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Artec de México Art and Technology to Preserve Works of Art |
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Arte y Negocios Magazine
OBJECT RELATIONSHIP WITH ITS HISTORY Whatever we consider a master piece, has always an obvious aesthetic function, but also the piece is a historical object that is related to its moment, and may be or may not be the present, and that always keeps an attachment with the context it was created, and at the same time with the society it deals with, the one who uses it, who understands it, who enjoys it, and moves around it. The restaurateur can sense an object as a group of symbols, where the elements that are part of it are signs with a legible symbolic load, easily detectable in religious pieces where ornamental elements where used, or specific colors in clothing in determined characters are perfect clues top identify the character of the scene. The main role of the restaurateur is to recover all those values, so the object may have back the power to communicate. He must define if it is a usable object, if it has another function other than expressing an aesthetic intention. When the object was made as a communicator of an idea or a belief, the elements inside it are essential to understand the intrinsic message, when an element is modified or there is a big missing part, the message is interrupted, the communications between the object and the spectator will be stopped. It is then when the restaurateur job is totally necessary to reinstall the communication between the object and the observatory, in a completely comprehensible way therefore our relation with the object may be interactive. The restaurateur begins his work researching the historic background to understand completely that piece, the one that must be repaired and all its elements tangible and intangible must be reinstall. If the restaurateur does not make a proper research, he may, no intentionally, make modifications that will interfere with the reading of the message of the object in the future. This is why a total respect for the piece is an indispensable behavior in restoration practice. To know the limit of intervention is indispensable to conserve the piece, this ensures its integrity and allows its preservation through time, so new generations may be able to understand the cultural baggage that withhold all and everyone of the objects that come to as from the past. And when History and Literature end all their possibilities of explaining physical and chemical elements, then science and technology act as a resource almost infallible in detecting the physical and chemical elements unreachable to the reflection. MCO
CLEANING PROBLEMS IN WORKS OF ART RESTORATION People involved in restoration and conservation of art knows how complex the cleaning process can be, it is one of the most delicate and critical parts of the entire conservation process. To remove a varnish, and extra stroke of paint, a natural or artificial glaze is always totally irreversible intervention. Due to the fact to its irreversible consequences, the cleaning step must be a process that has been strictly meditated. That is, you must have deeply grown the knowledge of the structure as well as the knowledge of the pictured surface. Whatever the tool used to remove, whether it is a scalpel, a thinner, or today a laser, is necessary to answer three main point; the first one is what to remove, next the most complicated one is where to stop, and finally what technique to use. It is in first place a problem in the selection of the layer and the composition, and this is why a total control of this operation is required. In most cases the layer to eliminate is a yellowish varnish. Nowadays, nobody, or almost nobody will totally remove all the varnish. The correct objective is to make it thinner until we reach that layer without damage that enable us to recover the lost balanced color. That is, tuning the varnish respecting the track of time as an already achieved historical value. In the past the restaurateur was exposed to highly toxic solvents to be able to do this delicate operation. During the 80´s these solvents were gradually abandon and people went back to alcohol, trimming removers, and quetones as a solution to avoid the toxicity of solvents. Unfortunately, these solvents did not reach satisfactory the cleaning target on the piece. That is why, a scientific research and more specifically chemistry, began to be part of this process more intensively. Last decade the use of supported formulas was studied (those whose base is a gel or a smooth paste); the main idea was to improve the time of exposure between the cleaning agent and the surface or the object, avoiding the intrusions to a deeper layer. Meanwhile the remaining time will be helpful because of the usage of ideal cleaning gels. These gels are known as solvent-gels, while others that will be used at the beginning in the stretching action, will be known as resin-soaps (Richard Wolbers, American, has been promoting those applications). However, despite using solvent-gels as well as resin-soaps, not all the problems found in cleaning matters, have been solved. Not in a satisfactory way. The lack of effective scientific methods for more complicated cases is obvious. Therefore, it would be not only prudent, but totally necessary to invest in a scientific research in order to offer better alternatives, more efficient and above all, less to the piece and to the restaurateur. JRM
RECOVERY, RESTITUTION, RESTORATION
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