Decorating walls with paintings made on fresh plaster is a grimy, laborious practice, which in the Middle Ages was thought to be the most mechanical and craftsman-like task of the painter. Beginning in the 14th century however, higher artistic standards began to reveal just how splendidly a chamber could be transformed by fresco painting. By the end of the 15th century, the fresco painter was hailed as the most ambitious and able of all artists. In this lecture we learn the techniques — good and bad — that mural painters used. See how truly great painters, such as Botticelli and Ghirlandaio in the 15th century and Michelangelo and Raphael in the 16th century, triumphed as fresco artists above all others.
