherings.
Anglo-Saxon Gardens at the Time of the Norman Conquest
Anglo-Saxon Gardens at the Time of the Norman Conquest
The Anglo-Saxon way of life was drastically changed by the appearance of the Normans in the later eleventh century. The talent of the Normans exceeded the Anglo-Saxons' in architecture and agriculture at the time of the conquest. But before focusing on home-life or having the occasion to consider domestic architecture or decoration, the Normans had to subjugate an entire society. Castles were more fundamental constructions and often erected on blustery hills, where their people spent both time and space to exercising offense and defense, while monasteries were major stone buildings, regularly situated in the widest, most fruitful hollows. Tranquil pursuits such as gardening were out of place in these destitute citadels. Berkeley Castle is most likely the most unchanged model in existence nowadays of the early Anglo-Norman form of architecture. The keep is said to date from William the Conqueror's time. An enormous terrace encompasses the building, serving as an obstruction to assailants trying to excavate under the castle walls. On one of these parapets is a scenic bowling green covered in grass and surrounded by an aged hedge of yew that has been designed into coarse battlements.
Garden Fountain Designers Through History
Garden Fountain Designers Through History Frequently serving as architects, sculptors, artists, engineers and discerning scholars, all in one, fountain creators were multi-faceted individuals from the 16th to the later part of the 18th century.
Throughout the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci exemplified the creator as an imaginative wizard, inventor and scientific virtuoso. He carefully recorded his experiences in his now famed notebooks, following his mind boggling fascination in the forces of nature inspired him to examine the attributes and mobility of water. Transforming private villa configurations into ingenious water showcases full of symbolic interpretation and natural wonder, early Italian fountain creators combined imagination with hydraulic and horticultural abilities. The humanist Pirro Ligorio, celebrated for his virtuosity in archeology, architecture and garden design, offered the vision behind the wonders in Tivoli. Masterminding the phenomenal water marbles, water attributes and water pranks for the assorted properties in the vicinity of Florence, other water feature creators were well versed in humanist issues as well as ancient scientific texts.