Eastlake 1847

C[harles] L[ock] Eastlake, Materials for a History of Oil Painting, London [Longmans – Green, & Co.] 1847.

pp. 141–148

CHAP. VI.

FRESCO PAINTING AND WAX PAINTING DURING THE
FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

FRESCO PAINTING.

AMONG other methods employed in the middle ages, wall-painting with lime, and wax painting, are to be noticed. The first would, by its general terms, comprehend fresco painting; but that process, as described by Vasari, and as practised by the great Italian masters, does not appear to have been in use till near the close of the fourteenth century. Fresco painting requires, as is well known, to be executed in portions; the surface of fresh plaster which is laid on when the painter is about to begin his day’s work must be covered and completed, as a portion of a picture, before such plaster is dry; and so on, till the whole design is executed. Some ingenuity is necessary to conceal the joinings of the several portions: it is generally contrived that they shall coincide with lines in the composition, or take place in shadows. Their existence is however unavoidable, and these divisions in the patchwork (for such it may be called), of which all works of the kind must consist, are among the tests of fresco painting, properly so called. Whenever the extent of a surface of plaster, without a joining, is such that it would be impossible to complete the work contained in it in a day, it may be concluded, even without other indications, though such are seldom wanting, that the mode of execution was not what is called “buon fresco.”

Walls decorated by the earlier Italian masters exhibit no joinings in the plaster having any reference to the decorations upon them. The paintings must consequently have been added when the entire surface was dry; and must either have been executed in tempera, or, if with lime, by means of a process called “secco,” (or sometimes “fresco secco,” as opposed to “buon fresco,”) which is still commonly practised in Italy and in Munich. The method has been thus described. The plastering having been completed, and lime and sand only having been used for the last coat, the whole is allowed to dry thoroughly. It is then rubbed with pumice-stone, and the evening before the painting is to be commenced, the surface is well wetted with water in which a little lime has been mixed. The wall is again moistened the next morning; the cartoons are then fastened up, and the outline is pounced. The colours are the same as those used in “buon fresco,” and are mixed with water in the same way, lime being used for the white. “Work done in this way will bear to be washed as well as real fresco, and is as durable; for ornament it is a better method than real fresco, as in the latter art it is quite impossible to make the joinings of the plaster at outlines, owing to the complicated forms of ornaments. The work can be quitted and resumed at any time, as the artist has always the power of preparing the surface by moistening it, as at first. But while the method offers these advantages, and is particularly useful where ornamental painting alone is contemplated, it is, in every important respect, an inferior art to real fresco.”*

* See a Report on Fresco Painting, by Mr. Wilson, Director of the Government School of Design at Somerset House, in the Second Report of the Commissioners on the Fine Arts, p. 40.

That this method was practised during and before the thirteenth century will be evident from the following passage in Theophilus. “When figures or other objects are drawn on a dry wall, the surface should be first sprinkled with water, till it is quite moist. While the wall is in this state, the colours are to be applied, all the tints being mixed with lime, and drying as the wall dries, in order that they may adhere.”†

† “Cum imagines vel aliarum rerum effigies protrahuntur in muro sicco, statim aspergatur aqua, tam diu donec omnino madidus sit. Et in eodem humore liniantur omnes colores, qui supponendi sunt, qui omnes calce misceantur, et cum ipso muro siccentur ut hæreant.” — Div. Art. Schedula, l. i. c. 15. Theophilus nowhere describes the practice of “buon fresco.”

In the notes added by Le Begue (1431) to his copy of the MSS. of Alcherius, the following passage occurs. “Portions of walls [intended to be painted] should be rather moist than otherwise, because the colours thus unite and adhere better; and all colours for walls should be mixed with lime.”* The passage in Theophilus (from which this may have been copied) is conclusive as to the early use of “secco,” in the sense above explained, for wall-painting. The method, like other processes employed in the middle ages, was probably derived from the ancients; and it may be conjectured that the paintings of Pompeii were, to a certain extent at least, thus executed. Two important facts support this view. First, lime is found in nearly all the colours†; and, secondly, in most of the walls two horizontal joinings only in the plaster are to be detected.‡ The work in either of the three divisions, but especially in the larger middle division, is much more than could be executed in a day. The method therefore could hardly have been “buon fresco.” The peculiar fitness of “secco” for ornamental work (which abounds in Pompeii) has been already noticed.*

* “Et doivent être murs pans plus moiste que aultre chose pour ce que les couleurs se tiennent mieux ensemble et seront plus fermes, et doivent toutes couleurs pour murs être mellez [sic] avec chaux vive.”

† “In every colour, whether employed as the general tint of a compartment, or in the painting of figures and ornaments, a drop of diluted sulphuric acid produced an effervescence, indicating the presence of a small, and often invisible, portion of carbonate of lime, even on the surface of the deepest black.” — Wiegmann, Die Malerei der Alten, Hannover, 1836, p. 42. The exceptions are where some few portions are executed in tempera; some colours on walls, vermilion for instance, are protected with a wax varnish (Vitruv. l. vii. c. 9.). It was this circumstance which deceived Winkelmann and others, who maintained that the paintings of Pompeii were executed in wax.

‡ Ib. p. 38.

* Besides the conclusive evidence afforded by the presence of the lime, many of the walls exhibit indented outlines, sometimes, as in the “Casa delle Fontane,” indicating the process of tracing. Hence Wiegmann inclines to the opinion that the paintings may have been executed even in “buon fresco,” and gets over the difficulty of the quantity of work by supposing that the numerous layers of mortar in the wall kept the surface moist for many days. If so, still the method of “secco” (and it appears even tempera occasionally) may have been employed in finishing. The writer here quoted, who is by far the most rational of those who have considered the subject of the Pompeian decorations, might have been assisted in his investigations by a reference to the wall-painting of the middle ages.

The use of lime “in all the colours,” according to the directions of Theophilus and Le Begue, would necessarily occasion a want of force in the shadows. This was remedied by subsequent painting in tempera. Theophilus, immediately after the passage quoted, speaks of the application of colours mixed with yolk of egg, on the previous preparation, when dry.† The next step to fresco painting (perhaps the ordinary lime painting practised by the ancients) consisted in laying in the design immediately after the original plaster was spread on the wall, and while it was moist. This preparation, or dead colour, at least established the forms and masses of colour; and, when dry, the work could be finished either in “secco” or in tempera: the moderns preferred the latter. The method adopted by the followers of Giotto in this partial fresco painting was somewhat singular. The first rougher coat of lime and sand having been allowed to dry, the painter sketched his composition upon it with a red colour in outline, sometimes adding the shadows. The design was copied from a small drawing, in the usual mode, by means of squares. Then the intonaco, or thin coat of lime and sand, on which the painting itself was to be executed, was added, either at once, or in greater or less portions (accordingly as the chief work was intended to be in fresco or in tempera); and on this intonaco the design was repeated. Thus the drawing underneath was destined, from the first, to be covered. It was probably traced before the lime was spread over it, as the forms could then be reproduced in the same places, the tracing being fitted by means of the ends of the squared lines underneath. In thus making a design which was to be obliterated, the object could only have been to judge of the effect of the composition in its place. In the Campo Santo, at Pisa, a half-decayed fresco, representing the Coronation of the Virgin (painted in 1391, by Pietro d’ Orvieto), shows, where the intonaco has fallen off, the first design drawn, and even shaded, on the plaster underneath. Vasari, describing an unfinished work at Assisi, by Lippo Memmi, states that the outline was drawn with the brush in red, on the first coat of plaster; “which mode of proceeding,” he observes, “might be called the cartoon which the early masters prepared before painting a fresco, in order to shorten the work.” He adds that several unfinished and decayed wall-paintings exhibited the same preparation.* The method was retained even after the improved system was introduced. It is described by Cennini. (Trattato, c. 67.)

† In strict accordance with the description of Pliny: “Pingentes sandyce sublita mox ovo inducentes purpurissum, fulgorem minii faciunt. Si purpuram fecere malunt, cæruleum subliniunt, mox purpurissum ex ovo inducunt.” — L. xxxv. c. 26.

* Vasari, Vita di Simone e Lippo Memmi.

The earliest work in “buon fresco” is probably that painted by Pietro d’ Orvieto, in the Campo Santo, at Pisa, about 1390, representing some subjects from Genesis.† In this instance the joinings of the plaster are frequent, as compared with earlier wall-paintings, and the amount of work in each portion may have been, and to all appearance was, finished at once. The earlier mode of employing tempera as the complement of fresco was, however, long retained. The works of Pinturicchio, executed at Siena, in 1503, are completed in tempera, and exhibit colours (such as lake) which are incompatible with mere lime painting.‡ The mixed method was even common at a later period in the sixteenth century, if not at Florence, at least in other Italian schools. Thus Vasari states that Girolamo da Cotignola executed certain works at S. Michele in Bosco, in Bologna, which were laid in in fresco, and finished in tempera.* The same writer speaking of a series of paintings by Ercole da Ferrara, in a chapel at Bologna, says: “It is reported that Ercole employed twelve years on these works, seven in preparing them in fresco, and five in retouching them.”† As the seven years may be supposed to comprehend the execution of the designs and cartoons, together with the first painting on the walls, the quantity of work in tempera was at least equal to that in fresco.

† Ernst Förster, Beiträge zur neuern Kunstgeschichte, Leipzig, 1835, p. 220.

‡ See “Observations on Fresco Painting,” by Mr. Dyce, in the Sixth Report of the Commissioners on the Fine Arts, p. 11.

* “A fresco imposte ed a secco lavorate.” — Vasari, Vita di Bartolommeo da Bagnacavallo.

† “Dicono che Ercole mise nel lavoro di questa opera dodici anni, sette in condurla a fresco e cinque in ritoccarla a secco.” — Id., Vita di Ercole pittore Ferrarese.

It should be remembered that the expression “a secco” is usually employed by Vasari for retouchings in tempera, and it is not to be confounded with the “secco,” or lime painting, on dry walls described by Theophilus. The former term is also used by Italian writers in speaking of repainting or glazing on oil pictures when dry. Examples of “secco,” or lime painting, perhaps exist in this country, but the rude representations sometimes to be met with on the walls of chapels are commonly retouched in size.