i842.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



161 



ON FRESCO PAINTING. 



BY JOSEPH SEVERN, OF ROME. 



(Read iefore the Itoyal Institute of British Architects, on Monday, 

 March 14, 1842.* 



I CONFESS myself almost an enthusiast on the subject of fresco painting 

 having had the singular happiness to pass half my life in Italy in the midst 

 of the finest fresco worl<s, and having enjoyed the friendship of all those 

 modern German artists who have revived and perfected this manly and use- 

 ful style of art, and created a classical city in Germany. I am tlierefore san- 

 guine as to the great probability of success attending the proposed intro- 

 duction of this architectural style of painting, although new and strange to 

 the English artist, as well as the people ; believing that, if successful, it will 

 be the means of introducing and establishing in England the grand style of 

 historical art hitherto unknown here. If this beautiful style of painting be 

 successfully introduced here, it will be more indebted to the helping hand of 

 British architects than of British painters, for it can only be uuderstood and 

 felt by those who have seen with their own eyes the magic of its power in 

 its great Italian examples. Now architects, more than painters, have visited 

 the places where those wonders of fresco art still live triumphant, after the 

 lapse of three and four centuries, defying the ravages of time, and almost of 

 man (the greater destroyer of the two) ; and in studying the principles of 

 architecture in those classic regions, the English architects have involuntarily 

 taken fresco paiuting as a branch of their own noble pursuit. 



I began by calling Fresco " Architectural Painting," because it is on this 

 ground that its advantages are most evident, and it is on this ground we 

 have to consider it — indeed, strictly speaking, fresco is purely architectural. 

 I will not enter into any details about the material, which has been so much 

 discussed, and is now so well known ; but I will endeavour to explain and 

 contrast the theory of the fresco art in its principles and object, as compared 

 with oil-painting — the great difference betwixt the one and the other — and 

 the different ways of acquiring the former. 



Oil painting is more applicable to the other purposes of art, particularly 

 moveable art. Its excellence is seen in cabinet pictures of domestic scenes, 

 portraits, and the like. It has force and deUcacy in history and landscape, 

 and its finest specimens have deservedly won the admiration of all times ; 

 but it is in reference to architecture that we are now to judge it, and I say 

 that fresco paiuting alone is adapted to this purpose. The shining surface is 

 an insuperable objection to oil, as it requires particular and concealed lights 

 to get the general effect, or rather the whole efteet of the picture from every 

 part of the room. Now this, as regards large works, such as national history 

 demands, is impossible, since no construction of building, not intended as a 

 picture gallery, can possibly admit of it. And even in picture galleries, how- 

 difficult, how rare it is (although they may be actually built for the puqjose) 

 to see the pictures well and entire. I need only mention the National Gal- 

 lery, where the finest work of Italian art in England, the Sebastiano del 

 Piombo, cannot be seen entire from any part of the room at any hour of the 

 day ; and I am sure I need not point out how necessary it is to the trug 

 effect and understanding of a large historical work that it should be seen 

 entire at the first glance ; and how completely the dodging about to find a 

 spot whence the picture can be well seen, frustrates the aim of the painter. 

 This does not apply to small pictures, which can be well seen anywhere ; I 

 am speaking only of large works, such as national works are and must always 

 be. At Venice, three of Titian's most celebrated works are comparatively 

 invisible, for these reasons. My remark applies generally to oil pictures in 

 churches : so much so that in Italy they are beginning to remove the principal 

 works to public galleries, constructed for the sole purpose of exhibiting pic- 

 tures ; thus, as you will at once perceive, destroying the local object of the 

 paintings, either as to their moral or rehgious purpose, and even the archi- 

 tect\iral decorations for which those paintings were formed. This is the case 

 ■with the "Transfiguration," which no doubt would interest us more in the 

 actual place for which it was painted, if it could be seen there ; and the same 

 may be said of most of the celebrated altar-pieces. The oil-painted staircase 

 of the British Museum you have all seen, or rather noiorfy has seen, as it 

 never could have been seen, owing to its dazzling glare, even by the painter 

 himself when he did it : — but you know enough of these examples for my 

 purpose, which is, to show the immediate connexion of architecture and 

 fresco painting. 



* This paper we intended to have published in the last month's Journal, 

 but through want of room we were obliged to postpone it to the present 

 month ; it has in the mean lime appeared in the " AtneDseum," 



As regards light, fresco is seen entire in any situation and by any light ; 

 even candle-light, which, I think, perhaps shows it best. I remember seeing 

 the Carracci frescos, at Home, durhia; a ball, when I was struck by their 

 increased beauty and power, owing to the warm light ; even a dim or di- 

 minished Ught does not destroy their effect, for fresco pictures are always 

 well seen, with any kind of window, or even without any positive light. It 

 must have been for this reason that Raffaello adopted fresco in the Vatican, 

 after he had made experiments in oil ; for the rooms are so ill lighted that 

 oil pictures could never have been seen at all, and it is surprising to find such 

 fine works in such a place. Three sides of the rooms are illuminated merely 

 by the reflected light from the great wall of the Sistine Chapel, yet this 

 beautiful and himiuous materal of fresco is so brilhant in itself that the pic- 

 tures are well seen. Nine of them were painted without a ray of real Hght, 

 and have always been seen in the same way. I think this a very important 

 consideration, for, as we have but a diminished light at auy time, it is most 

 necessary to adopt a manner of painting suited to it, which can be seen at 

 all times. Such is the power of fresco, and such, as regards light, makes it 

 preferable to oil for all our purposes. 



The fact of Venetian painting, as regards the decorations of architecture, 

 being in oil, I consider to have arisen entirely from the singular locality of 

 that beautiful city. It was soon discovered (as Vasari mentions in the Life 

 of Giorgione), that fresco was but a perishable thing exposed to the sirocco 

 and the sea air, for the frescos of Giorgione in a few years were destroyed. 

 This, I have no doubt, led to the adoption of oil-painting there for architec- 

 tural decoration, as it was found to he more durable. But this argument 

 applies only to Venice, for the other great Italian cities are adorned with 

 fresco ; nor can it be urged in favour of oil being employed here, as the 

 localities of London and Venice are wholly different. There are frescos by 

 Titian at Padua well preserved ; yet at so short a distance as Venice you find 

 nothing of the kind, save the skeletons of Giorgione's works on the fronts of 

 houses. This may be a reason for not employing fresco in the open air in 

 England, for, as it does not stand well in Italy, it may be presumed that here 

 it will not stand at all. 



But the great objection to the employment of fresco in this country is on 

 the ground of colour and effect, for it is generally confounded with scene- 

 painting ; that the Cartoons of Raffaello are the same as his frescos ; and 

 that the colour and effect of one and the other would never do for English 

 eyes. Now this mistake is extraordinary and unpardonable, for, as fresco is 

 doue on the wet plaster, imbibing and incorporating transparent colours, as 

 well as opaque, (something similar to water-colour paiutiug when body 

 colour is used ou the lights,) producing a richness of tone, surface, and touch, 

 always equal, and sometimes superior, to oil-colours ; so it bears little or no 

 comparison or relation to distemper-painting, which is done on a di7- ground, 

 and does not admit of any richness of colour. This will be clearly under- 

 stood by those who have had the good fortune to see Raffaello's and Guido's 

 frescos at Rome, which, for colour, are exquisitely beautiful, and even power- 

 ful in all the fascinations of this part of the art, presenting to us still greater 

 varieties than oil painting can pretend to ; excelling in all the deUcate effects 

 of atmosphere, from the gorgeous daylight, the air of which you seem to 

 breathe in a fresco picture, down to the silvery flitting charm of twilight. In 

 these particulars it reminds us of English water-colour effects. Then I should 

 mention the magnificence of fresco landscape, and of landscape backgrounds, 

 particularly by Domenichino, in which not only the characters, but the move- 

 ments of trees are always rendered in a way which I have rarely seen in oil 

 colours. And when we consider the ease with which the effects of atmosphere 

 are produced in fresco, and the difficulty and inmiense labour of producing 

 the like in oil — when I tell you of the advantages even of the dark grey wet 

 ground in fresco, drying out light, and producing so many beauties of aerial 

 perspective in that actual drying, so much variety and transparency of colour, 

 so much lightness and vivacity, so much of what the Italians call " light 

 within"- — the superiority of fresco cannot be doubted on the ground of 

 colouring, as appMed to architecture. Who does not remember the splendid 

 colouring of Guido's " Aurora," at Rome .' — colour so inimitable that, of 

 hundreds of copies in oils, I have never seen one that gave an idea of the 

 original. What of Titian's or Paul Veronese's is there to equal RaliacUo'a 

 fresco of the Bolsena miracle, in truth of colours .' — or the Heliodorus, was 

 it ever surpassed .' 



If I have to speak of chiar-oscuro and its wonders, I should refer you to 

 the frescos of Guercino, particularly at I'iacenza, where arc his finest speci- 

 mens. The portions of his oil paintings which are black and monotonous, 

 (the effect of time on his dark grounds,) in his frescos are transparent and 

 lucid in the highest degree, with a power of shade which I consider superior 



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