This section is from the book "Mural Painting", by F. Hamilton Jackson. Also available from Amazon: Mural Painting: -1904.
To return to the mediaeval practice. The materials to be used were frequently specified in the contracts, those of the most expensive kind being specially charged for or provided by the patron as in classical time*; the traditions from which were handed down by way of Byzantium and Mount Athos, and certainly formed the groundwork of mediaeval practice. M# Didron says: "In the eighteenth century the painter of the Morea continues the tradition and traces the designs of the Venetian painter of the tenth, and the painter of Mount Athos of the fifth or sixth centuries. The costume is everywhere and in all times the same, not only in form but in colour and design, even to the number and thickness of the folds. The places to be occupied by certain figures or scenes were fixed by rule, and the only point in which the Greek master was free was in his execution." The art being so entirely traditional, M. Didron's account of the processes employed in painting certain frescoes in a church at Mount Athos which he saw in use becomes of the greatest possible interest, the extreme rapidity and certainty with which the work was executed showing that the painter was doing that which he had learnt traditionally, and most probably using the same materials and processes as those used by Giotto and his followers, and the yet more ancient wall-painters of S. Angelo in Formis near Capua. In the first case the artist was decorating the narthex assisted by his x pupils. "A young monk spread the mortar, the master sketched the subject, the first pupil filled in the colours within the outlines in the subjects which the master had not time to finish, a young pupil gilded the nimbi, painted inscriptions, and made ornaments, two others, smaller, ground and mixed colours. In an hour he drew a picture representing Jesus Christ giving his apostles the mission of evangelising and baptising the world. The Christ and the eleven other personages were nearly life-size. He made his sketch from memory without cartoon, drawing; or model On being asked if he had done the others round in the same manner he said 'yes/ and added that he very rarely had to alter a line. These were certainly better than those of our artists of the second rank who do religious pictures. His memory was prodigious. He dictated to the second pupil the inscriptions, etc., without book or notes, and they were the same as I had seen elsewhere." In another case "they allowed three days to pass between the laying of the plaster (the under-coat, one supposes) and the painting to allow the damp to evaporate. Before drawing, the master-painter smoothed the lime with a spatula and then with a thread determined the dimensions of the picture. The outline was traced in red. Inside it a black ground was laid, heightened with blue, a flat tint. On this he painted draperies and other ornaments, not touching the flesh. The master worked at two figures at the same time, going from one to the other. First a blackish colour, then with yellow, the flesh properly so called. The first coat extinguished the black, the second rounded the figure. A third coat of this pale yellow, thicker than the other, gave the general tone of the carnations. The eyes alone were reserved, a coat being passed over the whole surface. Then with pale green he softened the black of the shadowed parts which he had enlivened with blue. Then with yellow he restricted the encroachments of the green. He then made the cheeks, hps, and eyelids rosy, and with dark brown put in eyebrows, hair, and beard, and the line of the face. The eyes were touched with white and the black strengthened, and with pale rose he gave the luminous point of the eye. The lips and mouth were lightened and finished, and a thick black line run all round the figure. A few strokes of the brush of a rosy white were added here and there to lessen and pale the vivacity of the reds in some of the veins, some brown touches to make the wrinkles in old men, and a few finishing touches of various colours. In five hours Joasaph painted in fresco a Conversion of S. Paul, nine feet broad and twelve feet high, with twelve figures and three large horses." No palette was used, the separate colours were in separate pots, and the brush was dipped first in one and then in the other, the colours being tried on the nimbus. The raising of nimbi was begun with a string dipped in plaster and fixed on the line traced with the primitive compass, made of a reed doubled over and fixed at an angle with a piece of wood. "When the lime is almost dry they finish by adding gold and silver to the dresses, and the finer colours are added—especially Venetian blue—flowers and ornaments, diapers, etc., it being necessary for the lower colours to be dry lest they should soil them. Another painter does the lettering and all is finished. They do not use oil, because that requires the plaster to be quite dry, and as the colour does not penetrate the lime it is less firm. For the most important subjects, such as a Last Supper or a Crucifixion, the master does all, and there is not the division of labour described above; but one sometimes finds fine figures of Christ or the Virgin with other personages near quite mediocre— in this case the pupils have done their part as well. The treatise from which the painters work is divided into four parts. The first, which is technical, gives directions for preparing brushes and colours, spreading plaster for frescoes and panels, and painting on these plasters. The second contains a list of subjects of symbolism, but especially of history, which may be represented by painting, with copious descriptions of each subject The third gives the places in which the subjects or personages should be placed in a church, a porch, a refectory, or a fountain. An appendix fixes the character of Christ and the Virgin, and gives some of the inscriptions which abound in Byzantine paintings. The forms of hair and beard, the age, physiognomy, costume, attitude are all marked in this book." The founder of the school is said to have been Pause-linos, who lived in the eleventh century, and since on Mount Athos there were in Didron's time "935 churches, chapels, or oratories, almost all painted in fresco, and filled with pictures on panel, while in the great convents the greater part of the refectories were also covered with mural paintings" one can easily understand how the tradition lasted for centuries, the art of the Greek Church being a matter of religious dogma in all that concerns arrangement and type.
 
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