Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/173

 1868.] Fresco-Painting. 145 FEESCO-PAINTING. By Charles Bremer.* FRESCO-PAINTING, as an art, with its especial appliance to the ornamentation of both public and private buildings, dates back its existence to the most remote periods of the history of the world. It was known and applied to the decoration of temples and other public buildings in India, long before the Egj-ptian era of art and architec- ture. It would be very difficult, at this re- mote point of time, to determine when, where and how, it-first came into exist- ence ; or how it gradually developed itself, until it became, not only an ac- knowledged, but a highly honored art, among the ancients. The first period of this art appears to have been grotesque and ornamental, at one and the same time. Traces of this are still extant, among the various pago- das and other buildings of ancient India. The Egyptians come next. They seem to have applied this art, more with a view of perpetuating the history and memory of the dead, than for the em- bellishment of their temples, palaces, or houses. Neither in India, nor in Egypt, was this beautiful art ever fully appreciated, or understood ; and, had it stopped in its progress then, we should, in all prob- ability, have known little or nothing more about it. It was during the Grecian period of the world's history, that fresco-painting first assumed its proper place with an art-loving people. During the existence of the Greeks as a nation, the arts of every description flourished to a won- derful extent. Sculpture, painting, and architecture were developed, to a degree entirely unknown and undreamed of before ; and the first and third to a height scarcely equalled and certainty never out-soared since ; and it is to this people's keen scrutiny of nature, their innate love of the beautiful and carefully cultivated taste, that we are indebted, for the more perfect development of the art of fresco-painting. The Romans fully appreciated this art ; and, although their works did not always reach the same high standard of merit with those of the Greeks, they, nevertheless, succeeded in producing some very fine specimens of the art, many of which are still in existence. In Roman fresco, we have those two unerring witnesses — the buried cities of the flanks of Vesuvius, Herculaneum, and Pompeii, tritely quoted but ever fresh, whose walls exhibit in good pres- ervation, well-drawn human figures, flowers and foliated scroll-work, in ad- dition to the precise geometrical pat- terns we might expect to see ; and it is well to remember, that these were pro- vincial cities. Could the same catas- trophe have occurred to the Rome of that period, we should have a very dif- ferent and far higher estimate of the proficiency of the ancients in the vari- ous arts of beauty, and of their uncited and lost discoveries in the arts of use. We constantly, and very properly dis- count Roman art, when Grecian is made the test ; but must bear in mind that as Greece was conquered by Rome, the chief master-pieces of the Hellenic artists must have been within her pal- aces. In those smaller and choicer speci- mens, which have come down to us, such as lamps, vases, and engraved gems, we find little to criticize ; and though arts are known to have flourished unequally at a number of periods, yet the exquisite management of design in gems would
 * Fresco-Painter, No. 152 Soutli Fourth street, Philadelphia.