fresco
[fres-koh]
- Also called buon fresco, true fresco. the art or technique of painting on a moist, plaster surface with colors ground up in water or a limewater mixture.Compare fresco secco.
- a picture or design so painted.
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- to paint in fresco.
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Origin of fresco
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for fresco
Contemporary Examples
And Pope Alexander VI had the painter Pinturicchio disguise his mistress as the Virgin Mary in one fresco.
As I read this, I imagined a fresco depicting the economic section of the document.
This 13th-century fresco of a lion was painted near Burgos in Spain, probably by an itinerant English artist from Winchester.
The Daily Pic: A Spanish fresco captures the fearless Middle Ages.
Cecilia Gimenez botched the restoration of a 19th-century Spanish fresco.
Historical Examples
There, just study that fresco, Moses and the daughters of Jethro.
The Three Cities Trilogy, CompleteEmile Zola
Surely the world shall know you the first of painters in fresco!
PoemsWilliam D. Howells
In order to see the fresco, I had to get on the top of a loom.
Modern Painters Volume II (of V)John Ruskin
That picture he eventually transferred to his fresco, and there—O bitter irony!
The Strolling SaintRaphael Sabatini
It was painted on the wall, like a fresco; and how to remove it was the difficulty.
fresco
- a very durable method of wall-painting using watercolours on wet plaster or, less properly, dry plaster (fresco secco), with a less durable result
- a painting done in this way
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Word Origin
C16: from Italian: fresh plaster, coolness, from fresco (adj) fresh, cool, of Germanic origin
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for fresco
n.
1590s, in fresco, literally "in fresh," with a sense of "painted on fresh mortar or plaster," from Italian fresco "cool, fresh," from Proto-Germanic *friskaz (see fresh (adj.1)).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
fresco
A painting on wet plaster. When the plaster dries, the painting is bonded to the wall. Fresco was a popular method for painting large murals during the Renaissance. The Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci, is a fresco, as are the paintings by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel.
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.