Demolli will create a fresco of Saint Joseph for the Italian Cultural Festa at the village on Sept. 16 and 17. Dress for wet conditions and physical labor for this collaborative project.
Name the most famous painting of the European Renaissance and you'd probably pick "The Last Supper" -- even if the DaVinci Code had never been written.
Chances are, too, that you would think Leonardo's masterpiece done on the wall of the refectory at the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, in Milan, and completed in 1498, is a classic example of that Italian art form, done when the plaster on which it is painted is still wet and hence known as "fresco."
But it's not.
Leonardo began painting it on plaster that already was dry, which is why it has been deteriorating slowly, steadily and perhaps irreversibly ever since.
"If it had been a true fresco, there would never have been a problem," says Demolli, of Little Egg Harbor , who for the last 20 years has been practicing the millennia-old art form, in addition to painting more conventional murals.
"The trouble with fresco painting is that you can't change it," he says. "Leonardo made so many changes, particularly on the face of Judas, that it took him four years to complete "The Last Supper."
In a true fresco, the paint becomes part of the plaster itself and will last as long as the wall does.
Demolli says most artists avoid frescos because they are a lot of work and require at least two people.
Fresco began in ancient Roman Pompei, but also developed separately in Mexico.
Demolli became interested in frescos 20 years ago, when a client hired him to do a "fake fresco" mural. "Why make a fake when you can do a real one?" he asked.
Since then, Demolli, who relocated to the U.S. from Florence, has done at least two dozen, many in and around Florence and central Italy.
He will demonstrate the art as part of Wheaton Village's eight-month-long celebration of the South Jersey Italian-American community.
For more information or to register for the workshop, call 825-6800, ext. 109 or e-mail kmkorton@wheatonvillage.org.
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Tuckerton Seaport