The Three Graces by Rob Munro

Comments

Login or register to add a comment

No comments

In the late 1980s I was a voracious reader of Roman literature, including Pliny the Elder’s description of the arts and artist materials. Soon after, I accumulated the various minerals he described, and ground into powder red and yellow ochres, chrysocolla and malachite green, orpiment orange, Egyptian blue and chalk white. I even made my own lamp black. For the top-most layer of plaster, I added some finely powdered marble. After outlining with red chalk, I painted with my home-made tempera paints, and left it to dry before burnishing it using a smooth agate. When a colleague suggested it looked too modern, I decided to distress the work to make it resemble a genuine Roman fresco as they appear to our modern eyes. I took the panel and smashed it as if it had fallen off a wall in an earthquake, and buried it. Cleaned, reassembled and framed, the paperback-sized panel sold in a week.