sinopia

a) A natural brick-red-coloured inorganic pigment named after Sinop, a city by the Black Sea; b) A preparatory sketch drawn on arriccio (the lower layer of plaster). It is painted on fresh plaster, mostly using sinopia, which is why the pigment’s name denotes the technique. Later, artists would also use yellow, green, brown, and black, sometimes combined. Sinopia was used to orientate the scene on a larger wall surface and divide the work into giornate. The sinopia was then covered by a layer of intonaco.

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