The Dissemination of Fountain Design Knowledge

The Dissemination of Fountain Design Knowledge Dissiminating pragmatic hydraulic information and fountain design ideas throughout Europe was accomplished with the written papers and illustrated publications of the time. An internationally celebrated leader in hydraulics in the late 1500's was a French fountain designer, whose name has been lost to history. By developing gardens and grottoes with incorporated and ingenious water attributes, he began his career in Italy by getting Royal mandates in Brussels, London and Germany. In France, near the closure of his life, he wrote “The Principle of Moving Forces”, a book that became the essential text on hydraulic mechanics and engineering. The book updated key hydraulic discoveries since classical antiquity as well as detailing contemporary hydraulic technologies. The water screw, a technical method to move water, and developed by Archimedes, was featured in the book. An ornamental spring with the sun warming the liquid in two vessels stashed in an nearby area was shown in one illustration. The end result: the water feature is stimulated by the hot water expanding and rising up the piping. Pumps, water wheels, water features and backyard pond designs are mentioned in the publication.

Sculpture As a Staple of Classic Art in Historic Greece

Sculpture As a Staple of Classic Art in Historic Greece Sculpture Staple Classic Art Historic Greece 12766155363.jpg

Up until the Archaic Greeks provided the very first freestanding statuary, a noteworthy achievement, carvings had chiefly been done in walls and pillars as reliefs. Most of these freestanding sculptures were what is known as kouros figures, statues of young, attractive male or female (kore) Greeks. Thought of by Greeks to characterize beauty, the kouroi were formed into stiff, forward facing poses with one foot outstretched, and the male statues were always nude, well-built, and fit. Life-sized versions of the kouroi appeared beginning in 650 BC. A significant era of improvement for the Greeks, the Archaic period brought about more forms of state, expressions of art, and a higher comprehension of people and cultures outside of Greece. Nevertheless, the Greek civilization was not slowed down by these fights.

At What Point Did Water Features Originate?

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At What Point Did Water Features Originate? Hundreds of ancient Greek texts were translated into Latin under the auspices of the scholarly Pope Nicholas V, who ruled the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 to 1455. Embellishing Rome and making it the worthy capital of the Christian world was at the center of his ambitions. In 1453 the Pope commissioned the reconstruction of the Aqua Vergine, an historic Roman aqueduct which had carried clean drinking water into the city from eight miles away. Building a mostra, a grandiose celebratory fountain built by ancient Romans to memorialize the arrival point of an aqueduct, was a tradition revived by Nicholas V. The architect Leon Battista Alberti was directed by the Pope to put up a wall fountain where we now see the Trevi Fountain. The aqueduct he had refurbished included modifications and extensions which eventually allowed it to supply water to the Trevi Fountain as well as the renowned baroque fountains in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Navona.