FRESCO

 Since I skipped showing one of my paintings yesterday, I thought it fitting, today, to delve into the real art of painting.  I want to talk about the style of painting called 'fresco'.  

Fresco is allied with an Italian word, affresco, meaning 'fresh'.  The fresco technique is to lay color into freshly made (wet) plaster.  The painting, when the plaster dries, becomes a part of the wall or ceiling.  It is the method used by Michelangelo with his work on the Vatican's Sistine Chapel ceiling.  An alternate method of painting walls and ceilings is called 'fresco-secco' or just 'secco'; a work done on dried plaster.

The fresco technique was most popular during the Italian Renaissance Period and shortly thereafter.  Impressive murals are found mostly in churches and monasteries.  You can find work of the fresco method in most of the world.  Not many would have the patience to do them now.  

Here is something more for you to think about when you see a fresco.  Plaster is made of lime/limestone.  Paints in the middle ages were not bottles of liquid found in the 'art store'.  Paints began as powders derived from nature.  In the case of frescoes, it had to be taken into consideration that the paint powder was not being mixed only with water but with the wet lime and that it would react to change the color.  It was a chemical reaction.  Further, some of the great work was done by the artist gouging out the outline of parts of his painting to increase the feeling of depth.  These guys were real geniuses.  

Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Rossellini, - these are not the four tenors.  They are some of the great artists of the middle ages.  Some day, I may try my talent on some wet plaster.  Got any?