Finishing the Walls

Finishing the Walls. . , Over the several years it took to construct a brick building like the chapel, mortar spills left many unsightly white streaks on the brick walls. Modern builders use acid and a power washer to remove these, but what did a 17th-century mason do., Research in England and America has discovered that once a brick structure was finished, 16th- and 17th-century masons frequently coated the walls of the new building with a color wash. A color wash is a paint-like liquid that is a brick red color. Traces of surviving color wash have been found on the 1665 Bacon's Castle in Virginia and on the bricks from 17th-century structures at Jamestown., To restore the "look" of brickwork on a color washed building, masons would often paint a white fluid in the thin grooves they had struck in the mortar while laying the brick. This treatment is called "penciling." Alternatively, they might cover the entire joint with this fluid. Penciling creates the appearance of regularity and order out of rough, irregular, handmade bricks and mortar joints., In the Groove? , One question about the chapel that could not be answered through archaeology is whether the masons penciled the entire joint or just the thin groove "struck" in the mortar joint. In England, there is good evidence for the groove being penciled, but coating the entire joint provides more protection and creates a similar appearance. Which did they do at the Chapel? We will never know. Since we are unsure, workers penciled the entire joint over most of the Chapel, but we left one wall (the right side in your view) with only the groove penciled., [Captions:] , Several coats of color wash made from alum, glue, and red pigments were applied to the brick walls to hide the lime streaks from construction. How long this color wash and the penciling will last is unknown, so the chapel continues to be a unique experiment in 17th-century architecture., Skilled masons, and students from St. Mary's College, applied the thin, white lines or penciling on the chapel walls. This precision painting creates a wall that seems to be made of bricks having exactly the same size and shape, even though the real ones vary greatly., This picture shows the chapel with the wall on the left fully color washed and penciled, the central part is only color washed, and the right section is untreated, showing the mortar streaks from construction.