Cresta Fluviale

I call Cresta Fluviale wallpaper this surface that brings onto the wall the memory of an ancient water, slow and stubborn, able to carve stone over time. It belongs to the style of river-scoured sandstone, a cross-bedded sandstone whose laminations run in long diagonals, each one interrupted by an older erosion line that cuts it obliquely: wedges of rock stacked one on another, beds laid like the pages of a single geological account.

Over the millennia the current has not eroded everything in the same way: the more cemented bands stand forward as fine ribs in relief, while the softer ones withdraw into grooves, composing a corrugated surface, almost a fabric rippled by water. The veins run diagonally from one corner towards the opposite margin, thicken at the centre into a tight rhythm of ridges and hollows, then widen towards the edges into a quieter breath. The colour stays faithful to a single family, that of sandstone: bone white and pale beige on the crests, ochre and burnt sienna in the grooves, fine rust-red striations and umber shadows marking every lamination.

In my work I always look for this fidelity to real matter, and in Cresta Fluviale it shows in every grain of sand, in every fine ripple left by the current. That is why we sign every Cresta Fluviale wallpaper with the same craft care WallZad gives to every stone, every wood, every surface that brings onto the wall at home a time longer than our own.