Where did Landscape Fountains Begin?
Where did Landscape Fountains Begin?
The incredible construction of a fountain allows it to provide clean water or shoot water high into air for dramatic effect and it can also serve as an excellent design feature to enhance your home. Originally, fountains only served a practical purpose. People in cities, towns and villages received their drinking water, as well as water to bathe and wash, from aqueducts or springs in the area. Used until the 19th century, in order for fountains to flow or shoot up into the air, their source of water such as reservoirs or aqueducts, had to be higher than the water fountain in order to benefit from gravity. Fountains were not only utilized as a water source for drinking water, but also to adorn homes and celebrate the artist who created it. The main materials used by the Romans to build their fountains were bronze or stone masks, mostly illustrating animals or heroes. Throughout the Middle Ages, Muslim and Moorish garden planners incorporated fountains to create smaller variations of the gardens of paradise. The fountains found in the Gardens of Versailles were intended to show the power over nature held by King Louis XIV of France. Seventeen and 18 century Popes sought to laud their positions by including decorative baroque-style fountains at the point where restored Roman aqueducts arrived into the city.
Urban fountains made at the end of the nineteenth served only as decorative and celebratory ornaments since indoor plumbing provided the necessary drinking water. Gravity was replaced by mechanical pumps in order to permit fountains to bring in clean water and allow for beautiful water displays.
Beautifying city parks, honoring people or events and entertaining, are some of the uses of modern-day fountains.