Italian term (literally "at first"). Originally indicated a pictorial technique that foresaw the use of particularly liquid colours, lacking in density and thickness. Here, one avoids the necessity to paint in chromatic layers and to go over each previous layer, nonetheless one obtains completed paintings. This method, practised from the middle of the 16th Century to the middle of the 18th Century, calls for an extremely able artist who, painting "alla prima," must show a perfect command of the materials, and above all of the idea, not indicated in a previous abbozzo. More recently, and in particular, beginning with plen air painting (while maintaining the significance of a rapid execution, not pre-meditated in preparatory studies), the term indicates a painting executed, for the most part, on a support without preparation and characterized by full-bodied colours. As an analogy, in restoration, alla prima indicates in-painting obtained by only one layer of colour direclty imitating the colour of the zone surrounding the hole.