DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62783#0014
IV
INTRODUCTION.
Almost all the writers of eminence, mention fresco painting, as
the highest branch of the art. The most competent judges have
expressed opinions, that in comprehensiveness of subject, boldness
of design, facility of execution, and in durability, it exceeds all
other kinds of painting, especially for the decoration of temples,
palaces, and great public buildings. It has been practised bv
men of the highest order of genius. It is only necessary to
mention the names of the Carracci, Michael Angelo, Raphael,
and Correggio, to shew how highly this branch of the art was
formerly appreciated, even if the value set on the cartoons, the
rough drafts of paintings in fresco, were not sufficient to establish
its superiority. These considerations, added to the favorable
reception of my translation of Ccnnino Cennini, on painting,
encouraged me to follow the path of inquiry, traced out in the
Reports of the Commissioners.
By long discontinuance, the art had become almost entirely
lost. The practice of painting on walls, in the manner described
by Vitruvius, that is, partly in fresco, and partly in secco,
appears to have been continued throughout the dark ages, by
the Greeks, who instructed the Italians. According to Zanetti,
the Greek style was taught by a Greek artist of Constantinople,
who, about the year 1200, kept a school for painting, at Venice,
to which many foreigners resorted for instruction, and from the
same author we learn, that the Greek style was practised until
the middle of the fourteenth century.
The earliest modern writer, whose work has been preserved,
is Theophilus, a monk, who is supposed to have lived between
the ninth and thirteenth centuries, but the exact period is
unknown. He professes to teach “ all the knowledge of the
Greeks respecting colours?’ A manuscript, which I examined in
the Bibliotheque Royale, at Paris, dated in 1431, contains a
version in old French, of some parts of the work of Theophilus,
which shews that his treatise had then become known.
INTRODUCTION.
Almost all the writers of eminence, mention fresco painting, as
the highest branch of the art. The most competent judges have
expressed opinions, that in comprehensiveness of subject, boldness
of design, facility of execution, and in durability, it exceeds all
other kinds of painting, especially for the decoration of temples,
palaces, and great public buildings. It has been practised bv
men of the highest order of genius. It is only necessary to
mention the names of the Carracci, Michael Angelo, Raphael,
and Correggio, to shew how highly this branch of the art was
formerly appreciated, even if the value set on the cartoons, the
rough drafts of paintings in fresco, were not sufficient to establish
its superiority. These considerations, added to the favorable
reception of my translation of Ccnnino Cennini, on painting,
encouraged me to follow the path of inquiry, traced out in the
Reports of the Commissioners.
By long discontinuance, the art had become almost entirely
lost. The practice of painting on walls, in the manner described
by Vitruvius, that is, partly in fresco, and partly in secco,
appears to have been continued throughout the dark ages, by
the Greeks, who instructed the Italians. According to Zanetti,
the Greek style was taught by a Greek artist of Constantinople,
who, about the year 1200, kept a school for painting, at Venice,
to which many foreigners resorted for instruction, and from the
same author we learn, that the Greek style was practised until
the middle of the fourteenth century.
The earliest modern writer, whose work has been preserved,
is Theophilus, a monk, who is supposed to have lived between
the ninth and thirteenth centuries, but the exact period is
unknown. He professes to teach “ all the knowledge of the
Greeks respecting colours?’ A manuscript, which I examined in
the Bibliotheque Royale, at Paris, dated in 1431, contains a
version in old French, of some parts of the work of Theophilus,
which shews that his treatise had then become known.