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Fresco

Fresco (plural either Frescos or Frescoes) is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls, ceilings or any other type of flat surface The word Fresco comes from the Italian word affresca [affresko] which derives from the Latin word for "fresh" Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance Declining in popularity, they enjoyed something of a revival in the 20th centuryBuon Fresco technique consists of painting in pigment mixed with water on a thin layer of wet, fresh (hence the name) lime mortar or plaster, for which the Italian word for plaster, intonaco, is used Because of the chemical makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required, as the pigment mixed solely with the water will sink into the intonaco, which itself becomes the medium holding the pigment The pigment is absorbed by the wet plaster; after a number of hours, the plaster dries and reacts with the air: it is this chemical reaction which fixes the pigment particles in the plaster One of the first painters in the post-classical period to use this technique was the Isaac Master in the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi A person who creates Fresco is called a FrescoistA secco painting, in contrast, is done on dry plaster (secco is "dry" in Italian) The pigments thus require a binding medium, such as egg (tempera), glue or oil to attach the pigment to the wall It is important to distinguish between a secco work done on top of buon Fresco, which according to most authorities was in fact standard from the Middle Ages onwards, and work done entirely a secco on a blank wall Generally, buon Fresco works are more durable than any a secco work added on top of them, because a secco work lasts better with a roughened plaster surface, whilst true Fresco should have a smooth one The additional a secco work would be done to make changes, and sometimes to add small details, but also because not all colours can be achieved in true Fresco, because only some pigments work chemically in the very alkaline environment of fresh lime-based plaster Blue was a particular problem, and skies and blue robes were often added a secco, as neither azurite blue, nor lapis lazuli, the only two blue pigments then available, work well in wet Fresco[1]It has also become increasingly clear, thanks to modern analytical techniques, that even in the early Italian Renaissance painters quite frequently employed a secco techniques so as to allow the use of a broader range of pigments In most early examples this work has now entirely vanished, but a whole Fresco done a secco on a surface roughened to give a key for the paint may survive very well, although damp is more threatening to it than to buon FrescoA third type called a mezzo-Fresco is painted on nearly dry intonacofirm enough not to take a thumb-print, says the sixteenth-century author Ignazio Pozzoso that the pigment only penetrates slightly into the plaster

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By the end of the sixteenth century this had largely displaced buon Fresco, and was used by painters such as Gianbattista Tiepolo or Michelangelo This technique had, in reduced form, the advantages of a secco workThe three key advantages of work done entirely a secco were that it was quicker, mistakes could be corrected, and the colours varied less from when applied to when fully dryin wet Fresco there was a considerable change


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Fresco - Oil Paintings Art Gallery Maria D'Adam