word of the day: gesso

The word of the day is gesso:

Etymology:  < Italian gesso < Latin gypsum : see gypsum n. 

1. Plaster of Paris; gypsum. 

a. in the native state (obs.). 

b. as prepared for use in painting and sculpture. 

c. A prepared surface of plaster as a ground for painting. 

2. A work of art executed in plaster. Obs. (OED)

"Part of Galileo’s genius was to transfer the spirit of the Italian Renaissance in the plastic arts to the mathematical and observational ones. He took the competitive, empirical drive with which Florentine painters had been looking at the world and used it to look at the night sky. The intellectual practices of doubting authority and trying out experiments happened on lutes and with tempera on gesso before they turned toward the stars. You had only to study the previous two centuries of Florentine drawing, from the rocky pillars of Masaccio to the twisting perfection of Michelangelo, to see how knowledge grew through a contest in observation."

 - Adam Gopnik, "Moon man: What Galileo saw", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker