Volume 38, Number 9 · May 16, 1991
How to Read a Fresco
By John Pope-Hennessy
The Place of Narrative: Mural Decoration in Italian Churches, 431–1600
by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin
University of Chicago Press, 406 pp., $65.00
Fresco painting was the main means of visual communication available to Italian painters from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Vasari describes the technique of fresco as 'more virile and long-lasting than any other form of painting,' and as requiring greater resolution and confidence of touch. Frescoes were thought out slowly, but they were executed sectionally, with great speed, in what are called giornate (days), that is, in periods in which the smooth layer of plaster—the intonaco—of the area to be painted remained damp enough to absorb paint. They were the result of cogitation, but of cogitation that had, once a final solution was arrived at, to be transferred speedily on to the wall.
Review, 5154 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |