Wikipedia
Intonaco is an Italian term for the final, very thin layer of plaster on which a fresco is painted. The plaster is painted while still wet, in order to allow the pigment to penetrate into the intonaco itself. An earlier layer, called arriccio, is laid slightly coarsely to provide a key for the intonaco, and must be allowed to dry, usually for some days, before the final very thin layer is applied and painted on. In Italian the term intonaco is also used much more generally for normal plaster or mortar wall-coatings in buildings.
Intonaco is traditionally a mixture of sand (with granular dimensions less than two millimeters) and a binding substance.
Usage examples of "intonaco".
Bugiardini had put a heavy coat of intonaco on the panel the day before, hatching a rough surface on which he was now plastering the precise area to be painted that day.
Ghirlandaio pounced the lines of the figures onto the fresh intonaco with a pointed ivory stick, then gave the signal for it to be taken away.
Ghirlandaio had not yet given him permission to handle a brush, but he worked for a week applying the intonaco and mixing colors.
Michelangelo laid a modest area of intonaco, then held the cartoon of the white-haired and bearded near saint with the enormous eyes.
Piero Rosselli had laid a heavy coat of intonaco on the area the day before, hatching a rough surface on which, this morning, he would plaster the precise area to be painted by dark.
During the first week he allowed Michi to lay only modest areas of intonaco each day, proceeding cautiously, experimenting not only with the contortions of the figures but with a wide variety of flesh tones and the colors of the blue, green and rose robes of those who still retained their clothing.
He asked Urbino to mix some intonaco and lay it on the blank spot on the extreme lower right-hand corner of the wall.
Urbino helped him up the scaffolding, laid a patch of intonaco in the sky just below St.
Era un posto con intonaco spaccato e puzza d'urina, e nessuno avrebbe fatto caso a noi.