THE HOUSE AND ITS EQUIPMENT. 



PLASTER-WORK 



Short Historical Survey- Ethic* 



of Copying Old Examples -The Worship of Styles-Quandary 

 of the Thoughtful Dt sixiicr. 



THE craft of plaster- work is a 

 very ancient one. In the lorm 

 of gesso, which is a branch of 

 the same art, it was practised 

 by the Egyptians, but mereh 

 served as a tine ground for painting on. 

 The (ireeks used plaster in the same 

 way to form a smooth surlace on their 

 finely-hewn but rough-textured stone, as 

 a basis for polychromatic decoration. 

 In medi;eval times, again, a plaster 

 more nearly akin to the material as we 

 know it at the present day was used 

 over the interior walling of buildings, 

 so as to get a suitable ground for 

 decoration. In Roman times plaster or 

 stucco was at first used as a basis for 

 colour decoration. The modelling of the 

 plaster surface into relief ornament 

 appears to have developed later; but 

 there remain many examples of this 

 type, such a- those from the garden of 

 the Villa Farnesina, and there are frag 

 ments in the British and South 

 Kensington Museums. In Byzantine 

 churches the art was practised to 

 some extent ; but in mediaeval times it appears to have fallen into the background, eclipsed by 

 the transcendent and universal outburst of the stonemason s art. Plaster-work, however, was 

 not quite extinguished. It smouldered and peeped out at intervals. Even the man who put 

 the plain plastering on the inside of the stone walls had his little bit of fun. The coating of 

 plaster used was very thin, not at all the modern &quot; three-coat work.&quot; The plasterer of the 

 Middle Ages was not ashamed of the surface left by his trowel, and avoided bringing the plaster face 



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VI-:KSIOX OF xvn. CENTURY MOTIF. 



6. AT WYCH CROSS PLACE. 



