Murals are important as they bring art to the public sphere. Indeed some of the most famous and copied artworks have been murals.
Murals refer to paintings done on walls or ceilings. The paint can be directly applied to the surface, or on a canvas that is later attached or cemented with the wall, or it can also be done on panels that become part of the wall.
Fresco
This technique of painting is executed upon freshly-laid ‘wet’ lime plaster. Water is used as a catalyst for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster. With the setting of the plaster, the painting becomes an integral part of the wall. It is one of the more durable techniques of mural painting.
Marouflage
Marouflage is a technique for affixing a painted canvas (intended as a mural) to a wall, using an adhesive that hardens as it dries, such as plaster or cement. It is a 3,000-year-old technique.
Mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass, or ceramic, held in place by plaster/ mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decorations. Materials employed in Mosaic paintings include traditional stone, ceramic tesserae, enameled and stained glass, shells, beads, charms, chains, gears, coins, and pieces of costume jewelry.
Lüftlmalerei
It is one of the rarer types, practiced in villages and towns of Southern Germany. The paintings are applied to the fresh lime plaster using a fresco technique, whereby the colors silicify with the plaster in a chemical reaction and the paintings are thus able to survive for a long time. Today, other weatherproof painting materials are also used.
Tiles
Tile murals are made from stone, ceramic, porcelain, glass, and or metal tiles. They are also inlaid into floors. Some artists even use pottery and plates broken into pieces. Unlike other techniques, tile murals are always made by fitting pieces of the selected materials together to create the design or image (each tile will be a piece of a whole design).
Renowned muralists are Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, Albrecht Dürer, Botticelli, and Titian among others.
