Ornated Ceilings from Antonio Cavallini’s Works

Abstract

Since the beginning, humanity has sought ways to ornament architecture with different objectives: to remember, instruct, simulate, or improve the aesthetic appearance of the inhabited place. Architecture and ornament have developed in parallel following the predominant styles of the different periods; However, from the 19^th century, with the creation of Fine Arts Academies in Europe, ornamental techniques were freed from union’s dominations and the artists who trained in them were able to design new compositions for the middle and upper classes resorting to styles apparently forgotten or brought from other cultures.

The Academies were fundamental for the knowledge and dissemination of these artistic techniques, giving rise to the preparation of catalogs that created “fashion”, enabling the presence of ornament in any work of architecture, beyond churches, convents and palaces. This document aims to present the ornamental ceiling’s designs of a Swiss artist, Antonio Cavallini (Bissone, 1836-Marmolejo, 1905), trained in an Italian Academy, who moved his atelier to Seville during the second half of the 19th century.