Fresco

“ Its beauty is like the sunset; not a fresco painting on a wall, flat and bounded, but atmospheric and roving or free. In reality, history fluctuates as the face of the landscape from morning to evening. What is of moment is its hue and color. Time hides no treasures ”

“ I was agreeably surprised by the beauty of the fresco-paintings which still are preserved in many of the rooms. Those eyes, they still have life as if they still lived, and in these countenances what expression! Any thing deeper, or more true to life is seldom met with even in the paintings of the present day. ”

“ To eastward I see, in the silence of a great fresco, the diverging beams of morning gleaming, through the intervening and somber statues of two hunters, whose long hair is tangled like briars, and who hold each other's hand, upright on the mountain.
Men have gone towards each other because of that ray of light which each of them contains; and light resembles light. ”

“ And this example I would impress upon every grainer, young and old, who may aspire to produce something great in his own line of life; for the work on a door, a dado, shutter, skirting-board, or mantelpiece, is of as much importance as the fresco on the plaster above—those frescoes which have been the pride and glory of the best of our old masters.
The grainer who desires to be remembered must possess himself with the true diffidence of the uncompromising realist. ”

“ Wherever a fresco peels and drops, Wherever an outline weakens and wanes Till the latest life in the painting stops, Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains: One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick, Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster, —A lion who dies of an ass’s kick, The wronged great soul of an ancient Master.
— St. 6. “He sees the ghosts of the early Christian masters, whose work has never been duly appreciated, standing sadly by each mouldering Italian Fresco.”—Dowden. ”

“ As I said a moment ago—you may mould yourselves into noble forms. But in the making of character we have to work as a painter in fresco does, with a swift brush on the plaster while it is wet. It sets and hardens in an hour. ”

“ An outside covering of painting in fresco, which is attended with very little expense, conceals from the eye of the spectator the nature of the building, and is a handsome ornament to the house. 73 That method of painting has more freshness and brilliancy than any other, because water does not impair the colours. ”

“ In much the same way as a modern dining-room, however perfect in its decoration and gorgeous in its upholstery, can never give us the same effect as the rough pillars of some ruined temple; so does the comparative rough sublimity of fresco afford to a true artist a means of expressing great thoughts and lofty ideas in a comparatively facile manner. ”

“ After many years' study of the various results of fresco and oil painting in Italy, and of body-color and transparent color in England, I am now entirely convinced that the greatest things that are to be done in art must be done in dead color. ”

“ The principal works of modern art are in fresco, a mode of painting which excludes attention to minute elegances: yet these works in fresco are the productions on which the fame of the greatest masters depends: such are the pictures of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle in the Vatican ”

“ People who don’t know much about painting are very apt to call any picture on a wall a fresco, but I suppose I need hardly tell you that oil-or wax-paintings on walls are no more frescoes than is an oil sketch on paper a water-color. ”

“ Of the essential power and beauty of the work there can be no better evidence than this fact that, having lost so much, it has yet retained so much. An unquenchable elegance lingers in those vague outlines and incurable scars; enough remains to place you in sympathy with the unfathomable wisdom of the painter. The fresco covers a wall, the reader will remember, at the end of the former refectory of a monastery now suppressed, the precinct of which is occupied by a regiment of cavalry. ”

“ When painted walls were in fashion, there existed, below the great creative artists, schools of decorative designers skilled in the art of fresco-decoration, from the simplest kind to the most ornate. ”

“ In painting processes proper fresco takes the lead. It is in its theory the simplest of all, and at the same time it has produced some of the most splendid results recorded in the annals of the art. With the fresco process may be grouped for the sake of convenience other methods of wall-painting, which share with it at any rate some of its characteristics. ”

“ It will be seen from this that the fresco painter must cultivate a light hand for his work; he cannot indulge, for instance, in that dexterity of handling that may be accomplished in oil or in, say, spirit-fresco painting, simply because of the danger of working up the soft and wet plaster ground: he must know what he has to do, and must do it frankly and at once ”

“ Now if the essentials of monumental painting, which we have named, and the special functions of the art of the painter are united in any scheme of mural decoration, the result would be an ideal work of decorative art, examples of which may be found in the frescos of Giotto, and in those of the majority of the Italian painters who followed him, down to the sublime creations of Michael Angelo. ”

“ This plaster, or mortar, is a mixture of lime and sand, and the colours used in the painting are such as will remain unchanged in hue when in contact or in mixture with the lime. When all necessary details relating to the method of procedure connected with the work are carefully carried out, true fresco paintings may be said to have a higher degree of permanence and durability than those executed by any other method or medium. The fine surface texture and luminous quality of buon fresco pre-eminently distinguishes it as the most beautiful colour finish for mural decoration. ”

“ The only advantage that these varieties of wall painting seem to possess over the buon, or true fresco, process—and it may be considered as a questionable one—is, that as regards the number of the colours, the artist may use an almost unlimited or unrestricted palette, while in buon fresco his colours are limited to the very few which remain unchanged when subjected to the caustic action of the lime in the plaster. ”

“ If this room is plastered in a gray finish, the walls may be tinted in fresco colors, and, if desired, certain parts of it ornamented by stencilling or otherwise. Unless this ornamental work is done by an artist of recognized ability, it should be of the simplest character. One or two simple lines, or a series of short dashes, is much better than scrawling figures drawn by an untrained hand. The ordinary fresco done by the foreign artist is the ugliest, most ungraceful work possible. ”

“ Over one door is the Nativity,—over the other, the Resurrection,—also in fresco. On the walls around were pictures somewhat miscellaneous, I thought; for example, John Huss, St. Cecilia, Melanchthon, Luther, several women, saints, apostles, and evangelists. These paintings are all by the first German artists. The floor is a splendid mosaic, and the top of the dome is richly adorned with frescoes. ”

“ The decoration of wall surfaces in colour is one of the very oldest forms of art, and to a wall painting of any kind the term “fresco” has usually, but somewhat loosely, been applied. Strictly speaking, however, a veritable fresco painting is one that is executed on the fresh or wet lime plaster of the wall, and is not re-touched after the plaster has become dry. ”

“ How did the painter make them? The wonder of all these pagan frescos is the mystery of the eyes—still, beautiful, unhuman. You cannot believe that it is wrong for those tranquil-eyed men and women to do evil, they look so calm and so unconscious in it all; and in the presence of the celestials, as they bend upon you those eternal orbs, in whose regard you are but a part of space, you feel that here art has achieved the unearthly. ”

“ If a fresco on a wall, for instance, it adorns the wall without attempting to look like a hole cut in it through which something is accidentally seen; if a painting on a vase, it acknowledges the convexity of the shape, and helps to express instead of contradicting it; if on a panel in a cabinet or door, it spreads itself in an appropriate filling on an organic plan to cover it; being, in short, ornamental by its very nature, its first business is to ornament. ”

“ The principles of mural painting require that the composition shall be subordinated to the architectural conditions of the space it is to fill and that the color shall be kept flat. The fresco method meets these requirements admirably, but because of its flatness it has its limitations. ”

“ Although we cannot claim for spirit-fresco that peculiar quality of monumental dignity, nor the undoubted luminosity or power of reflecting light that is characteristic of buon-fresco paintings, still, if the entire system is carefully carried out, from the preparation of the wall down to the finished painting, the work should be as lasting and as permanent as any other kind of wall painting. ”

“ That is one of the reasons why frescoes touch the soul, they remind us of a truth we know in ourselves that the face of every human being, good or evil, is turned towards God, as the flowers turn their blossoms to the sun. ”

“ Every fresco is surrounded by a frame, painted in imitation of coloured 75 mosaic, and at intervals, beneath the lowest row of the scenes from the life of Christ, there are representations of the Virtues, each of which has its corresponding Vice facing it upon the opposite side of the chapel. ”

“ The independent development of painting required the decay of the architecture of the middle ages, whose symbolical, purely decorative tendency condemned painting to be a sort of allegorical or narrative Arabesque; whose well defined arches might not be broken through by daring perspective, whose delicate cornices might not enclose more than a mere rigid and simply tinted mosaic, or mosaic-like fresco. ”

“ The light falls upon the dull red walls or elaborate frescoes, and upon the sides of the sleeping figure, but loses itself at last in the dim recesses of the lofty roof. When the eye has become accustomed to the gloom, the peculiar wonder of the spectacle begins to be appreciated. ”

“ In all probability the Renaissance painters have here supplied the place of a vacant or faded fresco with one of their own compositions, and this is rendered the more likely as there are in the Lower Churches several wretchedly bad Renaissance pictures. ”

“ We now have fresco paintings of monstrosities, rather than truthful representations of definite things. For instance, reeds are put in the place of columns, fluted appendages with curly leaves and volutes, in­stead of pediments, candelabra supporting representations of shrines, and on top of their pediments numerous tender stalks and volutes growing up from the roots and having human figures senselessly seated upon them; sometimes stalks having only half-length figures, some with human heads, others with the heads of animals. ”

“ Burn shavings and splinters of pitch pine, and when they turn to charcoal, put them out, and pound them in a mortar with size. This will make a pretty black for fresco painting. ”

“ Of this vivid expression the frescoes in the north transept appear to me to retain few traces; they have just the same relation to the early work that a clever imaginary landscape has to a rough sketch from nature. The first may not be wrong, but we feel that the latter is right. ”

“ The frescoes and paintings were of an ancient order, dating from days when life and not death reigned in this isolated dwelling; but in them high art reigned supreme, an art so high and so finished that only great wealth, combined with the most cultivated taste, could have produced such effects. ”

“ They remind one of frescoes or rather of moving tapestries that unroll before our view natural and fantastic scenes of a heavy and expensive colouring, figures of strong and outstanding picturesqueness, but almost without life. ”

“ There are comparatively few paintings that I can really enjoy. At first when I enter a room where the walls are covered with frescoes, or with rare pictures, I feel a kind of awe—like a child present at great ceremonies where there are grand robes and processions; I feel myself in the presence of some higher life than my own. ”

“ Ancient frescoes, discovered about forty years ago, some remaining in their original state, others touched up with more or less skill and knowledge, mingle harmoniously with those of more recent date. Very singular are the best preserved, representing hunting parties and banquets of the Grand Princes, and scenes from the earthly life of Christ. ”

“ If we look at one of these frescoes, such, for example, as the Presepio at Greccio, and at the same time endeavour to transport ourselves into the position of a contemporary spectator, what will strike us most immediately and make the most startling general impression is its actuality. ”

“ Nature paints not In oils, but frescoes the great dome of heaven With sunset; ”

“ How we revel in the force and freshness of the wind, in the life of the wave! And such an appeal he always makes. His subject may be fanciful, as in the “Realm of Venus” (the “Spring”) ; religious, as in the Sixtine Chapel frescoes or in the “Coronation of the Virgin”; political, as in the 72 recently discovered “Pallas Taming a Centaur”; or even crudely allegorical, as in the Louvre frescoes,—no matter how unpropitious, how abstract the idea, the vivid appeal to our tactile sense, the life-communicating movement is always there. ”

“ Other frescoes introduce us to a lively and hitherto unknown miniature style, representing, among other subjects, groups of women engaged in animated conversation in the courts and on the balconies of the Palace. ”

“ Painting, as the most ornate of the three, owing to its greater power of expression and beauty of colour, must nevertheless be employed to decorate, in the true sense of the word, the plain spaces in a building, and in the largest and simplest manner, without any definite attempts to represent the true facts of nature, or at least it should be suggestive of such facts rather than descriptive of them. ”