fresco
/ˈfrɛskəʊ
/noun (plural frescoes or frescos)
1A painting done rapidly in watercolour on wet plaster on a wall or ceiling, so that the colours penetrate the plaster and become fixed as it dries.Another few decades would pass before Filippino Lippi finished the bottom tier of frescoes left incomplete by Masaccio and Masolino....
- Most of the frescoes on the ceiling are gone, but there are ornate chandeliers.
- The ‘wallpaper’ was frescoes by Paolo Veronese, acclaimed 16th century artist.
1.1 [mass noun] The method of painting frescoes, used in Roman times and by the great masters of the Italian Renaissance including Giotto, Raphael, and Michelangelo.As King notes: ‘The technique of fresco was as simple in conception as it was difficult in execution’, requiring the painter to work quickly on wet plaster before it dried....
- Presumably, stucco decoration was more resistant to steam than fresco.
- And this dining room is the most elegantly pretty in London, a marvellous fondant of gilding, marble and airhead fresco.
Derivatives
frescoed
- On this 13-day tour you'll see imperial eagles, Egyptian vultures and Dalmatian pelicans, plus frescoed monasteries, Roman ruins and the monuments of the Thracian horsemen.
- Bormio's other big draw is the town itself - a fading Italian beauty, complete with frescoed churches and tight pedestrian streets, and almost entirely free of tourist tack.
- It took a few seconds for our eyes to adjust from the bright light of the olive groves to the darkly frescoed gloom of the interior.
Origin
Late 16th century: Italian, literally 'cool, fresh'. The word was first recorded in English in the phrase in fresco, representing Italian affresco, al fresco 'on the fresh (plaster)'.