Hotel Villa Igiea: ballroom

Ernesto Basile was considered one of the most influential representatives of the Stile Liberty. He devoted as much attention to the interiors as to the buildings themselves. There are unmistakable French influences in his work - soft, elegant forms and a symbiosis of painting and decoration brilliantly handled.

The Hotel Villa Igiea is particularly important as it contains almost the only surviving Basile interior. All the details here, including doors, mirrors and screens, are part of the overall architectural design in a manner typical of Art Nouveau, where ornament seems to be about to devour the room and its contents. Much derives from Belgian, French and English Art Nouveau. The apparently fluid but oddly frozen forms, like cloth soaked in plaster, derive from Henry Van de Velde and the medieval references come from William Morris and Viollet-le-Duc. Nevertheless, the mural depicting women and swans is more realistic than it would have been elsewhere, and the poppy, ubiquitous in northern versions of Art Nouveau, appears only in the capitals of columns and the doorframes.

The photo shows the Stile Liberty (Art Nouveau) ballroom in the Hotel Villa Igiea in Palermo.