Soli e Nuvole descends from Sole di Capri, a design Piero Fornasetti drew in the 1950s out of imagination alone, having never been to the island. He went eventually, took the family there on holiday, and in the 1960s opened a temporary Fornasetti shop on Capri. The original combined personified suns with stylised architecture; the pairing of suns and clouds first appears in a sketch for a headscarf drawn in 1950.
As a wallpaper it becomes an all-over. Faces in the sun, faces in the cloud, arranged so that the two alternate and neither dominates. The drawing is engraved in manner, outline and hatching with no modelling, so it stays graphic at any distance rather than tipping into whimsy. The expressions carry it, each one fixed and slightly knowing.
Colourings range from strict monochrome to combinations with a metallic pass, and the character changes considerably between them without the drawing altering at all. A 76 cm repeat on a half-drop match sets the motifs on a diagonal so they never form ranks. In a cloakroom, a hall or a small study lined completely, it is the kind of pattern that makes people look up. Ceilings suit it too, which is a natural use for a design made of sky.
