Painting
Techniques of the Renaissance.
The Fresco painting technique.
Fresco painting has been around for a very long
time, examples of the technique date back to at least 1500 BC. But the
use of the medium became very prominent in the medieval and renaissance
periods.
There are varying types of fresco, true fresco or Buon fresco is very
permanent and consists of brush painting onto freshly applied, wet lime
plaster (referred to as the intonaco.)
Using water as the medium the paint is absorbed into the plaster as it
dries and the pigment is bound into the structure of the plaster. Wall
painting was very popular in the renaissance era and fresco was the
standard method of decoration.
The area to be painted was first covered with an
under layer of plaster named the arriccio. Often the
artists would sketch their compositions on this under layer in a red
pigment called sinopia. The
artist could not make changes in the composition of the painting and
had only the drying time of the plaster in which to complete his work
(about 8 or 9 hours). Because of the drying time only enough intonaco
was applied for a single days work. If mistakes were made the entire
days layer of plaster would have to be removed. The giornata is
the name given to a single days work and in fresco
paintings the dividing lines between differing days work can very often
be seen. These seems between the layers of plaster were often hidden by
an application of Secco
fresco.
The
structure of a Fresco.
A layer
of plaster arriccio with a preparatory drawing of red
pigment, the sinopia.
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The
artist then laid further plaster for a single days work, the intonaco.
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further
painting was added each day.
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Finally
the work was completed.
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This is Giotto's Adoration of the Magi
and the artist has used both the Buon
and Secco
techniques in this painting.
Secco
fresco is used on dry plaster, pigment is applied
using egg or size as the medium and also as a binder for the paint. In
the secco fresco technique the paint is
not
absorbed into the structure of the plaster but forms a surface layer
which tends to flake off and is therefore not so permanent as Buon fresco. Secco fresco is often used in
conjunction with the buon method, secco is faster and allows
for mistakes to be corrected.
A third type of fresco, mezzo-fresco,
common at the end of the sixteenth century, was an intonaco that was
painted when the surface was almost dry. The pigment only slightly
penetrates the surface of the plaster retaining much of the colour that
varied considerably when painting into wet plaster.
Artists of the renaissance worked in slightly
different ways when working in fresco. Typically the artist would work
from a top corner of the painting and gradually apply the paint from
top to bottom, working a stage each day until completion. This method
avoided damaging or splattering finished sections with paint.
Instead of using the red pigment sinopia for the under
painting many artists used preparatory drawings on paper. The drawings
would be held against the wall and the main lines pricked through, a
bag of soot would be banged along the holes producing dots giving the
outline of the work. Given that fresco painting did not allow mistakes
to be easily rectified, the drawings became important in
producing a coherent composition for the finished work.
Many of the worlds greatest cycles of paintings have
been completed using fresco and they include the example above
from the Scrovegni Chapel .
Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel is a fine (and
very famous) example of the type of result that can be
achieved with the medium, executed by a master craftsman at the hight
of his powers.
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