Walls, Painting, Buon Fresco - Applying the Lessons of History

Above left: David Mayernik stands in front of his just-completed fresco of the life-size figure of Christ on the Cross.
Above right: The fresco is shown here before the canvases were mounted on either side. Photo: courtesy of Don Giuseppe Clarioni

Mayernik's fresco of the Crucifix is positioned between two 17th-century canvases. Photo: courtesy of Don Giuseppe Clarioni

My frescoes for the winter chapel of the ancient church of San Cresci in Valcava, in the Mugello district of Tuscany, were motivated by completing a 17th-century oil painting of Mary and John at the foot of the cross. At some point in its life, the central image of Christ on the cross had been cut out and removed, leaving only the two outside figures. My solution of creating a frescoed crucifix and placing Mary and John on either side preserved the historical integrity of the paintings while completing their narrative logic.

Originally, the fresco was proposed for the altar wall of the small chapel, but in the course of preparing the whitewashed wall for the new painting, an 18th-century fresco of the Annunciation was discovered, necessitating the relocation of the new fresco and the restoration of the old one. The crucifix and its oil pendants were moved to a lateral wall, necessitating the elimination of the oval painting showing the martyrdom of the church's patron saint. Instead, five new oval frescoes in the same register were proposed for the rest of the space, illustrating the saint's life.

In the summer of 2002, I painted the Crucifixion while the successors to the founder of the school where I had studied fresco worked on the restoration. It is telling of the nature of those two enterprises that my new work took four intense giornate, while their painstaking task required a full month. In the following summer, I returned to the chapel to paint the second scene of the saint's life on the wall opposite the Crucifixion. The rest of the ovals remain to be done.

product report