CHAPTER XII. (XXVI.)
Of the Sgraffiti for house decoration which withstand water; that which is used in their production; and how Grotesques are worked on the wall.
§ 91. Sgraffito-work.
Painters have another sort of picture which is drawing and painting both together. This is called sgraffito; it serves only for ornament on the façades of houses and palaces, and is very quickly executed, while it perfectly resists the action of water, because all the outlines, instead of being drawn with charcoal or other similar material, are etched by the hand of the painter with an iron tool. The work is done in this manner. They take lime mixed with sand in the usual fashion and tinge it by means of burnt straw to a tint of a medium colour inclining to pearl grey, a little more towards the dark than the middle tint, and with this they plaster the façade. That done and the façade smoothed, they give it a coat of white all over with the white lime of travertine, and then dust over the (perforated) cartoons, or else draw directly that which they wish to execute. Afterwards pressing upon it with an iron stylus they trace the contours and draw lines on the cement, which, because there is a black substance underneath, shows all the scratches of the tool as marks of drawing.[[230]]
It is customary too to scrape away the white in the backgrounds, and then to prepare a water colour tint, darkish and very watery, and with that reinforce the darks, as one would do on paper; this seen at a distance is most effective. But if there be grotesques or leafage in the design, cast shadows are painted on the background by means of that water colour. This is the work that the painters have called sgraffito, on account of its being scratched by the iron instrument.
§ 92. Grotesques, or Fanciful Devices, painted or modelled on Walls.[[231]]
There remains to us now to speak of the grotesques done on the wall. For those, then, that go on a white ground, when the background is not of stucco (white plaster), because the ordinary lime plastering is not white, therefore a thin coat of white is laid over; and that done the cartoons are powdered and the work executed in fresco with opaque colours,[[232]] but these will never have the charm of those worked directly upon the stucco. In this style there may be grotesques both coarse and fine, and these are done in the same way as the figures in fresco or on the dry wall.
Plate XI
SPECIMEN OF SO-CALLED ‘SGRAFFITO’ DECORATION
On the exterior of the Palazzo Montalvo, Florence