HYLAND
and patrons through visual comparison to figures from
legend and myth.
A final note on the extraordinarily disciplined ornament
in the Great Hall: the chiaroscuro or grisaille paintings
enclosed in the roundels upon the frieze are by Andrea
Casali, their details taken from the Triumphal Arches of
Rome.
If the Great Hall, with its pale
silvery tones, evokes an ethereal
afterlife, the Ante Room which
follows, with its famous bursts
of intense color, is a chamber
celebrating the vita activa,
indeed, a place hearkening
back to excesses of the Roman
Empire. The bronze statues by
Valadier of Antinous Belvedere,
favorite of Hadrian and Silenus
with infant Dionysus, underscore
the power of subject, artist and
patron alike. Variegated highly
colored marbles, a magnificent
amalgam of the richest material
the quarries and antique ruins
of Italy could offer are used, this time lavishly yet finally
with Adam's characteristic alternation of ornament with
space. Pillars of antique green marble are topped by
extravagantly gilded sculptures of gods, who gaze down
at an intricate polished scagliola floor in red, green, white
and yellow.
