The Art and Nature of Fresco Painting

Fresco Painting

Fresco is the most beautiful and enduring of all the plastic arts. Part of the wonder of this enduring form of art is that at its completion the beauty of the work has just begun to radiate. Over the years while the fresco feeds the hearts and souls of those fortunate enough to abide under its splendor, the chemical process of carbonization continues within the wall, continually increasing the visual unity and luminosity of the work.

I believe fresco is the most universal, simplest, the most direct, the most natural expression of the artist. Yet of all forms of painting, it demands the most of the artist. It calls from the painter the fullest giving of herself. It draws on every inch of her physical and mental and spiritual being, as she contemplates the same idea, the same motif, day after day, month after month, and then creates the fresco out of every ounce of herself. In addition to this, throughout the day the capacity of the plaster to assimilate color varies--it is a living changing thing. The painter must be sensitive to this constantly changing appetite and feed it accordingly. In my own studio practice, I like to call this ability--or gift--the "mothering principle." Painting a fresco uses this gift like no other artistic process.   -Lucia Wiley