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Painting
The painting day begins hours before the brush comes into contact with the wall. The materials are assembled in the church. If the fresco is high on the walls or ceiling, scaffolding is erected, and the workshop is hoisted up into the air. In our studio, the plastering of the final coat of plaster occurs from about midnight until 6 AM. After being trowelled onto the wall, the painting layer is left to set until it is firm, then is smoothed and polished to a fine finish. At some time before daybreak, the tracing of the cartoon is placed onto the damp plaster. The drawing is traced over one more time with a sharp metal stylus, pressing the lines of the drawing into the still impressionable plaster. Then the painting begins, and continues uninterruptedly until the completion of the work, or until the plaster is too dry to fix any more pigment, usually early evening.14
The painting of the mural icon follows a very similar pattern to the painting of an egg tempera icon, with regard to the order of the layers of paint. First, the icon is drawn directly on the fresh plaster. We use red ochre, a color that will have a pleasing appearance even when it shows through the other layers of color (Fig 5).
Early in the day, the plaster is very damp, and the color takes longer before it is fixed to the wall but once the red lines of the drawing are fixed (from the carbonization of the lime), and do not wash away, the painter knows that the curing of the wall is accelerating, and he begins to work quickly. As the day progresses, the plaster hardens and cures. After a few hours, the plaster reaches its optimum degree of curing, and for the next few hours, it seems as though the wall sucks the paint from the brush. Each brushstroke becomes immediately permanent. Large areas of flat color (Greek: proplasmos, Russian: sankir) cover the drawing, including the figures, the architectural details, and the background. These colors are normally built up in several thin layers. Next, the lines of the drawing and shadows (Greek: grapsimata; Russian: rospis') are painted on top of the flat colors.
The lighter areas of the flesh, garments and architecture are built up by one of two traditional methods. The painter may paint in the shadows of the forms first, and add thin glazes of color over the areas that are to remain light. In this technique, the white plaster of the wall, shining through very transparent tones of color, provides the light tones of the icon. Frescoes of the early and middle Byzantine period, and of the early Russian period, were usually done according to this method.15 The second method of painting the light areas of faces and garments (Greek: sarcomata and lamata; Russian: okhreniia) is to build them up with paint that is made lighter in tone by the addition of white pigment. Historically the same lime used to make the plaster was used as a white pigment but today the painter may also use newer, modern pigments such as titanium white.
Fig 6. Saints Paul and Matthew, Details from the Ascension. On the left, the figures have the base colors, lines, and shadows. On the right, the finished icon.
It is here that late medieval Byzantine Fresco painting adds another step to the fresco painting technique, a phase of the painting that is, technically speaking not fresco, but secco. In the late Byzantine period, the light areas of color were done after the wall had dried (or partially dried) by adding egg, or some other organic binder, to the pigments, giving these particular parts of the painting visual solidity and opacity (Fig 6).16 In our workshop, we also mix a little pure lime putty with the egg-tempered pigments at this stage. Since this part of the process is happening the day after the fresco painting of most of the colors, the lime plaster is still somewhat damp. The behavior of this paint mixture is quite interesting. The lime/egg tempera brushstrokes of paint become permanent in minutes, something that certainly does not happen with egg tempera under normal circumstances. Something between fresco and secco is happening here, and some degree of carbonization may be occurring. Observation of Byzantine frescoes shows that these rather opaque light forms on faces, hands, and garments have proved to be as durable as the pure fresco areas (at times, more durable). There is a need for further study of this phenomenon.
The final details, such as the lines of the halo and the inscriptions are also usually done in secco, with lime and egg added to the colors for strong adhesion.
Over a time period as long as the Byzantine era and encompassing so many schools and techniques, it is not always possible to describe one single method of painting to which each great monument adheres exclusively. There are a variety of techniques and approaches, sometimes combined with one another in the same church.
Frescoes with Several Sections: Plaster Joins
If a fresco is large or complex, and more than the painter can paint in one fresco session, it is painted in several sections. At the end of a day’s work, the finished fresco portion is carefully trimmed, and the excess plaster scraped away with a trowel.17 The next section of plaster is carefully applied up to the edge of the previous work, which makes a plaster join.18 The joins are located along simple lines in the composition, such as a wall, or the contour of a figure. If the plasterer is skilled and careful, the joins are impossible to detect under normal viewing circumstances. In Saint Seraphim’s church, the fresco of the Ascension has been painted in 14 sections, as the composition was large and complex. The walls are painted from top to bottom, to protect the finished areas of painting. Any fresco below one that is in progress is in danger of being ruined by water and plaster dropping from above (Fig 7).
Fig 7. The progression of the Ascension fresco as it moves down the wall. The photo on the bottom shows the plaster joins of the fresco, outlined in the photo in white. In the church, these joins are difficult or impossible to see from the ground.
In the Altar, (Fig 8) the
Church Fathers on the ground level were each painted in one
session of fresco painting. The Communion of the Holy
Apostles above the Fathers, although much smaller in scale,
was painted in smaller sections, due to the complexity of
the icon (nine sections of fresco altogether). In the apse
above, the Enthroned Virgin and Child was painted in egg
tempera, but in such a way that the paint quality would be
harmonious with the frescoes that surround it. The medium
of an icon, be it a wall painting or a panel painting, is
selected according to many criteria: the surface to be
painted, and the materials and skills available to the
painter. At times, several media are used in the same
church. At Saint Seraphim’s, we have used three
different media for the walls. In the narthex, for the
large mural of the Pantocrator over the door to the nave,
we used casein tempera, a milk based binder (Fig 9). In the
apse of the Altar, for the icon of the Virgin and Child, we
used egg tempera. Both of these walls are lightweight
wooden structures, and could not support the heavy plaster
that is required for fresco.
Fig
8. The Altar
Conclusion
When all is finished, the technical struggles of the
builders and painters are forgotten. The plaster joins
disappear. The many pieces of painting, large and small,
imperceptibly join together to present one single image,
the transfigured Cosmos, where Christ, the Maker and
Fashioner, reigns over all. We see His image and that of
His holy Mother, and all the saints, and we take little or
no thought for the art, the medium, or the work that has
gone into the painting of the icons. It is every
iconographer’s hope that his art won’t even be
thought of, but rather that our Savior is clearly seen by
all.
Fig
9. View of
the church from the narthex.
Fresco is well suited for the
painting of a modern Orthodox church. The nature of the
color surface of fresco makes it the medium par excellence
for a building that is entirely covered on the inside with
images. It is somewhat transparent, but beautifully solid.
The color, which seems to be part of the fabric of the
building, is light but not garish or loud. The deep blue
background of a medieval Byzantine church has a quiet
profundity that is impossible to fully describe. It must be
seen. This environment is one in which the icons of the
saints are perceived vividly but in an atmosphere of
silence. Although demanding and uncompromising in its
technical requirements, and exacting in its execution,
fresco is not impossible to do in our time. Certain modern
materials and building practices actually make it easier to
use fresco in buildings that in an earlier era would not
have been able to have it. It remains a simple, although
perhaps not easy, medium. Its rewards (durability, beauty,
transparency and depth) are more than worth the
difficulties.
Page 1 | Page 2 | Footnotes
For more detailed technical information on fresco
painting, read The Technique of Fresco
Painting.
This article originally appeared in the
print journal Iconofile.
