The Original Outdoor Water Feature Artists

The Original Outdoor Water Feature Artists Frequently working as architects, sculptors, artists, engineers and discerning scholars, all in one, fountain creators were multi-faceted people from the 16th to the late 18th century.

Original Outdoor Water Feature Artists 4846154459843518.jpg

Leonardo da Vinci, a Renaissance artist, was celebrated as an inspired master, inventor and scientific virtuoso. The forces of nature led him to examine the properties and movement of water, and due to his fascination, he carefully captured his experiences in his now renowned notebooks. Early Italian water fountain designers altered private villa settings into amazing water exhibits full with symbolic meaning and natural beauty by combining creativity with hydraulic and horticultural talent. Known for his incredible skill in archeology, architecture and garden design, Pirro Ligorio, the humanist, offered the vision behind the splendors in Tivoli. For the various mansions close to Florence, other water fountain builders were well versed in humanistic topics as well as ancient scientific texts, masterminding the extraordinary water marbles, water highlights and water antics.

Back Story of Landscape Fountains

Back Story Landscape Fountains 0033619011421.jpg

Back Story of Landscape Fountains Himself a highly educated man, Pope Nicholas V headed the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 till 1455 and was responsible for the translation of scores of age-old documents from their original Greek into Latin. In order to make Rome deserving of being the capital of the Christian world, the Pope resolved to embellish the beauty of the city. At the bidding of the Pope, the Aqua Vergine, a ruined aqueduct which had carried clean drinking water into Rome from eight miles away, was renovated starting in 1453. The ancient Roman tradition of building an imposing commemorative fountain at the point where an aqueduct arrived, also known as a mostra, was revived by Nicholas V. At the bidding of the Pope, architect Leon Battista Alberti began the construction of a wall fountain in the place where we now find the Trevi Fountain. The aqueduct he had reconditioned included modifications and extensions which eventually enabled it to supply water to the Trevi Fountain as well as the famed baroque fountains in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Navona.

"Primitive" Greek Art: Large Statuary

"Primitive" Greek Art: Large Statuary Archaic Greeks were renowned for providing the first freestanding statuary; up till then, most carvings were formed out of walls and pillars as reliefs. Most of the freestanding statues were of young, winsome male or female (kore) Greeks and are called kouros figures. Regarded as by Greeks to represent splendour, the kouroi were structured into inflexible, forward facing poses with one foot outstretched, and the male statues were always nude, muscular, and athletic. In about 650 BC, the differences of the kouroi became life-sized. The Archaic period was an extraordinary point of change for the Greeks as they grew into new modes of government, formed unique expressions of art, and achieved knowledge of the people and cultures outside of Greece. And yet these disagreements did not stop the expansion of the Greek civilization. {