WTF is a Fresco?

A fresco is a type of wall painting. Italian for “fresh,” the word fresco also refers to the painting technique itself, where artists apply water-based paint to freshly laid lime plaster. Since the wet plaster is put on a wall, the paint pigments absorb into the plaster as it dries. It all merges together, making the painting a permanent part of the wall. Another bonus of this technique is that it results in vivid colors that stand the test of time.

Buon Fresco

Believe it or not, there are two types of fresco techniques. Buon, or true, fresco is what I described above. I’ll go into more detail about the actual process in a second, but it’s important to note this technique takes so freaking long. It’s also demanding AF because the artist has to paint quickly before the damn plaster dries out.

Alright, let’s go through the steps of buon fresco:

1. First, choose and prep a wall or ceiling. Get some scaffolding up if necessary.
2. Smear the wall with arriccio, a rough layer of plaster made of lime paste and sand. Let this dry – it takes about a day.
3. Get your preparatory drawing on the arriccio. There are two ways to do this:
   • The first is drawing directly on the arriccio with a reddish pigment called sinopia. This method was popular in the 14^th century.
   • The second is transferring a cartoon onto the arriccio. No, not Bugs Bunny or Bart Simpson – we’re not talking about that kind of cartoon. Rather, a cartoon in this context is a full-sized preparatory drawing on paper. In the 15^th and 16^th centuries, artists transferred the cartoon via a process called spolvero. First, they pierced holes in the drawing. Then they “pounced” it with colored powder so an outline was made on the arriccio behind it. This was a time-consuming process, as you can imagine, so another technique called incisione indiretta, or indirect incision, was used to speed it up. Here, the artist incised lines through the cartoon onto the plaster.
4. Once your drawing is ready, apply your intonaco, which is a fine layer of plaster. Only apply intonaco in the sections you intend to paint that day since the plaster will dry and you’ll be screwed. These sections are called giornate, or “days” in Italian. They refer to how much painting can be done in a day’s work.
5. Now you’re ready to create your masterpiece by painting on that wet plaster. Be precise! If you mess up, you can’t erase it or fix it with overpainting unless you put a fresh coat of plaster. You also have to be quick since pigments won’t absorb into dry plaster. If your intonaco dries before you paint it, you have to cut it away and apply fresh plaster on your next giornata. What a bummer.
6. Finally, apply finishing touches and details using the fresco secco technique, once the plaster has dried. See below for more on fresco secco.

An example of buon fresco is Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, which took four years to paint, from 1508 to 1512.

Fresco secco

Fresco secco, or dry fresco, is simply painting on dried lime plaster. In this case, the pigments are not absorbed into the plaster or bonded to the wall. As a result, the paint doesn’t last as long as buon fresco and tends to flake off over time. Leonardo da Vinci largely used fresco secco to create the Last Supper. This technique, coupled with Leo’s experiments and mixing of oil and tempera paints, caused the painting to flake pretty quickly. In addition, the humidity of Milan didn’t help and further contributed to the work’s bad condition.

History of Fresco in Art

The earliest known frescoes come from Minoan culture around 1650 BCE. The Minoans had a massive palace in Knossos, Crete (modern-day Greece), adorned with fresco paintings. One of the most famous – done in true fresco – is the Toreador, aka the Bull-Leaping fresco, circa 1550-1450 BCE.

The ancient Romans were also into fresco paintings, many of which were preserved in Pompeian homes and villas. If you want to check out some explicit erotic frescoes, see the article, “Was There a Brothel in the Suburban Baths of Pompeii?“

The Italian Renaissance was a great period of fresco painting, with artists like Giotto, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael producing notable examples. Fresco became less popular over the subsequent centuries but experienced a revival with Mexican mural painters in the 1930s. In particular, José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera painted in this technique.

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Bibliography & Further Reading

*Some of the following links are Amazon affiliate links, which means I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no cost to you.

Davies, Penelope J.E., et. al. Janson’s History of Art: The Western Tradition. 7^th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc., 2007.

Hirst, Michael. Michelangelo: The Achievement of Fame. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012.

Kleiner, Fred. S. and Christin J. Martin. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective. 12^th ed., vol. II. Thompson Wadsworth, 2006.

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Fresco Painting.” Britannica. Accessed September 6, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/art/fresco-painting