Fresco

[It., fresh.] Coolne ; freshne . (Paint.) A method of painting by incorporating the colors with the fresh or wet wall-plaster, or sul fresco intonaco, upon the fresh coat. When dry, such paintings become as permanent as the wall itself. This method is very ancient. It was used by the Greeks, and can be traced even to Egypt, for ordinary purposes of mere wall-coloring or staining; but for works of high art, it was not developed until after the time of Giotto; and the first genuine fresco-painting, called buon fresco , is supposed to be the work of Pietro d'Orvieto, executed in the Campo Santo at Pisa, in 1390. The earlier wall paintings are executed in what the Italians, to distinguish it from buon fresco, now call fresco - secco , or dry fresco, literally a contradiction. But in the case of secco painting, the dry wall was well saturated with water, and the tints, all mixed with lime, were applied while the wall was wet, and when drying were, through the admixture of lime, incorporated with it. Buon fresco can only be executed in small portions, just as much as the painter can execute in a single day; the parts, therefore, marked out for the day's work are distinct portions of figures or objects, which are not injured by being surrounded by a sharp outline. - A new mode of creating durable pictures upon walls has been lately invented, to which has been applied the name of STEREOCHROMY. Fres'co, (Al,) adv. In the cool, fresh air; as, an al fresco entertainment.