River Main,
detail of one of the frescos of Giambattista Tiepolo,
Würzburg, Residenz, Kaiseraal en Allemagne

-> English: mural painting

-> French: la pienture murale

-> German: die Wandmalerei

-> Italian: pittura murale

-> Spanish: pintura mural

-> Dutch: muurschildering

Mural painting

A short history of murals

Mankind started painting on cave walls; rupestrian painting were the first visual symbols that men communicated to each other. There is much existing evidence today of these awesome drawings of immense beauty.

Walls were the first places where man painted.

The mural base for the painting can be stone, concrete, cement, brick, plaster or wood. The painting can be done directly on a specific base or on canvas (any size is possible). The painting is then glued to the wall like wall paper.

Nota

Fresco is an ancient painting technique where natural mineral pigments are applied to a still humid lime coating on a wall or ceiling (fresco in Italian: fresh). The term fresco means the fresco technique but this word is often misused to describe mural painting in general.

The word 'freco" appears beetween XIV-XV century in Cennino Cennini's book Il Libro dell'arte

"disegnare, colorire in fresco" > to design, to color in fresco

Creativity and imagination belong not only to artists but to people who commission art work.

Usage of color - If you want to know more:

" La couleur est par excellence la partie de l'art qui détient le don magique. Alors que le sujet, la forme, la ligne s'adressent d'abord à la pensée, la couleur n'a aucun sens pour l'intelligence, mais elle a tous les pouvoirs sur la sensibilité."
Eugène Delacroix. Extrait de son Journal.

The place of mural art in the history of art.

All over the world and for many centuries the history of mural painting has been woven by common and diverse elements. The Australian Aboriginals have done rock paintings for thousands of years as did primitive man in the caves of the south-west of France and Africa. The sacred paintings of Ancient Egypt. The decorative and religious paintings of Pompeii. The Yemenite paintings on religious buildings. The palace fresco painters of the Renaissance. Enormous propoganda mural paintings (Russia, China) or monumental paintings for advertising (Bollywood) Contemporary anti-establishment or militant painting (grafs,graffiti). All contribute to the large array of expression in mural painting.

Contemporary mural paintings personalise private homes, public facades, car parks, restaurants, night clubs, museums, factories, offices, staircases, entrance halls, sports rooms, corridors, dining rooms, sitting rooms, hospitals etc. in many varied dimensions.

A cave wall or a wall built by man. An indoor wall or a wall in the suburbs. Vaults, ceilngs, domes, murals are an ally to architecture.

Mural painting bears witness to an era and plays an important social role. Public art or private, lay or religious, popular or elitist.

"Didn't I say or have heard to be said that the painted canvas should be a hommage to great art from where it came and be elegant enough to dissappear as rapidly as possible and become an impersonnal and recomforting auxilliary to buildings?

Anonymous art. The times of the cathedrals, the mosques, the pagodas, rupestrian sculpture in India or in Ho-Nan. The art of the mosaicists, glass-makers, book illustrators and fresco painters. Construction site worker's art. Humble art, sacred art that those who wanted to keep their dignity and some self respect treasured. Art has nothing to do with exhibitions, medals, jurys, systems and snobism. The painter does a slow happy job and is not an exhibitionist. These artists don't want to do anything except mural paintings and claim that they are craftsmen turning their backs on official art.

It's not only in the West that art in general seems to be evolving towards architectonic rhythms. Same symptom in the East.

The coming of popular art and the action of engineers is imminent. All over the world we are going back to anonymity as in the great ages and that's good. We are unanimously turning away from a civilization of individuals to a civilization of the masses.

History is an uninterrupted series of alternation which is presented to us in the form of integrations through love and disintegrations through knowledge. This last rhythm set up in the Renaissance has ended . As as a whole I believe it is on the verge of starting up again."
Elie Faure, Ombres Solides, 1934 (Art Historian)
Urban environment, the decision-makers choice.

Answer

Anauthorised mural art. Writing and graffiti . Self expression on a street corner.

Urban surroundings, the poetical impact of color and the lives of the inhabitants are considerations that are important to a mural artist.
Murals cannot be disassociated from architecture. They prolong it through perspective..

Ecology and muralism

NF Environnement est la certification écologique officielle française. 

A performances d'usage égales, la marque NF Environnement distingue lesproduits dont l'impact sur l'environnement est réduit et sont conformesà des critères écologiques et d'aptitude à l'usage.

Natureplus is an international environmental organisation whoseaim is the development of a culture of sustainability within thebuilding sector.

The domain of Public Art

Develop the entries into towns, create landmarks, identites for specific areas. The domain of public art is to foster creativity and expression, social adhesion and social links. Artists and decsion-makers must work together.