When and Where Did Water Fountains Emerge?

When and Where Did Water Fountains Emerge? Water Fountains Emerge? 39646457.jpg

Pope Nicholas V, himself a well educated man, reigned the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 to 1455 during which time he commissioned many translations of old classic Greek texts into Latin. Embellishing Rome and making it the worthy capital of the Christian world was at the core of his ambitions. 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 restored starting in 1453. A mostra, a monumental commemorative fountain constructed by ancient Romans to mark the point of entry of an aqueduct, was a practice which was restored by Nicholas V. The present-day site of the Trevi Fountain was formerly occupied by a wall fountain commissioned by the Pope and built by the architect Leon Battista Alberti. The Trevi Fountain as well as the renowned baroque fountains located in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Navona were eventually supplied with water from the altered aqueduct he had rebuilt.

Ancient Greece: The Beginnings of Outdoor Statue Design

Ancient Greece: The Beginnings of Outdoor Statue Design Ancient Greece: Beginnings Outdoor Statue Design 468030002.jpg

A good number of sculptors were paid by the temples to enhance the elaborate pillars and archways with renderings of the gods until the time period came to a close and many Greeks began to think of their religion as superstitious rather than sacred, when it became more common for sculptors to represent ordinary men and women as well. Portraiture started to be widespread as well, and would be accepted by the Romans when they defeated the Greeks, and sometimes wealthy households would commission a depiction of their progenitors to be put inside their huge familial burial tombs. During the the years of The Greek Classical period, a time of aesthetic progress, the use of sculpture and other art forms transformed, so it is erroneous to say that the arts served just one purpose. Greek sculpture is probably enticing to us all at present because it was an avant-garde experiment in the ancient world, so it does not make a difference whether its original purpose was religious zeal or artistic pleasure.

Bernini's First Masterpieces

Bernini's First Masterpieces Bernini's earliest fountain, named Barcaccia, is a masterful work of art seen at the bottom of the Trinita dei Monti in Piaza di Spagna. To this day, you will see Roman locals and vacation goers filling this space to revel in chit chatter and being among other people. 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 fountain. Dating back to around 1630, Pope Urbano VIII commissioned what was to be the earliest fountain of the artist's career. Depicted in the fountain's design is a large vessel gradually sinking into the Mediterranean Sea. The great 16th century flood of the Tevere, which left the entire region inundated with water, was memorialized by the water fountain according to writings from the period. In what became his one and only prolonged absence from Italy, Bernini {journeyed | traveled] to France in 1665.

The Original Outside Water Fountain Artists

The Original Outside Water Fountain Artists Often serving as architects, sculptors, artists, engineers and cultivated scholars, all in one, fountain designers were multi-talented individuals from the 16th to the late 18th century. During the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci exemplified the artist as a inspired genius, inventor and scientific expert. With his immense curiosity concerning the forces of nature, he examined the attributes and movement of water and systematically annotated his findings in his now celebrated notebooks. Transforming private villa configurations into ingenious water exhibits full with symbolic meaning and natural wonder, early Italian fountain engineers fused curiosity with hydraulic and horticultural abilities. Known for his incredible skill in archeology, design and garden design, Pirro Ligorio, the humanist, offered the vision behind the magnificence in Tivoli. Other water feature engineers, masterminding the phenomenal water marbles, water functions and water humor for the various estates in the vicinity of Florence, were tried and tested in humanistic themes and time-honored scientific texts.