PRESERVATION AT ALL
COSTS? In an effort to protect the deteriorating Giotto frescoes
in Padua’s Scrovegni Chapel, visitors are now only allowed into
the chapel for scheduled 15-minute visits, and must view the work
from glass enclosures. "Maybe we should at least consider
the radical notion that masterpieces - like so much else in this
mutable world - have a life-span, and ask ourselves if preserving
them is worth making it so unpleasant to experience them." The Atlantic Monthly
04/01
THE VANISHING: Leonardo's
"Last Supper" is damaged almost to the point of obscurity.
Nonetheless, restorers have spent the past 20 years trying to
lighten and brighten the images. Now the controversial results
are revealed - here are comparisons between pre-restoration
and after. University of Chicago Press 03/12/01
SAVING
THE BARNES? Pennsylania's Barnes Collection is in a tight
spot. The small collection needs to raise about $50 million to
keep going. But most of the proposals to save it would alter the
collection's fundamental qualities. Should the museum be sacrificed
to the tourists? Philadelphia Inquirer
04/01/01
ELGIN
MARBLES DEBATED: All was civil at this conference until just
before the end... The
Art Newspaper 01/21/00
BRITISH
MUSEUM ACCUSED OF COVER-UP: A new report published yesterday
accuses the British Museum of severely damaging the Elgin Marbles
60 years ago in an ill-advised cleaning, then covering up the
incident. Toronto
Globe and Mail 11/30/99
EVERYTHING
OLD AND NEW AGAIN: American architect Rick Mather has been
entrusted to redesign and redevelop London's South Bank. Mather
has been working in London for 30 years, putting his modernist
touch on a series of redevelopment projects, including the Dulwich
Picture Gallery, National Maritime Museum, and Oxford's Ashmolean
Museum. His South Bank scheme blends conservation and renewal.
The Telegraph 3/31/00
VERONESE DAMAGE: After inspecting how the Louvre has cleaned a prominent
painting by Italian master Veronese, a French conservation expert
despairs: "Clothes that were originally red were now green.
The whole spatial and wonderful chromatic harmony is distorted.
When you look at the painting . . . black, red and blue colors
seem to be floating among other colors like pieces of a broken
puzzle. The light is now a cold, artificial, modern one." London Times 03/02/00
RESTORING
CALCUTTA: The Calcutta government has asked the British to
help restore Calcutta's British colonial architecture. "The
Marxist government sees the conservation-led regeneration of the
city’s neglected colonial past as part of a larger scheme for
social and economic revival by promoting it as a business and
tourist attraction. It feels the need to alter the city’s image
from what Kipling described as the 'city of dreadful night' —
summoning up the Black Hole and the slums where Mother Teresa
worked—to 'The gifted city', as it will be promoted, emphasising
its rich cultural and architectural traditions." The Art Newspaper 10/06/00
MAINTAINING
A GOOD IDEA: Five years ago Britain set up the lottery-supported
Heritage Fund, setting forth £1.5 billion in spending on arts
and cultural projects. "Who could have imagined in 1990 that
so many longstanding conservation problems would be resolved or
that such bold initiatives would have found funding? Without it,
the world would have been a much duller place. Yet, just as the
achievements of the fund are becoming clear, so are the dangers
that surround it." The Telegraph (London) 11/19/00
DECOMPOSING:
The original musical notes JS Bach wrote on manuscript paper are
fading away. "Experts say the iron- or copper-based ink and
cloth paper he used contained or produced sulfuric acid over the
years. As a result, Bach's very notes are disappearing in a slow-burn
chemical reaction - literally eating themselves right off the
page." High tech conservation efforts are underway. CNN.com 11/07/00
THE SCIENCE OF ART:
Until recently picture conservation has been a somewhat sensual,
hands-on and almost medieval craft. No longer. New scientific
methods unlock secrets. "When Rembrandt painted white preparatory
ground on his canvases, little did he realise that some 350 years
later a scientist would be interested in the tiny fossils it contained." Financial Times 01/13/00
BLOCKBUSTING:
Are museum blockbuster shows ruining museums? One art historian
believes so. "Masterpieces are shunted around the world,
often against the advice of conservation departments, primarily
to bring prestige to the lenders, publicity to the sponsors and
paying customers to the host institutions. Small or penurious
institutions are deprived of their treasures, and objects which,
for one reason or another, cannot be lent are increasingly neglected:
less and less attention is paid, for example, to large pictures
and artists who specialised in them." The Economist 11/10/00
MOSES
ONLINE: The cleaning and restoration of Michelangelo's "Moses"
is being done live over the internet. Viewers can tune in any
time and see how the project is progressing. "We don't just
want to clean and restore the monument. We want to make it even
more well known than it already is. People will be able to follow
the whole process of restoration minute by minute and day by day.
It's a way of letting them feel a part of it." CNN.com 11/24/00
MICHELANGELO
RESTORATION: Michelangelo's statue of Moses in Rome is to
get its first restoration in 200 years. Michelangelo worked on
the statue in the early 1500s. New Jersey Online 11/21/00
DAMAGING THROUGH
RESTORATION: India's Ajanta paintings, which easily rank among
the world’s most precious heritage sites, are being restored.
But a leading expert warns that "the cleaning methods employed
at the caves and the level of skills of the workers engaged in
the cleaning have seriously damaged the Ajanta paintings and led
to a demonstrable loss of pigment." The Art Newspaper 11/06/00
POLITICS
OF RESTORATION: The Vatican's St. Peter's gets a facelift, restoring
some original color to the facade. Critics decry the job as a
post-modern tilt, "the desire to transform everything
into a movie set." New York Times 9/30/99
RESTORING A MINOR
POPE: One of the side benefits of the economic boom
of the last decade has been the newfound ability of cities to
reinvest in their own beautification. Pittsburgh's Frick Park,
long in disrepair, is undergoing a massive restoration, with particular
attention being given to the unique neoclassic gates designed
by the iconoclastic John Russell Pope. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 1/24/01
DAMAGES FROM RESTORATION:
Scientists tell the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society
that "collectors and curators have been unknowingly using
risky techniques that cause the polymers forming their paints
to fall apart. Poor preservation techniques, including the cleaning
of paintings using harsh chemicals, could soften and deform the
paint." Ananova 08/24/00
DULWICH DOOMED?
“The most architecturally venerated of London's art galleries,”
the 18th-century Dulwich Picture Gallery has recently
undergone extensive restoration thanks to £5 million from the
Heritage Lottery Fund. How did the revitalization affect Sir John
Soane’s original collection? “It's hard not to feel a twinge of
regret, as Soane's ghost has faded a little more with this new
work. It feels normal, which it never was before.” London Evening Standard
05/24/00
RESTORATION
FOR THE REAL WORLD: The
former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan is restoring Bukhara, a stop
on the ancient 'Silk Road' trading route that became an Islamic
center of learning. "Restorers desperately want to maintain
the city's vitality and avoid the mistakes that turned the historic
center of Samarkand, a Silk Road city 150 miles to the east, into
a gleaming, but lifeless museum piece." CNN 07/10/00
CRUMBLING
TREASURES: Italy has a wealth of art treasures. But how to
take care of it? "Art restoration in Italy is in a mess.
It's not that we lack restorers of the highest ability. It is
rather that the organisation of the whole, and the role of the
government, is chaotic... The government may get involved when
some world-famous building has collapsed, or a world-famous fresco
starts peeling off its wall. But there's no interest at all in
the thousands of buildings and churches that are quietly crumbling,
along with the objects inside them, in the centres of Italy's
ancient cities." The Telegraph (London)
FRESCO TECHNOLOGY: Using computer re-creations and
chemical technology to expose underlayers, after 15 years of arduous
restoration a dozen 15th-century wall paintings by
Renaissance master Piero della Francesca will be unveiled to the
public Friday in the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo, Italy.
Twenty years ago such a job would not have been possible. New
York Times 04/06/00
(one-time registration required for entry)
RESTORING THE PATH OF FAITH: This month, Coptic Christians
in Egypt are celebrating the 2000th anniversary of the Holy Family's
travel through Egypt. In preparation for the thousands of pious
pilgrims that will come to retrace their path, the Egyptian Heritage
Revival Association is pouring millions of Egyptian Pounds into
the restoration of tombs, icons, altars...and the installation
of restrooms. Egypt Today 06/00
