both the prosperity and the taste of the times. In the early years ofexploration, excavators were interested exclusively in the mural paintings, especially thoseabout Greek heroes and famous myths. They were cut out of the walls and transferred tothe Naples Archeological Museum. Later, archeologists stopped this practice and seriousattention was given to the mural designs as a whole. At the end of the 19 century, AugustMau, a German art historian, divided the paintings into four so-called pompeian styles.The technique used in these walls differed considerably from that used in Renaissancefrescoes. Before the artist could begin his work, the rough wall had to be covered withthree coats of fine lime mortar, followed by other three coats of a mortar using powderedmarble. When the wall surface was ready, it was polished with mable dust and the colorslaid on at the same time. By doing that, the walls were protected against future crackingand had a brilliant surface like that on marble itself. The mirror-like glaze over the surfaceinvolved not only polishing with marble dust, but also going over the surface with smallerrollers. The whole process, it is clear, was so elaborate and expensive that it was ofnecessity confined to the paintings in the best rooms of the house, the others being muchmore simply decorated. ( Kraus 156) The First Style (or incrustation). It has also been called the masonry style becausethe decorator tried to imitate, using stucco relief, the appearance of expensive and costlymarble panels. It appeared about 200 B.C., when it became fashionable to paint the innerwalls of private houses as well as public and religious buildings. This decorative modewas of Greek derivation, directly inspired by the isodomic masonry technique, and usedpolychrome stucco to reproduce the projecting elements such as the dado, the middlezone in large panels, the upper zone in smaller panels, the cornices, and sometimes thepilasters which art...
