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Art & Art History vocabulary · Painting & Drawing

Fresco

Meaning in art & art history, with examples

/ˈfreskoʊ/nounCommon term

In art & art history, fresco means: A way of painting walls or ceilings with water-based pigments on fresh, wet lime plaster, so the colours become part of the wall as it dries; also a painting made like this.

In Turkish: fresk

How it is used

Painters work in fresco, finishing one section a day (a giornata) before the plaster dries. Famous examples are Giotto's chapel in Padua and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. The plural is frescoes. Painting on dry plaster is called fresco secco.

Example sentences

  1. Michelangelo painted the frescoes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512.

  2. Many of the rock-cut churches in Cappadocia are decorated with Byzantine frescoes.

Common collocations

  • fresco painting
  • ceiling fresco
  • in fresco
  • fresco cycle
  • restore a fresco
  • RenaissanceThe period in European history, roughly from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, when art and learning were renewed by a strong interest in ancient Greek and Roman culture.
  • pigmentA coloured powder, made from minerals, plants, insects or chemicals, that gives paint its colour when it is mixed with a binder such as oil, egg or gum.
  • restorationWork done to repair a damaged or decayed artwork or building and bring it closer to its original appearance, for example by cleaning it or filling in missing areas.
  • temperaPaint made by mixing pigments with egg yolk and water; it dries quickly to a matt, durable surface and was the main technique for panel painting in Europe before oil paint.

More terms: Painting & Drawing

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