Grotesque Obsession: The Art of Carolina d'Ayala Valva

linen table runner by Carolina d'Ayala Valva for Nina's Home Artists for Textiles

recent designs from Nina's Home Artists for Textiles

For more than 20 years, Carolina d’Ayala Valva and her partner Walter Cipriani have been decorating interiors from their atelier in the historical center of Rome.  Carolina has become known as a modern-day champion of Grottesca (also called grotesque),  a style of ornament first made popular by the Renaissance artist Raphael, and literally wrote the book on the techniques and use of this historic form. Walter excels at the important and age-old techniques of scagliola, and this talented couple are highly in-demand for decorating prestigious interiors from Rome to Paris to St. Petersburg.

I met them at the Salon, an international  gathering of decorative artists who meet in a different city each year. What impressed me most wasn't just the mastery of historic techniques, but the fresh and relevant way these techniques are being used in their work.

Recently, the famous French wallpaper manufacture Zuber commissioned new wallpaper designs from each of them, which has in turn led to the creation of a new line of fabrics and accessories for interiors, cushions, lampshades, and table linens are printed on natural fibres, entirely made in Italy.

Carolina in her studio

Grottesca candelabra panel

Carolina d’Ayala Valva is also a highly skilled and sought-after teacher of painted ornament, and I have invited her to my studio in San Francisco for a week-long workshop on the art of Grottesca later this year.




Here she is interviewed for The Ornamentalist. Get to know the work of this exceptional decorative artist!

Please tell me about your education and training. How did you learn to paint like this?



I did not start my professional career as a decorative painter, but as an architect.

  Architecture was not my first choice, but an alternative to my desire to attend the Academy of Fine Arts. However, it is thanks to the long university studies that I have design discipline, which is also very useful in my work as a decorator. So in the end, I'm a self-taught.


Was there any one person or place that inspired you to become a decorative artist?



Living in Rome, surrounded by a unique artistic context in the world, inspired me deeply.  It’s especially here that I could cultivate my passion for the “Grotesque” design.

  Our Atelier (L’Artelier-Roma) was two steps from the Vatican City and, in the past, I have often had the chance to see up close the Grotesque decorations in the halls of the Vatican Museums and the loggia of Raphael, which are the first and most famous in the world. I have been able to admire the beauty, the harmony of the colors and the fast but masterful brushstrokes of the artist.

  For all this I consider myself lucky.


Over time, though I was immersed in a wonderful classical context,  I tried to develop a very personal style, both in the use of the color and in the design’s style.  I also love to try more contemporary sources of inspiration that can be anywhere in the life of every day, inserting modern elements in the classic structures.

~ Carolina d'Ayala Valva 

set of doors ornamented with  figures in a grottesca style by Carolina d'Ayala Valva

work in progress on a Grottesca element

 

Which are your favorite materials/medium for painting?  favorite brushes or tools?

My favorite technique for painting, is the egg tempera.  I also use it for painting more contemporary subjects, in fact, is my personal opinion, that the egg tempera has no equal for beauty, brilliance and color depth. The egg yolk binder gives a softness and a flexibility to the brushstroke, truly unique. The binder allows the use of pure powdered pigments, these offer the possibility of having an infinite palette, rich in nuances that gives to the work so realized, the sumptuousness of the paintings of the ancient masters, performed with the same technique.

Of great importance in the use of this type of tempera is the choice of right brush, the right brush, leads to having an elegant pictorial gesture, soft and sinuous.  I use round synthetic brushes, very flexible and highly accurate.

custom ceiling featuring Grottesche painted by Carolina d'Ayala Valva

Some of Carolina's fabric designs made into tote bags!

What's new? favorite recent projects?

I worked for years painting Grotesque decoration work on ceilings, furniture and panels for important clients in several countries.

So much work and experience led me to publish a book: "Art et Techniques de la Grotesque" (Editions Vial, 2009) and this made my work widely known around the world, encouraging also my activity as a teacher in Italy, France, Belgium and the U.S.

In 2013, as a result of the popularity of the book,  Zuber,  the famous producer of papier peint, contacted me in order to create a new collection of wallpapers inspired by my Grotesques.  And this was the impetus to start building my collection of printed digital fabrics with the brand: Nina’s Home~ Artists for Textiles.

Please tell us a bit about the process of designing for textiles. 

Each design is first painted by hand as a work of art in a single original water-colored model. Then, the quality of the digital printing process allows us to reproduce the slightest nuances and brushstroke on the fabric, preserving the charm and originality of our hand-painted model.

As mentioned above, modernity and tradition, this is the right mix today to further our art.

• Grottesca  5 day ornament class at Lynne Rutter Studio October 18-22, 2016
• Art and Techniques of Grotesque by Carolina d’Ayala Valva 

painted ceiling with modern Grottesche by Carolina d'Ayala Valva

Lynne Rutter Studio

Paris en Grisaille

"Les Monuments de Paris" mural by Lynne Rutter, photo by David Papas

Recently I got the opportunity to return to a client's home to photograph the mural I painted for them. How exciting to see this room finished!   The magnificent Saarinen table is surrounded with chairs upholstered in the most fantastic blue velvet,  and crowned with a vintage Italian chandelier in crystal and rose brass. The floors have a black cerused oak finish.
The interior design of this gorgeous room is the work of Gary Spain.  The shot was styled by Damian Alvarado and photographed by David Papas.  Of course I assisted in the shoot, mainly by looking through the camera now and then and saying "wow, you guys!"

The mural is painted en grisaille using dozens of shades of warm gray, and is patterned after  Les Monuments de Paris by Josef Dufour. It is painstakingly hand-painted in the style of the early 19th century block-printed scenic wallpapers, or papiers peints panoramiques. Unlike the original paper this mural is painted on canvas, and is quite durable, a necessity in a home with young children. I also added a few Paris monuments not found in the original paper and freely (re)arranged the design to best suit the room.

  
More about the creation of this mural here.
click on image to view larger

 

Lynne Rutter Studio

Les Monuments de Paris

Les Monuments de Paris, detail of hand-painted scenic mural by Lynne Rutter

Recently I completed work on a scenic mural  for a home in San Francisco, in the style of  a papier peint panoramique, an extraordinary wallpaper popular in the late 18th and early 19th century.

Interior Designer Gary Spain commissioned me to paint an entire room mural in grisaille, or more specifically using an eau forte palette, which has a warm gray-brown asphaltum color that would compliment his design for the home.  Our clients asked for something chic and urban, with scenes of Paris, but wanted to avoid anything too romantic or dramatic (many scenic papers depict battles and crowds of people), and that we make a personal view of Paris, rather than just the famous sights.

Dufour's Monuments de Paris, detail in color

Combing through my fabulous book French Scenic Wallpaper 1795-1865 I found the marvelous "Monuments de Paris" by Joseph Dufour et Cie. This paper was last printed in 1820, and there are few surviving examples of it.  Its design  seemed the ideal reference  for this project, all of the monuments are pre-Hausmann era buildings; some easily recognized, and some not; lined up along the banks of the Seine in no particular order (or scale for that matter) while the viewer sits on a lush, peaceful island in the center of the river.   I knew I could easily adapt this to suit the client's taste and site considerations. 

a 3d mock-up of the room helps me determine sightlines so I can fine-tune the composition of the mural

Les Invalides, in progress

In San Francsico, our City Hall has a dome that pays homage to the dome of  les Invalides in Paris.  I chose this building as the center image of the east wall.
Using some digital images of the original paper from the Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as some photos of actual structures in Paris,  I began design work, tailoring the mural composition for the room, and creating a custom palette divided into the necessary values.

The original wallpaper was block-printed, so in painting in this style, there can be no blending, and colors must be opaquely painted and repeated. To preserve a flat, regular surface, there could be no touching up, no rubbing out of errors.  Each stroke must be confident and committed. While this appears simple, it's actually far more work than using a "painterly" style. The effect is well worth the effort; the room looks rich, calm, and timeless.

Yes, this is a COLOR photograph!  the ceiling and dado were matched to colors in the mural

Dufour's paper was strangely lacking in bridges, so we designed the Pont Neuf into the mural - its architecture echos the shape of the archway in the room

While the style of the mural is faithful to the Dufour paper, the composition and many elements in it are entirely original.  The entire mural is scaled to the space and composed to work with the architecture of the room.

 
click on any image to view larger

Lynne Rutter Studio

 
 

The Enduring Appeal of Chinoiserie

A History of a Style

Chinoiserie... that inventive fusion of Asian motifs and European sensibilities, can be whimsical, graceful, and theatrical. A major design phenomenon in the 17th and 18th centuries, it continues to be one of the most enduring and fanciful decorative styles in interior design.

  Japanned wardrobe by Thomas Chippendale  image ©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel

Interior design and mural painted by Lynne Rutter 
2002 San Francisco Decorator Showcase

I became fascinated with chinoiserie through years of restoring  and repairing hand-painted wallpapers and pieces of “japanned” furniture,  studied its history and techniques, and eventually started painting some of my own designs in similar fashion.

It seems to me that every era has created its own version of chinoiserie,  to emphasize exoticism and escape, or sometimes to be simply colorful and uplifting. In all cases there is a fairy tale dream-like quality that never fails to be charming.

It all began long ago, in a land far, far away…

A Style is Born:

Increased trade between Europe and China  in the 17th century sparked a passion for all things oriental. What started with imports of commodities like tea, porcelain, silk, and saltpetre,  grew to include a new cargo:  a revolution in design.

The growing vogue for rare chinois artifacts inspired fanciful  imitations from skilled artisans all over Europe.  Oriental motifs both real and imagined, with pagodas, birds, monkeys, and figures in exotic costume, were worked into all manner of  fine and decorative arts: everything from garden teahouses to japanned tea boxes were created in a Europeanized oriental fashion. An original and new style was born- not just from the Chinese influence – but far more from the inspiration borne of it.

Fantastic interior design ensued.

A subgenre of Chinoiserie, Singerie features monkeys in exotic costume doing playful and naughty things. Grande Singerie Murals by C. Huet, 1737 Château de Chantilly, France  image: Atelier Mariotti

The new decorative style was popularized by the French court of Louis XV, as the curves and whimsy of Chinoiserie integrated beautifully with Rococo architectural features.  Soon it became all the rage, with all the royal palaces of Europe creating glittering theme rooms and entire pavilions to house their collections of oriental treasures.

 Jean-Baptiste Pillement’s 1760 book of engravings  “The Ladies Amusement or The Art of Japanning Made Easy”  was reprinted in England and became an influential sourcebook for designers of Chinoiserie.  image from Lynne's collection

Over the next hundred years the mania for Chinoiserie spread across the Western world, in fashion, furniture, and interiors, even in theater and opera. No palazzo, schloss, or manor home was quite complete without its Chinese room.  In early American interiors Chinese objects and fine, hand-painted wallpapers played a significant role and influenced design in the young United States for generations to come. For a growing nation that longed to be part of the rest of the world, the blending of eastern and western cultures was a symbolic and powerful idea.

circa 1780 Chinese painted wallpaper, in a room in Colonial Williamsburg, VA, was previously hung in a house in Boston. image via Carlton Hobbs

Painted Papers: The Flowering of Chinoserie

Early in the 18th century,  the first hand-painted wallpapers were imported from China by the East India Company, and so were  sometimes called  “India papers.”  Produced in China exclusively for the western market, they featured exotic looking flora and fauna delicately painted in brilliant colors on paper silk.  You can see breathtaking examples of these early India paper murals in the Chinoiserie rooms of historic palaces at Hellbrunn, Salzburg, Austria; Oranienbaum,  Russia; Drottningholm, Sweden;  Sans Souci, Potsdam, Germany; and  Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin.  At Nostell Priory in Yorkshire,  famed English designer Thomas Chippendale used floral wallpaper murals in rooms filled with faux bamboo chairs and  japanned cabinets.
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Gallery in the Royal Pavilion at Brighton image via Wikipedia

Then, when you think you’ve seen everything, there’s the Royal Pavillion at Brighton,  the spectacular pleasure palace built for King George IV.  Completed in 1822, and is the ultimate example of the late Chinoiserie style, with its opulent,  fanciful interiors and room after extravagant  room filled with handpainted Chinoiserie papers, ornament, and ceiling murals.

An Enduring Style

18th century classicists argued that the Chinoiserie style was ‘a ridiculous hodgepodge of serpents, dragons, and monkeys’  and maybe it was,  but then, even the most understated neoclassical Georgian house often had rooms whimsically decorated with floral murals “in the Chinese taste;”  a pagoda folly in the garden;  surely a pair of gilt brackets with blue and white porcelain vases, at the very least.   Robert Adam himself more than likely trotted about his home in a banyan and turban, as did most gentlemen of his day.

Chinoiserie meets the age of speed in the the Art Deco smoking room of the cruise ship “Empress of Britain” c. 1930

A general revival of orientalism in the late 19th century found theatrical Chinoiserie theme rooms at the height of fashion once again in Victorian homes, providing a serene escape from bustling industrialized cities.     From boudoirs to movie palaces,  Chinoiserie figured gracefully into Art Deco and “Hollywood Regency”  interiors, the exotic orient representing languor and wistfulness in an era of speed and new technology.   Throughout  the 20th century designers  from Sister Parish to Tony Duquette used Chinoiserie to add opulence, color, and grace to their designs.

Grant Gibson‘s design for the 2010 Elle Decor Showcase, wallpaper by deGournay

Now considered a “classic” look, chinoiserie is very much on-trend as a versatile component in contemporary interiors.  Wallpapers are still being painted in China for companies like by DeGournay, Gracie, and Fromental, and are in high demand all over the world. Contemporary muralists Jennifer Carrasco, Scott Waterman,  Nora Johnson, and of course, Lynne Rutter, have all painted current styles of chinoiserie for their clients, each with a different spin on the traditional form, while top interior designers are incorporating chinioserie murals, furnishings, and accessories into their work in fresh new ways.

Is this a Chinoiserie revival, or the perennial flowering of an immortal style?



Further Reading:
Chinese Wallpaper in Britain by Emile de Bruijn: the author of one of my favorite blogs has finally put out a fabulous book with great images and information about the Chinoiserie papers I adore!!


Flowering Chinoiserie:  Painters who share this obsession may want to consider taking this  workshop on creating your own chinoiserie murals!



©Lynne Rutter 2011

Lynne Rutter Studio

Modern Wallpaper of the 19th Century

The center hall of the Beauregard-Keyes House; reproduction circa 1860s wallpaper on its walls

This week I visited an old (by our standards) house in the Vieux Carré of New Orleans,  built in 1826, which has come to be known as the Beauregard-Keyes House, after its two most famous residents.

PGT Beauregard was the Confederacy's first and most brilliant brigadier general, and lived in this house in his post-bellum days,  from 1866-1868, while he was president of the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad.   So years later when the building fell into disrepair, its famous tenant helped save the house by attracting the attention of the Daughters of the Confederacy who lobbied for its preservation. 

In the 1940s,  the famous lady novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes bought the house and restored it to its Beauregard-era glory, researching the original paint colors and having custom reproduction wallpaper made.   Keyes took excellent care of this house, wintered there for over 25 years, and eventually died there in 1970, leaving the property to a foundation.  It's now a museum to both the historic house,  and to the amazing woman who lived there later.
And of course it is now reputed to be haunted, so no doubt it is further protected by the spirits of those who came before.

I like the vivid wallpaper in the hall.   A bit odd, to see Victorian wallpaper imposed on Greek-Revival architecture but the mix does work for me for some reason.  It's scaled perfectly - this is a large print and needs to be, as the hallway is over 800 square foot with 14 foot ceilings. The caramel and teal palette, and bold design seem oddly modern to me.  

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting