Horace appears to speak of drawings in black or red chalk, like our Academy figures, but delineated on a wall: “Aut Placideiani contento poplite miror Prælia rubricâ picta, aut carbone, velut si The commentators will not agree whether these works, which attracted the attention of the slave, were well or ill done; whether they were vile scrawls or spirited drawings. It is not to be denied that a painting in fresco is a less saleable article than one on canvass; but on that very account it has its advantages. The tendency of such works to counteract the prevailing disposition of considering all things as merchandise, as exchangeable values; to make men attach an importance to places, and to restore and fix the love of home, of some particular spot and country, a feeling which is now fast vanishing, may not be without its policy and use. In such paintings, and in its architectural ornaments, a city retains vestiges of its former grandeur long after its more perishable glories have faded away. In baths and caves, in tombs and sepulchral chambers, we still find precious morsels of Roman workmanship, and Egypt abounds in paintings of much less elegance, but of far higher antiquity. By the accumulation of earth and of ruins, the arched chambers on the ground floor of ancient buildings became grottos or. caverns under ground, and gardens and vineyards were planted over them; hence the ancient paintings and other ornaments found there were called grotesque. Of the three kinds of 'painting,' these are the words of Baldinucci, in oil, distem'per, and fresco, the first is well known; the second is not to the present purpose; the last is making pictures upon a wall, 'or ceiling, or so forth, where the surface has been covered with lime, which we call plaster, and it is called fresco, that is fresh, 'because, in order to produce a good work, that the painting 6 may not be spotted, and to avoid other inconveniences, and to ensure the permanence of the work, it is necessary that it 'should be completed whilst the plaster is fresh. No other co'lours are commonly used except earths, or those which are na⚫tural products; those which have been made by art, and espe'cially those which are changed by heat, require to be laid upon 'perfectly dry substances, and will not agree with lime, or bear the dews of night, or damp weather, they are therefore never used. The white is lime, especially that which is made from burnt travertine.' The whole surface of the wall is not covered at one time; a small piece only is laid, as much as the artist can complete whilst it is moist; some more plaster is then added, either adjoining the former, or on any part of the wall that is more convenient, and thus by degrees the whole is covered. The joinings of the different portions are distinctly visible, running in wavy lines, like coasts and rivers on a map; but the painter generally contrives that they should fall in shaded parts, and wherever they will be least visible, and interfere least with the effect of the picture. The design, a drawing upon strong paper, called from that substance the cartoon, is placed against the wall, and the outlines are traced through it with the leg of a pair of compasses, or some such instrument, which pressing hard upon the paper, marks the soft plaster behind it. On nearly inspecting a fresco, the outlines may always be found thus engraved on the wall. The manipulation of the ancient frescos that have been rescued from the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, is said to be very admirable, and in many respects superior to that of more modern artists. The colours have already been subjected to chemical analysis; and a skilful artist, well acquainted with the modern mode, in accurately copying some of these ancient works in the same manner, would doubtless discover many, if not all, of the peculiarities of execution. Much may depend upon the due preparation of the wall, on laying the plaster properly, on the nature of the lime and sand which are used-the latter, it is said, ought to be very coarse, and of a large grain; and there may be much of traditional lore in these matters: But whatever men have done, men may do again; and no other country in the world can surpass the admirable skill of our workmen. It has been confidently asserted, that painting in fresco is one of the lost arts; and we are referred in proof of the assertion to the works of the modern artists who have lately attempted it in Italy. It cannot be denied that their productions are failures; but they are not worse in proportion than the works in oil of the modern Italians, who are certainly worthy to be classed amongst the least successful of the painters of the present day. The colours when mixed with lime are more clear, transparent, and agreeable than when tempered with oil. The modern artists, however, have missed this great beauty; there is no purity, no clearness in their colouring; it is dark, dusky, and dingy, and of a muddy and dirty hue; some of them, in order to give that relief which they were unable to produce by the colours alone, have hatched over the whole of the performance with black lines, an expedient not less unhappy than barbarous. Many books contain directions for painting in fresco. It is difficult to learn an art from books alone, but they are powerful auxiliaries; and even if we must believe that it is one of the lost arts, we cannot doubt that through the persevering industry of ingenious men, it may yet be found again. All true friends to the arts must earnestly desire and would heartily rejoice in the revival of this most noble and masterly manner of painting, which was so great a favourite with the ancients, which demands and creates a sound and solid judgment, and needs very extensive practice, and is manifestly the most manly, secure, firm, and lasting means of fixing the splendid creations of genius. As we have begun to build houses upon a handsome scale in London, the lovers of art may venture to hope, that instead of spending enormous sums solely on the upholsterer for his fading ornaments, something may now be spared to the artist, for conferring on the walls unfading decorations of a far more delightful and intellectual kind. If the work be well executed, it will not suffer injury from being washed with clean and cold water; the soot may therefore easily be removed, which, in the smoky metropolis of Great Britain, would gradually accumulate and obscure the painted plaster. We may even imagine small foundations, the creations perhaps of the bounty of individuals, like the fellowships at our Universities. The fellow, a young artist of promise, might spend two or three years in painting the interior of a church, or other public building, maintaining himself meanwhile on his fellowship, on two or three hundred pounds a-year. If his work was successful it would introduce him to business, and another young artist might then succeed him on the foundation. A tribunal of artists, of a popular form, somewhat in the nature of a jury, to secure our edifices from being disfigured by slovenly and unseemly productions, might decide publicly upon the merit of the work, with one appeal to another similar court; and, if the ultimate decision was still unfavourable, the whole of the condemned work, or the offensive portions of it, might be sentenced to receive, after the manner of the reformers, a coat of plaster, or of whitewash; and thus fear, as well as hope, would stimulate the artist, who worked for the public, to do his best. The progress of the painting needs not to interrupt the ordinary use of the edifice; the public services might be performed on the Sunday, and the decoration of the church might proceed during the rest of the week. Persons who have seen the machinery now used for cleaning the windows of our cathedrals, and for similar purposes, will at once understand how the operations may be carried on without great trouble or expense, and with the perfect safety of the artist. It has been justly remarked, that, if all the walls of a good aspect were covered with fruit trees, the benefit would be great, and the cost small; we may make a similar remark touching the inside of the same walls. In every building there are of necessity walls, and there is a ceiling, whether it be flat or coved. The ceiling is not only the part of the interior which is least liable to injury, or to be soiled by dust, or dirt, but it is also the best adapted to display the wonders of art; it has been called the painter's heaven, as being the seat of the famous 'di 'sotto in su,' of which it is said, 'E certo in questo genere si ri'unò in quella difficoltà una somma grazia, e molta bellezza, e 'mostrasi una terribilissima arte.' The supreme grace, great beauty, and very terrible art, the devóτns itself of painting, have been carried by the great masters to considerable height, but not to the utmost perfection. The ceiling has been painted as a sky, as a heaven inhabited by divinities, heathen or Christian, by heroes or saints; But it would admit many other subjects; it is the region of birds; the vegeλoxoxxuyía of Aristophanes might be represented; various delineations of architecture, or perspective of rooms above, of the most beautiful and fantastical structure and decorations, might be displayed; the whole art of projection might be exhausted, and if beams and suitable supports were introduced, human figures might be shown employed in different manners, and in every posture. The inside of our churches is usually painted of one colour, a muddy yellow, a dingy red, or a dirty blue; or they are whitewashed, and look like prisons or hospitals. The heathen mythology is an inexhaustible source of beautiful and admirable themes for the ingenuity of the painter; and they are, in all respects, the best adapted to afford full scope for his utmost and highest powers; but, in a Christian Church, such topics would be, to say the least, incongruous; in all other public buildings, however, they might be adopted freely and without restraint. A few subjects may be selected from Scripture, that are not unsuited for such a purpose; some persons would approve of these representations, being of opinion, that, if it be good to read of these acts, it is edifying also to view them, when painted: others might possibly condemn them, and hold that all exhibitions of human action would be inconsistent. In addition to the never-ending miracles of nature, animals, birds, trees, flowers, and fruit, foreign and strange, or such as are familiar, there are the triumphs of architecture, parts of cities, ancient ruins, restoration of temples, which might be frequently of the full size of the original; there are arabesques, grotesques, and every fanciful ornament. Wherever the magic of colours might be deemed too bright and glowing, there might be introduced the more sober, but hardly less attractive, chiaroscuro; such delineations in fresco, where the shadows are greys and browns, have a striking and very powerful effect. If, however, the objections to painting our Churches be deemed insuperable, we have buildings designed for civil purposes in abundance, which are well adapted for this species of decoration. In the enumeration of subjects suited for fresco, painted landscapes must on no account be omitted; some of the back grounds of the oldest masters are truly admirable in this way; they represent scenes, like those we see in Italy, where the sun finishes highly, pencils all objects carefully, and colours them brightly. The opinion has been taken up, that the climate of Great Britain would not permit our artists to adopt fresco painting, by reason of the cold and humidity. And it is true that our small country churches, with their little narrow windows, are, for the most part, horribly damp at all seasons: the walls are stained and disfigured with moisture, and frequently even overgrown with a green substance: But their dampness may be attributed to the small size, to the floor being generally lower than the adjoining ground, on account of the accumulation of earth from continual interments, but chiefly to the very defective ventilation. In a large building, where the air circulates freely, there is not the same quantity of moisture on the walls. Our cathedrals, although they are shut up closely, the doors being seldom opened, the windows never, are cold, but not damp. Westminster Hall, a great thoroughfare, and a place of public resort by day and night, especially in the season when the air is most humid; and of which the situation is unfavourable, being near the river, and on ground so low, that the floor has sometimes been flooded,-yet, because it is of a large magnitude, and constantly open, the walls, as the inhabitants of London well know, are not damp. If they were covered with fresco, it seems highly probable that the colours would last as long as in any other situation. It is not asserted that the mere coldness of the air, that frost alone, if the wall be kept perfectly dry, will destroy a fresco. In many of the German cities, and in the towns in the German cantons of Switzerland, we find houses of the same style of architecture as many in York lately were, and as many in Chester now are, but upon a larger and handsomer scale, the floors projecting above one another and over the street as they ascend. The outsides of these houses are painted with scriptural and historical subjects, of which the general effect is not disagreeable, and the execution frequently not without merit. The climate is more humid than even that of Great Britain, the frosts far more severe, and the changes of temperature much greater and more sudden; yet |