Fresco-secco

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A Fresco-secco wall painting in St Just in Penwith Parish Church, Cornwall, UK. The painting was created in the 15th century and depicts Saint George fighting the dragon. StJustSecco.jpg
A Fresco-secco wall painting in St Just in Penwith Parish Church, Cornwall, UK. The painting was created in the 15th century and depicts Saint George fighting the dragon.

Fresco-secco (or a secco or fresco finto) is a wall painting technique where pigments mixed with an organic binder and/or lime are applied onto dry plaster. [1] The paints used can e.g. be casein paint, tempera, oil paint, silicate mineral paint. If the pigments are mixed with lime water or lime milk and applied to a dry plaster the technique is called lime secco painting. The secco technique contrasts with the fresco technique, where the painting is executed on a layer of wet plaster.

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Because the pigments do not become part of the wall, as in buon fresco, fresco-secco paintings are less durable. The colors may flake off the painting as time goes by, but this technique has the advantages of a longer working time and retouchability. In Italy, the fresco technique was reintroduced around 1300 and led to an increase in the general quality of mural painting. This technological change coincided with the realistic turn in Western art and the changing liturgical use of murals. [2]

The treatise Silparatna by Kumaradeva (8th century) gives an account of the fresco-secco painting technology in detail. According to this text, a picture should be painted with appropriate colours, along with proper forms and sentiments (rasas), and moods and actions (bhavas). White, yellow, red, black and terre verte are pointed out in the text as pure colors. Different shades were also prepared from these original colors. Five types of brushes with various shapes and sizes (flat, long, medium, etc.) made of animal hair and grass fibre are also recommended. [3] Specialist painters and decorators still use this technique to great effect in the world of interior design e.g. faux marble.

Notable fresco-secco artists

A fresco-secco by Beohar Rammanohar Sinha on the walls of Shaheed-Smarak in Jabalpur (India) Maharani Durgavati.jpg
A fresco-secco by Beohar Rammanohar Sinha on the walls of Shaheed-Smarak in Jabalpur (India)

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Distemper (paint)</span> Form of decorative paint

Distemper is a decorative paint and a historical medium for painting pictures, and contrasted with tempera. The binder may be glues of vegetable or animal origin. Soft distemper is not abrasion resistant and may include binders such as chalk, ground pigments, and animal glue. Hard distemper is stronger and wear-resistant and can include casein or linseed oil as binders.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mortar joint</span> Spaces between bricks filled with mortar

In masonry, mortar joints are the spaces between bricks, concrete blocks, or glass blocks, that are filled with mortar or grout. If the surface of the masonry remains unplastered, the joints contribute significantly to the appearance of the masonry. Mortar joints can be made in a series of different fashions, but the most common ones are raked, grapevine, extruded, concave, V, struck, flush, weathered and beaded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hornemann Institute</span>

The Hornemann Institute - Centre of the Preservation of World Cultural Heritage was founded in December 1998 and registered as official project for the German world exhibition EXPO 2000 "World Cultural Heritage - A Global Challenge". Since 2003 the Hornemann Institute is state-funded institute of the University of Applied Sciences und Arts Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen (HAWK). The institute's primary field of activity focuses on worldwide knowledge transfer and further education in the field of conservation and restoration with new media.

The detachment of wall paintings involves the removal of a wall painting from the structure of which it formed part. While detachment was once a common practice, the preservation of art in situ is now preferred, and detachment is now largely restricted to cases where the only alternative is total loss. According to the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS):

Detachment and transfer are dangerous, drastic and irreversible operations that severely affect the physical composition, material structure and aesthetic characteristics of wall paintings. These operations are, therefore, only justifiable in extreme cases when all options of in situ treatment are not viable. Should such situations occur, decisions involving detachment and transfer should always be taken by a team of professionals, rather than by the individual who is carrying out the conservation work. Detached paintings should be replaced in their original location whenever possible. Special measures should be taken for the protection and maintenance of detached paintings, and for the prevention of their theft and dispersion. The application of a covering layer concealing an existing decoration, carried out with the intention of preventing damage or destruction by exposure to an inhospitable environment, should be executed with materials compatible with the wall painting, and in a way that will permit future uncovering.

References

  1. Secco. In: Weyer, Angela; Roig Picazo, Pilar; Pop, Daniel; Cassar, JoAnn; Özköse, Aysun; Jean-Marc, Vallet; Srša, Ivan (Ed.) (2015). Weyer, Angela; Roig Picazo, Pilar; Pop, Daniel; Cassar, JoAnn; Özköse, Aysun; Vallet, Jean-Marc; Srša, Ivan (eds.). EwaGlos. European Illustrated Glossary Of Conservation Terms For Wall Paintings And Architectural Surfaces. English Definitions with translations into Bulgarian, Croatian, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Spanish and Turkish. Petersberg: Michael Imhof. p. 84. doi:10.5165/hawk-hhg/233.
  2. Péter Bokody, "Mural Painting as a Medium: Technique, Representation and Liturgy," in Image and Christianity: Visual Media in the Middle Ages, ed. Péter Bokody (Pannonhalma: Pannonhalma Abbey, 2014), 136-151. https://www.academia.edu/8526688/Mural_Painting_as_a_Medium_Technique_Representation_and_Liturgy
  3. Tamil civilization Archived 2009-02-05 at the Wayback Machine
  4. "Recreative & conjectural paintings". The Works. Retrieved 16 June 2013.
  5. "The Age of Mammals mural". Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Archived from the original on 2019-07-22. Retrieved 2013-06-16.