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These Most Beautiful Ceiling Designs in the World

A quick search of the hashtag lookup on social media reveals a recent fascination with ceiling design ideas. But while the trending hashtag has increased awareness of beautiful ceiling designs in recent years, the notion of adorning a room’s fifth wall has been popular for centuries. In her forthcoming book, The Art of Looking Up, art history expert Catherine McCormack surveys 40 spectacular ceilings around the world.
Organized into four sections religion, culture, power, politics, the book shares moving photography and in depth analysis of what can only be considered works of art on ceilings around the world, in houses of worship, museums, palaces, and government buildings. Let find out These Most Beautiful Ceiling Designs in the World.

These Most Beautiful Ceiling Designs in the World

Badal Mahal, Bundi Palace

Nestled within the sprawling 17th century Bundi Palace is the interior hall of the Badal Mahal, or Cloud Palace, which some say served as the Queen’s quarters while others claim it provided a domestic enclosure for Rao Ratan Singh’s 15 wives. On the ceiling, figures and animals cavort and dance across the crimson mural, which features at the center a silver disc of a moon encircled with the heads of nine Hindu deities.

Badal Mahal, Bundi Palace

Chinese Palace, Hall of Muses

The Hall of Muses at Catherine the Great’s Chinese Palace, which was designed by architect Antonio Rinaldi in 1768, was decorated by Italian born Stefano Torelli and intended for contemplation and appreciation of the arts. The room invokes the nine muses of ancient Greek mythology who presided over the arts and sciences, lending divine inspiration to humans. That is once of These Most Beautiful Ceiling Designs in the World.
Among these are Erato, muse of love poetry, Calliope, muse of heroic poetry and rhetoric, and Terpsichore, the muse of dance. The Hall of Muses demonstrates the Rococo decorative characteristics of shell and coral like formations and arabesque curves known collectively as rocaille.

Chinese Palace, Hall of Muses

Blenheim Palace, North Portico

The all seeing eyes of artist Colin Gill’s North Portico ceiling at Blenheim Palace bear down on the visitors below. It’s a peculiar welcome to one of England’s largest and most prestigious homes. The painting of the North Portico ceiling dates to 1928, when Gladys Deacon, the second wife of the 9th Duke of Marlborough commissioned Gill to adorn the ceiling with her and her husband’s eyes.
The eye as a visual symbol has a significant history. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the Eye of Horus represents good health, protection, and royal power. In medieval Europe, the eye symbol often appeared surrounded by a triangle that symbolized the Holy Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A similar motif was later taken up by the Freemasons as a reflection of their belief in this all seeing power.

Blenheim Palace, North Portico

Casa de la Cuitat, Hall of the Chronicles

Commissioned by the Barcelona mayor in 1929 in preparation for the World Exhibition that same year, descriptive paintings in black, grey, and burnished gold unravel in a cinematic panorama on the ceiling and walls of the Hall of Chronicles in Barcelona’s Casa de la Cuitat or city hall. The murals, painted by Catalonian artist Josep Maria Sert, dramatically depict scenes from Catalan history and literary traditions.

Casa de la Cuitat, Hall of the Chronicles

Museo de la Revolucion, Hall of Mirrors

A winged figure of Victory dominates the center of Armando Garcia Menocal’s The Triumph of the Republic. The painting, which borrows from the themes and allegories of the classical tradition, enshrines the divine liberation of Cuba from centuries of colonial rule by the Spanish in the Cuban War of Independence that culminated in the country’s eventual independence in 1902.
When Menocal painted the mural in 1920, the neoclassical building was the Presidential Palace, the headquarters of the Cuban presidency. After the 1957 storming of the palace during the Cuban revolution, the building was converted to a museum commemorating the Marxist overthrow of the government.

Museo de la Revolucion, Hall of Mirrors

Palazzo del Te, Sala dei Giganti

In the Palazzo del Te’s Hall of Giants, the ceiling mural creates the illusion of a dome and tells the cautionary tale from Greek mythology of when Jupiter, king of the gods, threw lightning down to defeat the giants who attempted to scale Mount Olympus. That is once of These Most Beautiful Ceiling Designs in the World.
Painted between 1532 to 1535 by Giulio Romano, artist in residence for the Gonzaga court in Mantua and a protege of the Renaissance artist Raphael, the mural is remarkable not only for its vivid color and detail but also because it fuses seamlessly with the walls of the room, so there is no clear distinction between the real space of the room’s architecture and the artificial space of the image.

Palazzo del Te, Sala dei Giganti