Studio: international art (12.1898)

Studio- Talk

EMBROIDERED PANEL DESIGNED BY

THE REV. E. GELBART. EXECUTED BY

THE DECORATIVE ART NEEDLEWORK SOCIETY

stration of its adaptability for the interpretation of
designs in many colours may secure for it more
attention, and encourage its more frequent use.
This demonstration has been supplied by Signor
Cesare T. G. Formilli, an Italian artist living in
London, who has combined in a very interesting
fashion fresco painting in polychrome with ordinary
sgraffito. The illustrations which we give are repro-
duced from panels which he has recently executed
in this manner.

His method of work is by no means complicated.
Its chief principle lies in the substitution of a
surface of fresco in full colour for the coat of white
or yellow plaster which is in ordinary sgraffito
applied over the ground of black plaster. In the
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monochrome work the 'whole effect of the design
is obtained by the incised lines which cut through
the light surface and show the darker ground
below; but wSignor Formilli uses a surface painted
like fresco in a full range of colours, and depends
upon the incising to give only the outlining and
light and shade effects. The result at which he
arrives in this way is an excellent one, as his fresco
colours can be applied in flat, and therefore pure,
masses, and he is able to gain by the firmness and
decision of his incised lines an accuracy of defini-
tion which makes his statement of the facts of his
design admirably clear and intelligible. Moreover,
the combination allows a far greater complication
of detail and elaboration of effect than there is any
chance of obtaining in the monochrome sgraffito,

EMBROIDERED PANEL DESIGNED BY

THE REV. E. GELDART. EXECUTED BY

THE DECORATIVE ART NEEDLEWORK SOCIETY