HISTORY OF FRESCO PAINTING

The Italian masters

The hidden master: Cimabue

The most celebrated frescoes in western Europe were painted by the great Italian masters: Giotto, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Tiepolo. Giotto’s medieval frescoes in the Arena Chapel at Padua (1305-06) revolutionized the depiction of Christ and other biblical figures by expressing the human quality of their suffering. Renaissance masterpieces, such as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508-12) and Raphael’s School of Athens in the Vatican (1510-11), are renowned for their enormous size, expressive power, and elaborate beauty. Tiepolo’s frescoes, painted in the Rococo style of the 1700s, are lighter and more playful.

Giotto: The founder of modern painting

Left, a reproduction By Sergio Bonometti: 'The Approval of the Rule by Giotto' Giotto, regarded by many as the founder of modern painting, was a major exponent of fresco, a technique of wall painting known in classical antiquity and revived in the thirteenth century in Rome, where Giotto worked as a young artist. In scale and scope, wall painting was the most important art form in fourtheeth century Italy. Giotto`s paintings in the Arena Chapel in Padua are among the most perfectly preserved examples of fresco painting. Giotto used both buon fresco and secco fresco techniques for the Arena Chapel at Padua. It is likely that, for a design as complicated yet unified as Giotto’s Arena Chapel, extensive preparatory drawings were done since the technique makes extensive alterations or changes difficult.

Tiepolo: An expression of opulence and uncertainty

The Venice in which Giambattista Tiepolo was born and reared was a state that was facing political and economic decline after centuries of splendor. The Venitian Republic had lost supremacy of the seas following the Turkish conquest of Candia. The Hapsburg Empire prevented transport and movement by land, and Venice was also largely by-passed in the game of alliances forming the basis of a new political order in Europe. However, among the great families of the Republic there was a certain short-sightedness and reluctance to recognize the new reality which prevailed.Ever palace on the Grand Canal, every villa located in the beautiful countryside surrounding Venice continued to the center of a gay and festive, if not fatuous, life. There was a loss of contact with reality. The nobility in full decadence was nostalgic of antiquity, and was attracted to mythical and classical Greek themes, including in the theater. However, at the same time there was also growth of a middle class rooted in the humorous and sometimes bitter reality which prevailed at that time. The dichotomy of views was nowhere more evident than in the Tipolo family where Giambattista had a distinct preference for the grandiose and heroic, while his son Giandomenico, who decorated Venitian masks, preferred the disenchanted and sometimes grottesque reality.

Tiepolo was born in Venice, probably on 5 March 1696, the youngest of six children. His family was wealthy, and during his entire life he was successful in his profession, earning prestige and recognition for his frescoes.

Initially Tiepolo was an apprentice in the studio of a minor master, subsequently moving on to the studios of two artists who were closely linked to the dark and tormented painting characteristic of 16th century realism. At age twenty Tiepolo painted The sacrfice of Isaac and The martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew. However, these were his last efforts of this type before shifting to his characteristic luminous and decorative style of frescoes.

Tiepolo soon moved to the art of fresco painting on ceilings, for example in the Church of the Carmelitani Scalzi in Venice. For the first time in the decorative painting of the 17th century the skies are painted to appear free and luminous while the figures tend to move toward the margins of the ornate and precious frames. Tiepolo becomes the painter of skies, of clouds, of angels and of groups and compositions of figures. He soon developed a taste for historical and mythological subjects. Not even Venice, his magic city, provided inspiration for his paintings. He almost never painted a real landscape, but rather concentrated on those of literary or mythical origin that satisfied his need for evasion in the sublime.

Fresco today:

Fresco painting appears to be attracting renewed interest and acclaim, perhaps because of the decade-long restoration of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel ceiling begun in the 1980s. In addition, the technique's emphasis on natural materials and skilled artistry may appeal to a world weary of mass production and disposable goods.

Fresco history 1 | Fresco history 2

Below: A fresco from Spain -From El Escorial - depicting heaven -