Plate 9.—Detail from The Arts of War Fresco
Lord Leighton, Victoria and Albert Museum
and consequently the inner surface of an outside wall should not be chosen for an important work in this process.
As the writer had the honour of assisting Lord Leighton in the execution of the “Arts of Peace” and “War” frescos in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and also prepared both walls before the paintings were executed, he is therefore enabled to give a brief description, as outlined below, of the whole method of procedure, both as to the preparation of the walls and the method of painting adopted, which will serve to explain the system of spirit-fresco painting.
It may be mentioned that the walls were prepared in strict accordance with Mr. Gambier Parry’s method and directions. Mr. Parry inspected this part of the work, and declared that the whole preparation had been done to his satisfaction.
First of all the rough brick surface of the wall had a coating of plaster, consisting of a mixture of lime and river sand, exactly of the same proportions, and laid on in the same thickness as that of the first plaster coating in buon-fresco. After this had remained for two years, a second coating, again similar in composition and in thickness to that used in the last-named process, was applied. This plaster coating was finished off with a rectangular wooden trowel, and, in the case of the wall on which the “Arts of War” fresco was painted, it was left with a fairly rough surface. The wall surface of the “Arts of Peace” fresco was, on the contrary, brought to a much smoother face, as it was the desire of Lord Leighton to have a smooth surface for the latter painting, for working on the rough surface of the former fresco was, as he remarked, “like painting on a gravel walk.”
When the coating of plaster, which was rather more than half-an-inch in thickness, had remained for about eight months, in order that it might get thoroughly dry, the wall was saturated with two coats of the “wall wash,” this being made from the medium in which the spirit-fresco colours are ground, mixed with one and a half of its bulk of turpentine. The spirit-fresco medium is a mixture of pure white wax, gum elemi, oil of spike, and artists’ copal; the proportions of each are given at end of this chapter. After the second coating of the wall wash had dried in, a day being allowed for this, a coating made of dry white lead, and half its quantity of gilders’ whitening, thinned out with wall wash, was applied as thickly as it could be conveniently used. A little yellow ochre was added to this mixture in order to obtain a creamy white ground, which enables the artist to see by contrast the pure white lights that may be used in the painting, as the work proceeds.
The “Arts of War” fresco ground was treated with one coating only of this last mixture, which accounted for its extremely rough texture, while the “Arts of Peace” wall surface had three coatings, as