Modern Garden Decoration: Garden Fountains and their Beginnings
Modern Garden Decoration: Garden 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 provide drinking water, as well as for decorative purposes.The primary purpose of a fountain was originally strictly functional. Cities, towns and villages made use of nearby aqueducts or springs to provide them with drinking water as well as water where they could bathe or wash. Used until the nineteenth century, in order for fountains to flow or shoot up into the air, their origin of water such as reservoirs or aqueducts, had to be higher than the water fountain in order to benefit from the power of gravity. Fountains were an excellent source of water, and also served to decorate living areas and celebrate the artist. The main materials used by the Romans to create their fountains were bronze or stone masks, mostly depicting animals or heroes. To depict the gardens of paradise, Muslim and Moorish garden planners of the Middle Ages added fountains to their designs. Fountains enjoyed a significant role in the Gardens of Versailles, all part of French King Louis XIV’s desire to exert his power over nature. 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.
Urban fountains made at the end of the nineteenth functioned only as decorative and celebratory ornaments since indoor plumbing provided the essential drinking water. Impressive water effects and recycled water were made possible by switching the force of gravity with mechanical pumps.
Beautifying city parks, honoring people or events and entertaining, are some of the purposes of modern-day fountains.
Cultural Statuary in Early Greece

The First Garden Water Features
The First Garden Water Features Water fountains were at first practical in function, used to bring water from rivers or creeks to towns and hamlets, supplying the residents with fresh water to drink, bathe, and cook with. A source of water higher in elevation than the fountain was necessary to pressurize the flow and send water squirting from the fountain's spout, a system without equal until the later half of the nineteenth century. Striking and spectacular, prominent water fountains have been designed as memorials in most cultures.
Garden Fountain Builders Through History
Garden Fountain Builders Through History Often serving as architects, sculptors, artists, engineers and discerning scholars, all in one, fountain designers were multi-faceted individuals from the 16th to the late 18th century. Leonardo da Vinci, a Renaissance artist, was renowned as a imaginative genius, inventor and scientific expert. He carefully captured his experiences in his now famed notebooks, after his immense fascination in the forces of nature led him to examine the attributes and motion of water. Remodeling private villa configurations into ingenious water exhibits complete of symbolic meaning and natural wonder, early Italian water fountain creators coupled creativity with hydraulic and horticultural knowledge. The magnificence in Tivoli were created by the humanist Pirro Ligorio, who was renowned for his skill in archeology, architecture and garden design.