The twentieth-century fountain revival began somewhat earlier in Scandinavia than it did in southern Europe. The foremost fountain designer of the twentieth century may have been Swedish born sculptor Carl Milles, who spent twenty-one years at Cranbrook Academy in Michigan. There he installed a variation of his Orpheus fountain, eight delicately poised figures standing in a circle. In the original version, designed for the Stockholm Music Hall, they surrounded a statue of Orpheus- but at Cranbrook, Orpheus has been left out. The eight figures, Milles said, “are not symbolic; they are just people listening to music. The only real figure in it is Beethoven.”
—Swedish sculptor Carl Milles was brought to Cranbrook by Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen as director of sculpture in 1931 where he remained until 1952. Saarinen designed the Cranbrook buildings and Milles decorated the grounds with his sculpture.
The Orpheus Fountain is, in my opinion, Milles’ masterpiece. It is one of the most beautiful sculptures I’ve seen, rivaling even Rodin’s best. —Read More:http://ralphdeeds.hubpages.com/hub/CarlMillesOrpheusFountain image:http://www.myspace.com/wakemeupnowplease/photos/4593870
Milles represented a talented last gasp of the Renaissance tradition, which also accounts for Dyre Vaa’s swan fountain outside Oslo’s Town hall. But contemporary water architecture, especially in America, owes much more to the still-water tradition of the Orient.
—Several bronze nudes dance around a fountain at Cranbrook Academy of Arts in this outdoor sculpture by Carl Milles.
Copyright © July 2006 Woodward Avenue Action Association.—Read More:http://library.byways.org/assets/70321
There are two great traditions in water, currents if you like; the West which treats water like fire, and the East which likens it to love, although in both cases it is purely ornamental, a beguiling non-essential that water in architecture has always been and continues to be.
—Oslo, Norway, The Town Hall, Dyre Vaa, The Swan Fountain in the Courtyard—Image:http://tripwow.tripadvisor.com/slideshow-photo/wrestling-boys-by-travelpod-member-shewolf-oslo-norway.html?sid=12826302&fid=tp-9
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