Illustrated Architecture Dictionary .................................... Illustrated FURNITURE Glossary
Fresco
A painting done rapidly in watercolor on wet plaster on a wall or ceiling, so that the colors penetrate the plaster and become fixed as it dries
Etymology: From the Italian fresco, meaning "cool" or "fresh"
Fresco origins
The origins of fresco painting are unknown, but it was used as early as the Minoan civilization (at Knossos on Crete) and by the ancient Romans (at Pompeii).
The Italian Renaissance was the great period of fresco painting, as seen in the works of Cimabue, Giotto, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Correggio ... and many other painters from the late 13th to the mid-16th century. Michelangelo’s paintings in the Sistine Chapel and Raphael’s Stanza murals in the Vatican are the most famous of all frescoes.
By the mid-16th century, however, the use of fresco had largely been supplanted by oil painting. The technique was briefly revived by Diego Rivera and other Mexican muralists in the first half of the 20th century.
Secco (“dry”) fresco is a somewhat superficial process that dispenses with the complex preparation of the wall with wet plaster. Instead, dry, finished walls are soaked with limewater and painted while wet. The colours do not penetrate into the plaster but form a surface film, like any other paint. Secco has always held an inferior position to true fresco, but it is useful for retouching the latter.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica (online May 2020)
Examples from Buffalo:
Other examples:
