The Magic of the Conservator – Ensuring Art Does Not Disappear
As with many advances in industry and technology, we can thank war for increasing the interest in research for art conservation. After the Great War, the British Museum unpacked its collections after wartime storage in the Underground railway tunnels. Many items had unexpectedly deteriorated in a relatively short time; iron had rusted, bronze developed green corrosion, pottery and stone objects were covered in growth of salt crystals. The museum then decided to set up a permanent scientific research laboratory to further its understanding of the causes of deterioration of materials and learning methods of treating its effects. Conservation of art is now a full-time academic pursuit with Master’s programs at many universities in the United States with the intent to study, prevent, maintain, and restore cultural work.
During the Renaissance as private collectors of curiosities and eventually public collections of art were established, the demand for restoration increased and the conservation profession was introduced. Craftsmen used traditional materials to repair objects. Currently, scientific techniques such as radiography and UV examination and the development of synthetic materials have given the conservator better ways of studying and repairing traditional fine arts.
In the twentieth century, many artists worked with non-archival materials. Acrylic house paint, enamel paint, latex, and fiber glass are just a few of the synthetic and semi-synthetic polymeric materials that became common because of their immediacy, availability, and seductive qualities. Works by artists such as Jackson Pollock, Eva Hesse, and Anselm Kiefer have created complex pr...
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Jenkins, Ian. “The 1930’s Cleaning of the Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum,” The British Museum (2001): http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/parthenon/
During World War II many places and artworks came to be of historical and artistic significance. Lots of ...
David Chelazzi, Piero Baglioni. Nanoscience for the Conservation of Works of Art. London: RSC Publishing, 2013. Print.
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The antiquities market is a system that has always been met with resistance, especially among those within the scholarly community of archaeologists. Many archaeologists and scholars have argued against this market, stating that it is a detriment to archaeology. On the other side, those in favor of this market have provided reasons to show why they believe it to be a solid system. Both sides have their merit in regards to this controversial issue. However, when looking at the antiquities market as a whole, it has shown to be an effective system that can actually work hand in hand with the scholarly community, rather than against it. The key takeaway from the antiquities market is that it helps to preserve the past, something which all archaeologists strive to achieve.
Rewald, John. Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1978.
To collect is to bring things together. However there is an art to collecting, as it is not simply just bringing miscellaneous things together. There is a common theme for the objects and together they serve as a special meaning to their collector. In both texts “The Museum and the Public” by Stephen Weil and Walter Benjamin “Unpacking My Library” by Walter Benjamin, and in the film “Mardi Gras: Made in China”, the purpose of collecting is to tell a story and to showcase the significance of the objects in the collection.
Recently the major countries that were part of WWII are starting to try and push for museums to send back the stolen art to their rightful owners. With the millions of pieces that were stolen during WWII the number of pieces that have not been returned to its heirs is well over 100,000 pieces of art and most of them are currently missing.("Nazi Plunder," n.d.) To help return stolen art, museums search through all of their art to check if any of it was stolen during WWII. Currently though the progress has stopped for returning stolen artwork back to its rightful heirs, because the museums are refusing to give back some of the more major pieces of art. Also the lack of knowing who the art truly belongs to is also slowing down the
One pleasant afternoon, my classmates and I decided to visit the Houston Museum of Fine Arts to begin on our museum assignment in world literature class. According to Houston Museum of Fine Art’s staff, MFAH considers as one of the largest museums in the nation and it contains many variety forms of art with more than several thousand years of unique history. Also, I have never been in a museum in a very long time especially as big as MFAH, and my experience about the museum was unique and pleasant. Although I have observed many great types and forms of art in the museum, there were few that interested me the most.
Artists in the Renaissance aided the continuation of Renaissance ideals. Renaissance art, including paintings, sculptures, and architecture,...
Acrylic paints have become so very popular since its introduction into the public market in the 1950’s. For hundreds of years, the artist had to contend with the peculiarities of their chosen medium. The watercolorist had to contend with paintings very easily damaged by moisture, and the oil painter had to wait an interminable amount of time for his painting to dry. Acrylic paint …………..
The use of materials to complement a design’s emotional reaction has stuck with the modernist movement. His implementation of these materials created a language that spoke poetically as you move through the structure. “Mies van der Rohe’s originality in the use of materials lay not so much in novelty as in the ideal of modernity they expressed through the rigour of their geometry, the precision of the pieces and the clarity of their assembly” (Lomholt). But one material has been one of the most important and most difficult to master: light. Mies was able to sculpt light and use it to his advantage.
The subject of art conservation and restoration has long been debated in the art world. Experts and historians have never agreed that all art must be salvaged at any cost. This paper will examine what art conservation and restoration is, what is involved in these endeavors, and what has been done over the centuries to many of history’s cherished art pieces.
‘Savage Beauty’ was an exhibition that pushed the boundaries of museology, in its artistic, social and critical undertakings. The questions brought to bear by the exhibition of contemporary art and culture in various situations is something I am interested in researching further with a degree in curating.