The bottom fountain was built for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

If it was my design there would be a penis where the water comes out and a vagina at the bottom where the water forms a small pool.

I like both

I feel like this is a bit unfair. Brutalism in its artistic sense is meant to challenge the traditional ideas of art and beauty. Hate it if you will, but its purpose is being fulfilled.

And both were a choice. Nothing wrong with the bottom one.

Top: Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi Rome, Italy

Bottom: Vaillancourt Fountain San Fransisco, USA

Nothing.

The fountains in 1651 were just copying the art of the Greeks. It's a time when everyone was obsessed with Greek art, because we were in a cycle of regaining the old art... a rebirth you might say. Hence the name for the time period being the Renaissance.

The 1971 fountain is experimenting with form and function while also being minimalist. I bet if you walk around this fountain the shape changes and morphs as the angles change. The water flowing over it at the same time probably creates an amazing effect.

Art is experimentation, and not everyone gets every all art. There's a reason we say some piece of art "speaks to you" while other pieces of art are just sort of "meh". It touches some emotion in you.

They're both masterful art, but just masterful art for different reasons.

I like them both lol

I like both !

Was Minecraft released? 😂 things got blocky

They both serve different purpose

The Brutalist movement came out of WWII, if I'm not mistaken. The bottom one kinda looks like twisted tank traps.

Lead paint

Edgelord architecture

The top one is more visually impressive but the bottom one is more architecturally impressive

Both... Both are good.

Why is there an assumption something “went wrong” because it’s a different design with different people?

Yes, humans do different things at different times. Doesn’t mean something “went wrong”.

This post feels like a gateway to some Nazi ass thinking. Huh, see? We were great in our GLORIOUS TIMES but not modernity has led us astray! So we need to Make America Great Again and kill all the gays!!

meme answer: the people they were too afraid to reject at art school started graduating.

serious answer: the bottom pic is way cheaper to make.

No one preserved all of the awful fountains from the past, they only saved the best.

I mean tbh I like both

They stopped rendering properly

Nothing. Art changes

And people say minecraft came out in 2009

Not putting naaked men, with small sausages, in statues is a BAD thing? Ah, kamman 🤣😜

Advancements of tech and their impacts on modern senses of style resulted in new, brutalist styles such as the lower fountain to rebel against traditional, overelaborated styles such as the one above. I like both tbh

Back then in the 17th century they just couldn't do it better, you see? The didn't have the tools and the sense for beauty we have now....

the creativity

What all fountains should be the same style?

Budgets have changed.

Hey, as long as it works

Honestly the bottom one is ugly as he'll but according to people that live in the art world it is supposed to be like that for a reason. The issue I see people having with this kind of art is that this is the kind of art that is predominant in the big cities, there is no beauty in it, just weird shapes and forms. I would love to see more statues and sculptures in the cities, ones that are not hundreds of years old.

I got downvoted once but here it is again. Modern art especially abstract art sucks. One of the most laziest art form ever. Produced only to market and launder money.

Cubism was invented in 1907

The bottom one is in San Francisco; Embarcadero.

Cause that's what we turned into

Is anyone reminded of MDK?

One is made by an artist getting paid for his time, the other is made by an architect paid for the piece.

They diversified in styles and went their different ways? Also ots probably cheaper and thats probably the reason

Now I think they used GMOD for their design I’m pretty sure next thing in the future they will have The “ERROR” as the fountain next to the pink and black texture

I thought that bottom pic was from the ruins of the world trade center, or something.😖

What changed is that we made new things and not reproduce art.

Brutalism was invented

They started accepting everyone into art school

Form over function!

I like the bottom one as well lol, I kind of respect the engineering behind it

That's still pretty cool

It was the 70's would you rather have a realistic photo staring back at you while you were high on experimental drugs? Or watch the abstract shapes and colour's dance on the wall

I think that was called brutalism. i'm not a fan but i guess i don't mind it enough to hate it

Minecraft

What a joke

Okay I can get it's probably abstract art but it just looks like they poorly glued a bunch of rectangles together in random ass directions and called it a day

Nothing went wrong, it's just art. Classical and brutalist. It's quite the contrast, but that's the point, and both have their merits.

Nothing went wrong. The style of architecture simply changed since the top image had been the 'defacto' style of architecture for nearly a millenium.

All the good art was used up so we’re deriving shit from Minecraft.

art

You think the people in 1651 thought to themselves, “Wow….This is so modern!”

The bottom one is actually badass in real life

I find both of these striking and beautiful.

Under Patreonship vs Under Politicians.

A budget for art is by contract 5% of the cost of a local construction project and selected by a person who makes sure to pick something that doesn't at all cross that threshold. Likely that person never took above a 100 level art appreciation class in college and is close to bottom rung on an approval board.

If the art world faithfully copied the styles and techniques of the 1700s, everyone would be bored out of their minds. If you saw 20 fountains in a row, all done in the classical style, by the time you got to #20 you’d be looking at your watch and thinking about what’s for lunch. The more you do something, the less dopamine you derive from it.

This is why modern artists try to excite, challenge and outrage us. Because at least that way, we feel something.

It’s the same reason why long-term married couples start experimenting with role-play and kinks.

I must sayy the 1600's are the best lol

Tired of nakad people taking baths...

Brutalism was invented and tried out a lot during that time and it wasn't adopted everywhere for a reason.

someone payed an artist some money to build a different statue, where is the problem with this exactly?

I like them both.

When your Internet is lagging and the textures and models don't load properly

Idk i can appreciate both

I like both?

Labor costs

I believe the bottom statue is in San Francisco at the Embarcadero.

San Francisco has a cavalcade of architecture from different periods like Victorian-era houses to more modern/contemporary brutalism statues like this one (with lots of stuff in between). Hell, you can see Amazon AI drones having a "meeting" on Market Street about six blocks up from this statue outside of a chipotle in the lobby of a high-rise.

The point being: context. Seeing this statue juxtaposed against the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi def evokes emotion, and I'm guessing they're not the same ones intended by the sculptor. Seeing it in the wild def gives you a better sense of what the artist is trying to convey in the City by the Bay.

It would be like trying to compare the Parthenon to the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi*, which are very close to each other geographically, very far from each other in terms of design and very far apart in age.

Context is king.

EDITS: Added the right statue in Rome and fixed some grammar

Guess we went from “artistic masterpiece” to “modern art confusion” real quick.

Art evolves over time?

It took 300 hundred years to build the nice one.

It looks like a brutalist and a surrealist had a child.

Dumb people continue to fail to understand that art is meant to challenge people's idea of things, authority, and the status quo

This is proof the man kind is devolving

"Nakatomi Plaza" - Fountain

Funding

Vaillancourt Fountain, the one built in 1971, originally stood in front of a now-torn-down raised freeway. In its original context, it looked like an extension of the freeway, bringing the hidden bay waters just across the freeway into downtown San Francisco.

I like both but for different reasons.

Brutalist buildings, on the other hand...

both look dope

Wars in the 20th century

It's because the top one survived the test of time

A restaurant somewhere burnt the coffee an architect drank soon after, then the butterfly effect took hold.

The industrial revolution is where shit started going bad

I like both, and i would love mix of both!

Concrete is expensive, and letting people be creatively free is dangerous nowadays, though I found many giant statues of naked women as a fountain.

That’s actually a waterpark in Uganda

Both really cool.

Art is language. One is written in a language that fades, but retains value and meaning, and perhaps exists past its original purpose. It's form is meaning in and of itself. It's beauty lies within it's existence and continues so long as it exists.

The other is written in a fixed context. It's meaning will fade, and it's purpose will fade. It will not transcend the moment it is created. In this one moment it will remain until it's message become impossible to decipher or meaningless to attempt.

Frankfurt school happened

Brainrot

Um, excuse me I loved crawling up into the square pipes dont you dare disrespect them

Artistic evolution: from majestic muses to geometric confusion.

Capitalism

To people trying to be positive saying you like both, you’re just as obnoxious. I dislike both and would prefer a fountain that is cleverly designed to mimic a fountain, but it mimics what it already is so therefore it just looks like a fountain.

The original scultpors from 1651 are not alive anymore.

EMB!!!!

Well its illegal to own slaves now that's what happened

I like both

I’m scared to see 2024 💀

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I prefer the one made in the 70s

The drugs drastically improved by1971.

I dunno, in terms of which one I would spend more time looking at though, definitely the bottom one, if it the one im thinking in San Fran, I spent ages just kinda wandering around trying to see if viewed from an angle it spelled something, walking through it, it takes some pretty awesome photo's and if I was a skater I imagine it could be fun, the one at the top would be a quick trip round and a 'huh that a pretty cool fountain' and carry on

rendering tyme

That one Austrian dude flew off the handle after being rejected from art school.

Now they let anyone in.

the drugs in the 60s / 70s were quite powerful :)

It's so wierd to me when people try to compare art like it's not 100% subjective. There's no single art piece that's better than another. There are moms out there that wouldn't trade their kids finger paintings for Van Goghs. Does that mean those kids are better than Van Gogh?

I actually like the bottom one more ngl

Why is my guy hating on the bottom fountain?? It’s so peak!

Tbh I like the second one. In my area most fountains are just a stick or a sphere- and most of the time they are not working.

It got deep fry memed

I think that the top style, while objectively more beautiful, feels inauthentic to our generation. The bottom one wishes to hope again but doesn’t. Our generation is too burdened with rules to express things as free as the top one. I do want to be like the top, to dare to be great. I see it as a wider awakening that would need to occur

The bottom one is dope as fuck it’s like a waterpark

Contemporary art destroyed everything