Stucco (art)

Stucco (art), in art, a fine-grained hard plaster composed of gypsum, marble dust, and glue. It is especially well suited to covering walls and ceilings, where it can be molded into ornamental shapes, polished to a marblelike finish, or painted in decorative colors.

Stucco was used by the ancient Greeks and Romans as a ground for wall frescoes, some of which are still intact in Rome and Pompeii. Stucco techniques were elaborated by the Italians during the Renaissance and carried throughout Europe. White stucco was commonly used in churches, where it was molded into wall decorations, often portraying angels; colored stucco friezes were created by the Italian artist Raphael and others for palaces and garden pavilions. Notable are Francesco Primaticcio's opulent stucco reliefs (circa 1533-65) in the Palace of Fontainebleau near Paris. Stuccowork reached its peak in the 17th and 18th centuries; baroque and rococo palaces and pilgrimage churches, especially in Bavaria and Austria, were decorated with incredibly elaborate polychrome stucco in an infinite variety of forms—twining figures, twisted columns, and festively bedecked altars. In England, the 18th-century architect Robert Adam achieved a more controlled but no less impressive neoclassical equivalent in his exquisite ceiling and wall decorations.

See also Baroque Art and Architecture; Neoclassical Art and Architecture; Rococo Style; Roman Art and Architecture.