Learning to Fresco…in Italy

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LVC student Lauren Brumbach puts the finishing touches on a fresh layer of plaster, continuing a 2,000 year-old Italian tradition of buon fresco, for her class in Fresco at the Umbra Institute

ANNVILLE, PA (05/29/2013)(readMedia)-- Lebanon Valley College student Lauren Brumbach of Oley, Pa., along with fellow students, painted quickly to finish up the last details on her fresco before the plaster dried. The course in Fresco, part of the Umbra Institute's fine arts offerings, is one of the only classes in fresco in the world.

This semester students started by creating a first, rough layer with a mixture of sand and lime plaster, then learned from Professor Bill Pettit how to apply the smoother layers over the top. The last layer is the hardest: it has to be applied and then painted within three hours. The students also took a trip to Rome to see the amazing examples from the Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance, an inspiration for their own walls back in Perugia.

"I really liked that it was an art class in an unusual medium," said Brumbach, an art and art history major at LVC.

Learn more about LVC's study abroad program in Perugia by visiting www.lvc.edu/study-abroad.

Lebanon Valley College® in Annville, Pa., welcomes 1,630 full-time undergraduates studying more than 30 majors, as well as self-designed majors. Founded in 1866, LVC has graduate programs in physical therapy, business, music education, and science education. Annville is 15 minutes east of Hershey and 35 minutes east of Harrisburg; Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore are within two hours.

The Umbra Institute is an American study abroad program located in the central Italian city of Perugia. Often called a "big university town in a small Italian city," Perugia is the ideal setting for studying fine arts, business, and liberal arts courses.