Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/495

 FRESCO PAINTING 483 gnm, which is in effect only tempera painting, they do not long continue to harmonize with the rest of the work. The colors must be of substances not liable to be affected by contact with the lime, and those of a mineral nature are almost exclusively used. Lime, or the dust of white marble, makes a good white. Chrome, the ochres, verditer, lapis lazuli, &c., furnish many of the colors. The brushes must be so soft as not to roughen the plaster surface. In addition to the process above described, which was called by the Italians ~buon fresco, or the true fresco, the early masters had other meth- ods of painting on lime or plaster, to which the general name of fresco is usually applied. The most important of these was that known as fresco secco, or dry fresco, so called because the plastering, having been allowed to dry thoroughly, was remoistened before the color was applied, whereby the artist was enabled to quit or resume his work at pleasure, and to avoid the joinings observable in the true fresco painting. This process was universal in Italy until the close of the 14th century, when ~buon fresco in a measure took its place. In this manner were probably executed the paintings in Pompeii and Herculaneum, and, indeed, all the so-called ancient frescoes. Work done in this way will bear to be washed as well as real fresco, and is as durable ; but it is considered, in every important respect, an inferior art. A new method of preparing the wall and paint- ing in fresco has been introduced in Germany by Prof. Yon Fuchs, called the stereochrome. The wall is coated with a preparation of clean quartz sand mixed with the least possible quan- tity of lime ; and after the application of this the surface is scraped to remove the outer coating in contact with the atmosphere. It is then washed with a solution of silica, prepared with silica 23-21 parts in 100, soda 8'90, pot- ash 2-52, water 65-37. The wall is thus said to be fixed ; and if too strongly fixed, it must be rubbed with pumice. As the painter applies his colors he moistens the work by squirting distilled water upon it. When finished it is washed over with the silica solution. The picture also, as it is in progress, is washed with the same solution, and the colors thus becoming incorporated in the flinty coating, the picture is rendered hard and durable as stone itself. In this process the artist may leave the work and return to it at any time, and he is also able to retouch and alter any portion of it. The new museum at Berlin has been adorned by this process by Kaulbach. The decorations are historical pictures, 21 ft. in height by 24f in width, and single colossal figures, friezes, arabesques, &c. They have the brilliancy and vigor of oil paintings, with no dazzling effect of light from whatever direction they may be viewed. Old paintings in fresco have been transferred to canvas from walls crumbling by decay, and thus preserved. A linen cloth is applied to the face of the painting, covered with a kind of glue. The intonaco, or last coat of plaster, is then carefully detached from the wall with a knife. The rough surface at the back having been rubbed down with pumice stone, until the plaster is reduced to the thin- nest state consistent with the preservation of the painting, canvas is fastened upon the back, and the cloth in front moistened and removed. The detached fresco may then almost be treat- ed like a common oil picture. It is quite com- mon in Italy to remove by this method fres- coes of value, for sale, or for preservation in public museums. Such was the process suc- cessfully employed in removing and preserving the paintings on the old walls of the convent of Sta. Eufemia at Brescia in 1829. The his- tory of fresco painting during the first two centuries after the revival of art is a history of painting, as nearly every considerable work was executed by that process. As a means of con- veying thoughts, ideas, and information, not then, as now, acquired through literature, it continued to subserve a useful purpose even after the invention of printing. Hence the early masters, laboring for the edification of men in general, and not for the gratification of individuals or, to adopt the language of the ancient fraternity of the painters of Siena, " being teachers to ignorant men, who know not how to read, of the miracles performed by virtue and in virtue of the holy faith "rarely painted easel pictures, but lavished all their genius and thought upon mural decoration or fresco painting. As late as the latter half of the 16th century Vasari declares it to be " more masterly, noble, manly, secure, resolute, and durable than any other kind of painting;" and he records the opinion of Michel Angelo that fresco was fit for men, oil painting only for women, and the luxurious and idle. The abbey church of St. Francis in Assisi, near Perugia, witnessed the earliest development of fresco painting in modern times. About the middle of the 13th century Giunta of Pisa commenced a series of paintings on its walls, and during the next century and a half Cimabue, Giotto, Giottino, the Gaddi, Simone di Martino, and other painters of note were invited to add to its adornment. Neglect and exposure have injured these works, but as the earliest speci- mens of modern Christian art they are of surpassing value and interest. Next in date, and of even greater importance, are the deco- rations of the Cainpo Santo in Pisa, a burial ground begun toward the close of the 13th century, the walls of which employed some of the chief masters of fresco in the 14th and 15th. The early paintings, erroneously attrib- uted to Buffalmacco and Giotto, have nearly disappeared, and time, neglect, and damp have seriously impaired the effect of the others; and such is the character of the walls on which the plaster is laid that it is considered hopeless to attempt to restore them, or to arrest the progress of decay. A series painted by Orca- gna, or according to the most recent authonti by the Sienese brothers the Lorenzetti, about