House Garden 
workers in clay and 
stone and bronze that 
can not only copy but 
create. High or low 
relief is often safer and 
also less expensive than 
sculpture in the round. 
Low relief is especially 
suited to wall fountains, 
as the Sienna basin of 
Jacopo della Quercia, 
shown herewith, abun¬ 
dantly testifies, 
suggested in a 
ous paper that 
fountains are particu¬ 
larly adapted to the 
crowded streets of 
American cities, and 
though della Ouercia has no lineal descend¬ 
ant, among this country’s decorative 
sculptors, there are some to whom the theme 
of a walled basin or pool, with surfaces wait¬ 
ing for the chisel, would be an inspiration. 
Upon the character, extent and surround¬ 
ings of the available space should depend 
intimately the design of a street fountain. 
If the center of an open square be chosen, 
It was 
previ- 
w a 1 1 
IN THE NEUEN MARK'!' 
THE MARIENSAULE 
VIENNA 
DONNER 
the plan should be circular or polygonal, so 
that the water, at least in its essential move¬ 
ment, may be visible from all sides. This 
condition, fulfilled ideally in the fountain of 
the Neuen Markt at Donner (see illus¬ 
tration) gives vitality to a design otherwise 
scattering and commonplace. The large 
stone basin, though raised by three shallow 
steps from the surrounding pavement, is still 
low enough not to shut out the water’s beauty 
from the casual passer-by. The Anspach 
Monument in the Place de Brouckere, 
Brussels, the fountain before the Hamburg 
Rathhaus and that in the Hohen Markt, 
Vienna, are all successful in this respect, 
especially the former two. Not so the Joan 
of Arc Monument in the Place de la Pucelle, 
Rouen, which is really more a commemorative 
structure, with incidental facilities for 
distributing water, than a fountain. It was 
a clever Frenchman who expressed his 
doubts as to the artistic propriety of placing 
a water composition about the feet of persons 
one wished to honor. The drinking fountain 
to Robert Louis Stevenson, in San Francisco, 
shown in the April “ House and Garden,” 
was of the same category. 
If the space chosen for the fountain be 
the corner formed by two walls, as in the 
Albrecht structure in Vienna, the water 
should be made visible through as wide an 
angle as possible. The Fonte Gaia in 
Sienna, with its flanking walls on three sides, 
is meant to be viewed only from directly in 
207 
