Find Tranquility with Outdoor Fountains
Find Tranquility with Outdoor Fountains You can find harmony and tranquility by just having water in your garden. The sounds of a fountain are perfect to block out the noise in your neighborhood or in the city where you reside. Consider this the spot where can you go to have fun and become one with nature. Considered a great healing element, many water treatments use big bodies of water such as seas, oceans and rivers in their treatments. If you want a heavenly place to go to relax your body and mind, get yourself a pond or water fountain.Contemporary Garden Decoration: Garden Fountains and their Beginnings
Contemporary Garden Decoration: Garden Fountains and their Beginnings The amazing or ornamental effect of a fountain is just one of the purposes it fulfills, in addition to providing drinking water and adding a decorative touch to your property.Originally, fountains only served a functional purpose. Cities, towns and villages made use of nearby aqueducts or springs to supply them with drinking water as well as water where they could bathe or wash. Up to the late 19th century, water fountains had to be near an aqueduct or reservoir and higher than the fountain so that gravity could make the water move down or jet high into the air. Fountains were an optimal source of water, and also served to adorn living areas and memorialize the artist. Roman fountains usually depicted imagery of animals or heroes made of metal or stone masks. During the Middle Ages, Muslim and Moorish garden designers included fountains in their designs to mimic 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 created baroque decorative fountains to exalt the Popes who commissioned them as well as to mark the spot where the restored Roman aqueducts entered the city.
Indoor plumbing became the main source of water by the end of the 19th century thereby restricting urban fountains to mere decorative elements. Amazing water effects and recycled water were made possible by switching the force of gravity with mechanical pumps.
Contemporary fountains are used to embellish public spaces, honor individuals or events, and enhance recreational and entertainment events.
Bernini’s Early Italian Fountains
Bernini’s Early Italian Fountains One can find Bernini's very first masterpiece, the Barcaccia fountain, at the foot of the Trinita dei Monti in Piaza di Spagna.
The Defining Characteristics of Ancient Greek Statuary
The Defining Characteristics of Ancient Greek Statuary The first freestanding sculpture was designed by the Archaic Greeks, a recognized accomplishment since until then the sole carvings in existence were reliefs cut into walls and columns. Youthful, appealing male or female (kore) Greeks were the subject matter of most of the statues, or kouros figures. Considered by Greeks to represent beauty, the kouroi were created into firm, forward facing poses with one foot outstretched, and the male statues were usually nude, brawny, and fit.