2004-09-01 Veronese Wedding at Cana

Readability of a Painting: Visibilité en peinture, lisibilité en restauration – L’objectif de lisibilité en restauration et ses conséquences sur les peintures

The pictorial work is recognized as such and preserved in museums by virtue of its singular identity. The exceptional man who fashioned it makes visible, through its plastic organization, a plurality of messages. Wanting to make visible the visible is to impose a limiting reading of a work that has been designed to transmit, by the sensitive, an infinity of meaning. Readability is a fuzzy, undefined concept that constitutes an inadequate framework for restoration and can have destructive consequences on paintings.

 

2004-09-01 Veronese Wedding at Cana

________________________________________________________________________________________________

According to the director of C2RMF, Jean-Pierre Mohen, ” readability, that is to say, the understanding that the public has of the work, remains our main objective ” [1]. What does one want to make “readable” when restoring a work that is apprehended by the “visible”? The question is not just about optical comfort, but touches on the fundamental problem of the nature and status of the work of art. Indeed, current restorations, practiced in the name of readability, profoundly transform the works. To understand why, we first examine what makes the specificity of the work of art, before asking if the principle of readability in restoration is appropriate to address the pictorial work.

The nature of the artwork

One of the characteristics of a work of art is to be shaped by an artist, a man who has an aesthetic intention and who plans to submit his creation to the aesthetic appreciation of the viewer. Thus, the painter uses the means of expression which are his own – the forms, the colors, the drawing, the lights – and tries to find the plastic organization which will give the most aesthetic potentialities to his work. But there are also objects that have been shaped by men with other intentions (religious, religious …). These men were not artists (often this category did not exist), but people specially chosen for their abilities to work and to transform a material in order to endow it with a certain force of presence. Yet, if we have gathered in art museums an Egyptian sculpture, an African mask, a Titian painting and a paper-glued Picasso, it is that we have considered that these objects – beyond their identities and functions first, beyond their history – are works of art, that is to say, masterful artistic achievements capable, in themselves, to create an aesthetic fascination for the viewer.

The works of art condense material, formal and stylistic wealth in a unique and indivisible totality, in which their aesthetic, symbolic and historical dimensions are revealed. Because they were created by a man of exceptional character, they express these different dimensions in an original and inimitable style. In this sense, works of art are not objects , which can be repaired or reconstructed, from which one can separate the elements. They possess a singular identity, irreducible to any manipulation and appropriation. Our society gives these works a very specific value as the highest and most absolute testimonies of our humanity. So that the way we look at these masterpieces defines an ethical relationship and places us in a moral duty towards them.

Visibility in painting

How does the painter work a material to make visible what he wishes to convey to the viewer? The “plastic” work of the painter consists mainly in ordering the surfaces of his canvas and prioritizing them in different planes. He defines what he wants us to see by making more or less apparent, more or less present, parts of his painting. This ordering of the visible is essential because it gives the painting its space and its scale, as well as its coherence and its plastic unity.

To do this, the painter has an infinity of shapes, shades of color, and light effects that he must orchestrate. Thus, by the use of warm or cold colors, the painter distributes plans that are deep. By nuancing and spreading splashes of color and light in the space of his canvas, he organizes visual circulation and strives to create a chromatic harmony that will give the canvas its colorful unity. It will create sensations of space, scale and chromatic harmony that are very specific to painting, not realistic or descriptive, but that can be found in an Egyptian fresco, a Japanese print, a work of art. Vinci, Kandinsky or Basquiat.

For example, the sensation of pictorial space is engendered by the way the planes of the painting are arranged, which arranges the eye movement and gives the work its full scale. Think of Raphael’s Three Graces (Condé Museum) or Vermeer’s Lacemaker (Louvre Museum), which are small works but have an expressive dimension that largely transcends their real dimensions. In the same way, by the use of colors, the painter leads his work to a point of chromatic equilibrium which can as well emerge from violent contrasts (this is the case of Picasso’s canvases which are balanced by the play of very dissonant colors), as very slight modulations of a restricted color range (as for example at Morandi). To reach this final colored unit, the painter often uses glazes which are the last very thin and very fragile layers which allow him to dose his colors, to attenuate or accentuate such brilliance, in order to establish the overall harmonization of his canvas.

Thus, to give his space, his scale, his light and his rhythm to the painting, to give to see his work, the painter distributes the forms, the colors, the luminosities, as a playwright distributes roles: he arranges the characters, the objects, the decoration, or the surfaces in their relative places according to the importance and the meaning which it wishes to give them. He establishes degrees of visibility between the different parts of his painting and defines what will be the general visibility of his painting. By carrying out this ordering of the pictorial material, it offers a plastic organization to our sensitive perception, it makes visible a subject, a symbolic, an aesthetic. It is in this work of the visible that his creative abilities are manifested and that the human message he transmits is embodied.

Readability in restoration

The painter finished his painting when he considers that he has carried the pictorial material that he works to a state of general visibility that satisfies him. But over time, this matter is changing: the colors change, varnishes are spinning; there may also be accidents or deliberate alterations (vandalism or alterations). These changes in material, hues and tones necessarily affect the initial state of the painting. It was then that the Conservatives ordered to restore with the desire to make the work more readable . This is the case for example when one considers that the aging of the varnish alters too much the colors of a painting and that it is necessary to proceed to its devernissage / revernissage. Or when we consider that repaints or accidental alterations obstruct the readability of the work.

But the notion of readability raises many questions: What readability are we looking for? How can we make the work more readable, that is to say, more intelligible and more understandable? Why do you want to make the visible visible? Why do you want to give something to read that, by nature, is apprehended by the sensible? In fact, the objective of readability in restoration faces a fundamental problem: we know that there has been a change in the material, but we can neither measure the changes, nor know with certainty the original state paint.

Indeed, the development of a work of art is a complex process, both scholarly and intuitive, that it is impossible to reconstitute scientifically. There are no documents or testimonies that could be considered as evidence for a reconstitution of the work, and scientific analyzes (pigment samples, paint layer analyzes, etc.) do not allow a reliable and exhaustive measurement of the modifications. of materials. In addition, the pictorial work is a material composed of inextricably mixed elements, so that in practice, it is very difficult to make alterations on materials that overlap and interpenetrate, without risking upset the balance pictorial of the work. Moreover, even if it were possible to know the initial state of a painting, the restoration would still encounter the irreducibility of the creative act. The multiple touches of a painting are posed by the artist’s emotion in a style that, because it is natural to him, remains inimitable. What is invaluable is the appearance of a new figure in the pulsation of a movement in Michelangelo, in the pulsating colors of Veronese. No one can adopt or mimic their temperament, no one can reproduce their style and their “genius”.

Faced with these difficulties, we understand that it is impossible to establish objective criteria that could tell us what today would be a “good” readability, and that seek readability, it is necessarily proceed to a reconstruction of the a work that will necessarily be different from that conceived by the artist. Here is the problem: the painter leads his work to a certain state of visibility. Time, as well as various alterations (including those produced by previous restorations), transform this work. The conservator, following the instructions of the curators, seeks a readability according to what he considers should be legible today. But how readable is it? What will be made more readable since it is absolutely impossible for us to know and reconstruct the initial state of the canvas? No clear and precise definition is proposed of this notion, which is increasingly used to justify all sorts of interventions. There are as many conceptions of readability as there are points of view. One can look for very different readings depending on whether one prefers historical, anthropological, symbolic or plastic readings. Lightening the varnish to make the colors more vivid, to make the details more apparent, it is to intervene on the pictorial organization in order to privilege a reading among others: the readability in this case would be to be able to read more details, more Easily, faster, thanks to less darkened colors.

Legibility is therefore based solely on the aesthetic criteria of the various stakeholders involved in the restoration process: art historians, curators, scientists, restorers. Aesthetic criteria that are, by definition, subjective, random and changing. This subjectivity is found at all stages of the restoration: (i) when judging whether a canvas is sufficiently legible or not; (ii) when deciding how to make it more readable; (iii) during the execution, in the same gesture of the restorer. In reality, wanting to make the work more readable is to reduce the work to a particular reading as it deploys, through its plastic organization, an elusive plurality of messages. The objective of readability thus diverges radically from this singular experience of the visible to which the painter invites the spectator before his work. Thus, after a restoration, the original intention of visibility of the painter has been replaced by the current intention of readability of the restorers (and their sponsors), who act according to more subjective motivations. or less conscious.

The results

What are the consequences of such restorations on works? The artistic value of a work is contained in a unique and indivisible totality, carried by its material, in a plastic balance (the ordering of the visible evoked above) so fragile that at all levels of restoration, it is very difficult to intervene without risking altering the unity of the work. It has also been shown how restorations aiming at readability, are based on an undefined concept, subjective, and likely to have very different meanings.

Despite the risks, despite such fragile foundations, for twenty years, thanks to new techniques, it is estimated to be able to intervene more radically. The restorations are not limited to a lightening of the varnish, but consist of deep interventions on the pictorial layer. Canvases, which are in good condition, are restored. In these cases, it is the objective of readability – with all that can be vague and subjective – which takes precedence over the conservation goal. This was the case for the Wedding of Cana Veronese, the View of Delft and the Girl with the Pearl of Vermeer, the Virgin with the Rabbit of Titian … Moreover one takes pretext of occasional alterations to carry out general aesthetic restorations, as was the case for Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.

These restorations are very voluntary, and transform in a radical way – and irreversibly – the pictorial organization of the works: the effects of depth, scale, space, of colored unity, the organization of the plans, the circulation by passages or contrasts between these planes, the swinging of the forms between them, are upset. These plastic consequences, which are characteristic of restorations aimed at legibility, are found in a large number of paintings in the Louvre. We can make an inventory.

  • Loss of color graduation between them . The colors, which previously were graduated between them in more or less intense tones, rub shoulders in equal intensities. Having become rivals, the colors cancel each other out and the painting loses its colorful unity (see The Holy Family of Bellini, the Virgin with Saint Catherine and Saint Rose of Perugino).
  • Loss in the shades of each color . Each color, previously nuanced in different tones, is declined in a single shade (see The Marriage of Cana Veronese.The same red, the same blue, the same yellow, are used for all the characters, which gives the impression that Veronese used only one shade of color).
  • Loss of the hierarchy of light effects . The luminous bursts are repeated identically, placing all the previously hierarchical elements in space, on the same plane, causing the general organization of the canvas to burst (see The Holy Family of Raphael).
  • Loss of the passages between the forms . The different elements, previously interconnected by passing effects, are cut out in a uniform way. What causes a puzzle impression ( The Marriage of Cana Veronese, or The Holy Family of Bellini).
  • Loss of the volume of forms . The transformations of values, colors and nuances, redefine shapes in different planes, flatten and distort them. The forms lose their volume and no longer define a coherent space (see The Holy Family of Titian).
  • Loss of scale and space . Previously, the scale established by the ordering of the different planes, defined the space of the painting. The transformations of the luminous and colored hierarchy, the loss of the volumes, upset the ordering of the plans and disorganize the ratios of proportion between the various elements of the table. This provokes an effect of chaos, of piling up of forms (see The Abduction of the Sabines of Poussin, The Christ of Lotto, The Preaching of Saint Stephen of Carpaccio).

More generally, the transformations due to these restorations affect in the same way paintings by painters of very different times and styles. All that distinguishes the artistic genius in its capacity to create new spaces, original colorings, unexpected appearances, is standardized and one finds everywhere the same nuances, the same colors, the same sensation of flattening and heaviness . The works thus restored are artificially placed out of time and are all alike: their artistic riches are destroyed, their singular evocations are annihilated.

Restoration, which aims at readability, is therefore an aesthetic restoration that has important destructive effects. Let’s compare to the Louvre the Saint Jerome of Lotto (unrestored) to his Holy Family (restored).

The Saint Jerome is a small work, but the surfaces in shades of ocher, gray and green hot and cold, fit into successive plans, very skilfully paced, to define an immense space that gives this work all its scale. The painting is dark, in a limited range, but it remains very colorful. The muted colors are subtly modulated in an alternation of light and dark, so as to make Saint Jerome appear in its singular luminosity: the ocher-pink coloring of the character and the reddish coloration of the fabric bring a shade which, by contrast and by counterpoint, vibrate all the surrounding space. The fabric that envelops Saint Jerome models the character, he gives it body; it defines a volume that fits into a space.

The Holy Family is a larger work with another theme. Above all, it obeys a plastic layout of a different nature. The characters and landscape elements all stand out in the same way, with the same intensity, in equal values. The eye is everywhere solicited identically, the eye is dispersed and can no longer rely on the hierarchy of plans to circulate in the web. The colors are more vivid and stand out more (blue, yellow, white, green, red) but they remain local colors that do not define a colorful range. If there are many different colors, there is no more general color. The clothes of the characters are placed side by side, they are flat shapes that do not let guess the underlying presence of a body. Although the format is large, it does not feel great. On the contrary we have an impression of crowding, of clutter and painting has no scale. Major transformations in the plastic ordering of this painting have thus caused the general impoverishment of its artistic development.

Conclusion

Thus restored, what will be made more readable? As explained above, objective readability criteria can not be determined. One can always imagine being able to make more legible, or to make it readable otherwise. Current restorations show that, to varying degrees, the historical, iconographic and anthropological legacies are privileged, to the detriment of a preservation of the plastic order that contains the artistic value of the work. For the ” general public and schoolchildren ” [1], a literal understanding of the work is made, a certain readability is imposed, that is to say a subjective interpretation of the work. Didier Besnainou, art restorer, attached to the national museums and France, says it very clearly: the function of the restorer ” is comparable to that of the translator-interpreter.He like him, he is an adapter, aiming at the rebirth, the rediscovery, the recreation, taking care not to go as far as treason. “[2]

Note also that these plastic upheavals are irreversible. What has been removed can not be returned. And once disturbed, it is impossible to reconstruct the pictorial balance achieved by the painter. The choice of readability empties the works of their art and betrays their meaning.

It follows that the primary mission of protecting the artistic heritage is misguided. This moral duty that commits us to works and their creators is flouted. The inevitable subjectivity of restoration and the inherent fragility of works of art must lead us to reconsider the principle of readability – and, more generally, the objectives of the restoration, its limits and its modes of action. Faced with these many questions, it is possible to provide answers that take more account of the challenges of restoration, and to propose solutions that are more respectful of the specific identity of pictorial works.

For example, it is said that time degrades works and that it fully justifies that we restore them, that we try to make them more readable. Time is a natural process that has no consciousness, that has no intention, in this sense, its action is not subjective. Time causes changes in the material, but we can not evaluate them and above all, we can not remedy them. If the work does not remain intact, the human message left by the painter in his creative gesture is always present. The work keeps alive this human trace because even diminished, it remains authentic. Conversely, the restoration imposes an external intention on the work based on subjective criteria, and in doing so, it denies the inevitability of time and challenges painting in its very essence.

It is therefore important that restoration aimed at legibility be recognized as an entirely subjective process, which is based on aesthetic, changing and evolving choices (moreover, the restorers often denounce the aesthetic choices of their predecessors). Above all, it is urgent to measure the destructive effects. However, on the contrary, those who criticize these restorations are accused of subjectivity, we highlight the objectivity of science, and we brandish concepts that have all the appearance of common sense: “readability”, “return to the “origin”, “better understanding of the work”, “accessibility”, “democratization of art” … Seductive concepts but which are based on a priori subjective (therefore inappropriate to found a scientific approach) and which propose fuzzy criteria (accepted as self-evident) to define a totally inadequate framework for approaching the artwork.

However, it is possible to define the objectives and the practice of restoration differently: to favor preventive conservation, to accept the reality of time, and to choose to intervene on the works only in case of proven threats; not to carry out aesthetic restorations on works in a good state of conservation or requiring only occasional interventions; do facsimiles in the case of paintings too damaged to propose a version of what is supposed to have been the original work; make legible, iconographic messages legible … by means of appropriate reading materials: books and educational materials. There are therefore many alternatives, more respectful of this vital part of the work that we have the duty to transmit to future generations.

[1] Jean-Pierre Mohen, “More legible works and more accessible to the public”, Le Monde des Débats, September 2000, p. 31-32.
[2] Didier Besnainou, “Restoration, a singular art”, Beaux-Arts Magazine, December 2000.

/by
2004-08-23 - Santissima Annunziata altar chapel deterioration 18 2002

Damage at the Annunziata

Visible evidence of leaks and the need for urgent conservation

2004-08-23 - Santissima Annunziata altar chapel deterioration 6 18 2002 2004-08-23 - Santissima Annunziata altar chapel deterioration 18 2002

 

/0 Comments/by
2004-08-23 - Accademia Florence tourists

Tourists flooding into the Accademia, but it’s still raining in the Annunziata

Every major European city is home to a wealth of cultural monuments and objects. This is precisely the condition that also makes every major European city a magnet for tourists, and in itself becomes an integral component of urban economic success. So, in an effort to attract and maintain tourism, cities market their cultural treasures, in effect, commodifying them. Generically speaking, there is nothing wrong with this. In practice, however, and with increasing frequency, the sites or objects most popular with the tourists are being revamped, cleaned, and rediscovered, to keep them — in the mind of the public — something new, something to be seen again. The daily practice of the principles of custodianship are no longer applied even-handedly, which is to say that two 600-year-old churches don’t necessarily receive the same attention or the same budget to be allocated towards preservation. Because it’s always the big hits, the top ten, that receive the tourist attention, they also receive the lion’s share of the conservation and sponsorship dollars.

2004-08-23 - Accademia Florence tourists

Photograph by: Thomas Struth. Courtesy: Collection of MUMOK.

/by
2004-01-22 - JMW Turner Rockets and Blue Lights after restoration Bull

Ship lost at Clark. Many records feared missing. Establishment unfazed.

2004-01-22 - JMW Turner Rockets and Blue Lights Christies 1896 photograph

1896 photograph of Turner’s Rockets and Blue Lights. Courtesy: Christie’s.

In 1932 a black and white photograph of the picture was supplied with other material to Sterling and Francine Clark by the dealers Knoedler as an inducement to buy the picture – which they did that same year. This photograph and later color photographs were shown by Mr. Bull in support of his claim that the paintwork of neither of the two steamboats and their plumes of smoke were by the hand of Turner.

It was certainly the case to my eye that, in those photographs, the plumes of smoke had a very dense and uncharacteristic look to them – resembling tornado funnel clouds and lacking the atmospheric quality evident in the rest of the painting.

While the claim that the handiwork of an earlier restorer or restorers was present was uncontroversial, Mr. Bull’s conclusion that the boat (and its plume of smoke) on the right of the picture had not just been repaired or modified but was probably entirely the product of some restorer’s imagination and therefore “ethically” removable, was anything but. In support of his startling contention, Mr. Bull projected an image of a chromolithograph copy of Rockets and Blue Lights credited to Robert Carrick. This “evidence” was utterly perplexing.

2004-01-22 - Robert Carrick copy JMW Turner Rockets and Blue Lights

1852 lithographic copy of the painting by Robert Carrick.

As is well known in Turner literature, Carrick’s print of 1852 and a large watercolour copy of it made before 1855 by Whistler no less, both show two boats. A second (c. 1845) now missing painted copy/version of Rockets that has been drawn to our attention by Douglass Graham, director of the Turner Museum, Sarasota, Florida also shows two steamboats.

And yet, in the projected “Carrick” print shown by Mr. Bull, the colours were strikingly light and bright and there was indeed, only a single steamboat and plume of smoke – that being the more distant of the two in the picture’s centre. On the testimony of this singular version of the Carrick copy, Mr. Bull removed all surviving traces of the right-hand boat and its smoke plume along with earlier and crude retouching of them. Further, it seemed clear that in the course of his restoration, Mr. Bull had brought the tones of the painting itself into line with those of the Carrick image he had shown. But from whence had this image sprung – and what precisely was its evidential status?

During the question and answer session I asked if the lithographic print shown was the one produced by the publisher R. Day who acquired the painting in 1850 in order to publish the most accurate print reproduction of it that technology permitted. Mr. Bull and Mr. Rand looked first at each other and then down at a piece of paper on a small table between their chairs. Almost simultaneously they said that they had no idea that Mr. Day had owned the painting. Mr. Rand picked up the piece of paper, saying that it was the provenance of the Rockets and nowhere on it could he or Mr. Bull find any reference to Day’s ownership of the picture. Before I could respond to this surprising claim, another question was taken from another member of the audience. This was disconcerting.

The most widely recognised and comprehensive reference work on Turner is the Yale University Press’s “The Paintings of J. M. W. Turner” by Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll. Although the first edition of 1977 makes no reference to Day’s ownership, the revised second edition of 1984 certainly does. The entry there on Rockets acknowledges that the Turner expert Selby Whittingham had kindly drawn the authors’ attention to Webber’s book on Orrock, a one-time owner of the picture. In it, letters from Day are cited that establish not only his ownership of the picture at the time Carrick was employed to make his copy but that it had been acquired by Day for that very purpose.

2004-01-22 - JMW Turner Rockets and Blue Lights after restoration Suhr

Turner’s Rockets and Blue LIghts after William Suhr’s 1960s restoration.

Even if Mr. Bull and Mr. Rand had overlooked the Butlin/Joll 1984 revision, it remains bewildering that they should also seem unaware of the actual appearance of Carrick’s print, as reproduced in the many recent books on Turner and in all of which two steamboats are present. Indeed one such book, the catalogue to the 1998 “Turner and the Scientists” exhibition held at the Tate Gallery, London, was written by James Hamilton – the curator of the Clark’s own exhibition. Did Dr Hamilton express no alarm at the disappearance of one of the two boats about which he had himself commented? It must be thought odd if he had not: the Random House edition of his own 1997 monograph “Turner” has a colour plate of the Clark’s Rockets and Blue Lights, the caption of which states that the photograph was taken before Mr. Bull’s 2003 conservation treatment.

The plate of today’s post-restoration Rockets in the Clark exhibition catalogue shows a strikingly different work. This being so, must we assume that Dr Hamilton believes that some restorer had added a second boat to Turner’s picture between 1851 when Turner died and 1852 when Carrick copied it? If he does, does he have any evidence for it?

In William S. Rodner’s “J. M. W. Turner: Romantic Painter of the Industrial Revolution” (University of California Press, 1997) the author speaks of one ship and her “sister” in text pertaining to the Carrick copy (shown in his figure 33, page 77).

With regard to the evidential value of the Carrick copy, it is important that it be appreciated how unusual and painstaking a production the print was. Day & Son published a collection of plates entitled “The Blue Lights by R. Carrick, after J. M. W. Turner shewing the progress of the printing.” There were no fewer than 27 colour plates. Fourteen plates show each of the single, separate tints that went to make up the image. A further thirteen plates show the successive superimposition of the fourteen tints. Could the image taken as a point of reference by Mr. Bull and the Clark’s curators for their re-working of the painting, I wondered, have been from an earlier, incomplete stage of the printing? (It was, for sure, not the print’s final state.)

A set of the Day & Son’s plates is held by the Yale Center for British Art. Since August 4th I have tried repeatedly to make an appointment (through the Center’s curator for prints and drawings, Mr. Scott Wilcox) to examine the plates. My calls have yet to be returned.

In further justification of his own reworking of the picture, Mr. Bull suggested that the second boat might originally have been added to the picture by the dealer, Lord Duveen in some attempt to pander to the collecting tastes of wealthy Americans. (Twice as much boat for their bucks?) With this suggestion, he was patently and doubly in error. Firstly, Duveen had bought the picture in 1910, some fifty odd years after Carrick recorded two boats in his copy. Secondly, the testimony of the (real, final) Carrick print is corroborated by a black and white photograph of the painting itself published by Christie’s in their catalogue for the June 13th 1896 Sir Julian Goldsmid sale. At that date, the painting and its earlier chromolithographic copy were still quite remarkably in accord. Whatever and whenever damage was done to the Rockets, it must largely have post dated that period and it certainly never included the addition of some allegedly “fictitious” second boat. (Carrick and Day were both alive at the time of the famous Goldsmid sale. Neither is known to have complained about the Rockets’ then condition. At that date, Day, as Dr. Whittingham has reminded us, still greatly regretted having had to part with the picture.)

2004-01-22 - David Bull restoration JMW Turner Rockets and Blue Lights

Image Courtesy: Clark Art Institute.

Ignoring, or ignorant of, all testimony to the second steamboat’s original presence in Turner’s picture, Mr. Bull offered the nowadays Standard Restorers’ Technical Defence in support of extensive removals of paint – namely, that the removed paint had flowed over and into pre-existing cracks in the painting and therefore must post-date Turner’s handiwork by a long interval. When, as here, claimed technical testimony is in such manifest conflict with hard historical testimony, it merits the closest scrutiny and requires some public demonstration and corroboration.

When someone asked Mr. Bull after his talk what had been done to the painting when in the hands of the restorer William Suhr during the 1960s, he quipped that he had no idea, as he was not there at the time looking over the restorer’s shoulder. The jibe cuts both ways: Mr. Bull was there during his own restoration. He claims to have maintained a meticulous daily log of his activities when restoring the picture – and that these logs were submitted on a regular basis to the Clark Institute. Do these records show how Mr. Bull established “technically” that no trace of the right-hand boat – not even the abraded mast and rigging that was still visible in the colour photograph reproduced by Butlin and Joll – was original? Given that Mr. Bull’s technical claims are greatly at variance with the historical record, who might adjudicate here?

When asked what supervision had accompanied his own restoration, Mr. Bull cited the involvement of three individuals associated with the Clark and the nearby Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art – one of the former being the Clark’s own Director, Michael Conforti.

A room at the Clark exhibition was given over to a video presentation in which Mr. Bull and Dr. Hamilton both take pleasure with Mr. Bull’s radical alteration of the picture. I called the Clark Institute to ask the videographer if at any time during the taping Dr. Hamilton had expressed any reservations about the removal of one of the boats. To the contrary, he stated, Dr. Hamilton had expressed nothing but praise for Mr. Bull’s interventions. This raises thorny questions. Was there ever any debate on the propriety of such a radical revision between the restorer, the curators and Turner scholars? If there was, did no Turner scholar caution that the final state of Carrick’s 1852 print and the 1896 Christie’s photograph both clearly show two steamboats? We must assume that none had – how else might Mr. Bull have believed the second boat to be an addition at the hands of Duveen’s restorer?

2004-01-22 - JMW Turner Rockets and Blue Lights after restoration Bull

Turner’s Rockets and Blue Lights after Bull’s 2003 restoration.

Postscript
In the absence of any response from the Yale Center For British Art’s Mr Wilcox, I decided to take up these matters with Gillian Forrester, an associate curator of prints and drawings at the Center. Ms. Forrester gave a talk at the Clark Institute’s Turner Lecture Series on August 23rd entitled “‘Enshrined in Mystery, and the Object of Profound Speculation’: The Double Life of J. M. W. Turner”. Ms. Forrester pronounced the Rockets restoration a “resplendent” return of original glory. At questions I asked, apropos of Mr. Bull’s restoration, if any of the Yale Center’s proof sheets of the Carrick lithograph showed only a single boat, and if so, at what point in the succession of superimposed plates the two boats appear together. Ms. Forrester expressed happiness at my question but unhappiness at her own inability to answer it. She had only been made aware of the Carrick proof plate portfolio two days earlier and had not at that point had chance to look at it. Perhaps she had become aware of it in the context of my many unsuccessful requests to examine it. At any event, she did invite me to come to Yale for just that purpose.

I later succeeded in getting a call through to Ms. Forrester in order to arrange the visit. Unfortunately, she said that because of a strike by certain Yale employees, it might not be possible to accommodate me in the near future. Months later, with the strike long since passed, and despite leaving further voicemail messages, I have heard no more from Ms. Forrester.

On October the 8th I put a call through to Mr. Bull at the National Gallery, Washington. Could he say which of the successive thirteen states of the Carrick print he had worked from? He could not. He referred my inquiry to Mr. Rand because he had not, in fact, worked from a Carrick print after all but from a photograph [!] supplied by Mr. Rand of some print about which he (Bull) knew nothing other than that it originated in the Yale Center for British Art.

On October the 9th, I left a voicemail request to Mr. Rand for an opportunity to discuss these matters. To date, he has not responded. Mr. Rand, as mentioned, is the Chief Curator at the Clark Institute. As such, he is answerable to the Director, Mr. Conforti, who in turn is answerable to the Board of Trustees. The reaction of the Clark Trustees to this debacle might well come to be taken as a litmus test of the probity and accountability of the wider system of stewardship that presently governs our public art institutions.
Edmund Rucinski, former Fulbright Scholar, art director of New York City’s department of cultural affairs, and Board Member of the National Society of Mural Painters, is a painter, musician, and an orchestral concertmaster.

The full text of this article is published in ArtWatch UK’s Winter 2003 Newsletter
To contact ArtWatch UK, e-mail artwatch.uk@gmail.com

Notes
¹ Manchester Art Gallery, November 1st, 2003 to January 25th, 2004. For information, call Kim Gowland, Manchester Art Gallery, on 0161 235 8861.

² Margaret F. MacDonald: “James McNeill Whistler, Drawings, Pastels, and Watercolours, A Catalogue Raisonné”. Published for The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by The Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1995.

/0 Comments/by

Radical Treatment of 14th &15th Century Fresco Cycle in the Camposanto, Pisa.

The Camposanto in Pisa has one of the largest fresco cycles ever painted.

Produced in the 14th and the 15th centuries, these frescoes were in a vast open courtyard and consequently they did not do well in withstanding the centuries. To make matters worse, in 1944 a bomb struck the building causing further havoc to the frescoes, which were then treated by teams of restorers. The actual paintings, many sections of which were fragmented, were then removed from their original surface and attached to canvas backings.

 

By no means are these frescoes in uniformly good condition, reflecting for the most part their own historical journey. However, in some cases, as in that of the most famous fresco of the group, the Triumph of Death by Buffalmacco, the works are in reasonably good condition and can be studied and enjoyed. The directorship of the Cathedral had the idea to restore the entire group of frescoes once again, cleaning and replacing them on new canvasses using plastic glue, so that they could be placed back in their original (outdoor) location. During the course of the ongoing campaign, local experts have complained about the harsh cleaning, to the extent that after the intervention there is practically nothing left to be seen.

ArtWatch International seeks a halt to the work until an independent commission can be called, in order to evaluate the work done so far and the feasibility of its continuation. As it now stands the results seem to be a muddle of fragments which essentially has little of the original paint left.

/by
,

Giotto and Business as Usual

The tragic events which unfolded on the 11th of September in New York and Washington are so far reaching and so momentous that it might seem superfluous to bring up issues concerning the world’s artistic heritage at this time.

James Beck, Professor and President of ArtWatch.
October 10, 2001

Upon reflection, it is precisely those values and traditions which also lie at the core of what is at stake. All one needs do is think back to the bombing of Uffizi Gallery in Florence just a few years ago or the devastation of the Buddha statues in Afghanistan even more recently. The world’s artistic and spiritual heritage appears at risk along with other aspects of our civilization.

Whatever ones views may be concerning the nuances of culpability and retribution, we can all agree that the icons of earlier art — from the Mona Lisa to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes to the dome of Florence’s cathedral — are statements that must be preserved if we value mankind’s genius. Since, along with equivalent monuments all over the world, they constitute symbols of past attainments, we must guard, preserve and maintain them with all our energy. And given what might be regarded as a state of emergency which now exists, it seems to me ironic that the danger to the very integrity of such objects and institutions can come from within the system as well as outside of it.

The mania to spruce up the masterpieces sees no signs of slackening on the part of the restoration establishment and on the part of the officials in charge, and no pause for reflection seems in the offing. What is occurring in Italy is “business as usual” with regard to its treasures.

A highly risky (and expensive) restoration of Giotto’s frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padova are just beginning to be carried on under what many, including the undersigned, regard as an ambiguous methodology. The usual sycophantic praise by certain art critics is a disappointingly blind reaction to a potentially damaging intervention. Obviously not all cleanings in the past were successful: sometimes they were downright bad and in other instances they were harmful. Despite warnings by nearly fifty Renaissance specialists from all over the world, half of which are Italians, we may soon witness a totally unnecessary and clearly dangerous cleaning of Leonardo’s Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi. Essentially it is little more than an under-painting anyway, making it quite impossible to bring back its “”original glory,”” as the usual rhetoric would have it. A “”cleaning”” of Michelangelo’s David (as has just been done to the Moses in a spectacular but useless endeavor) has also recently been proposed, although it has been indoors for a century and a half, and looks pretty good right now.

There has been an unwitting campaign over the past couple of decades which will, in my opinion, be regarded as highly questionable to our art treasures by future commentators. The real problem has been an inability on the part of art scholars, art restorers, art managers, and museum curators and directors to create a truly open and generalized debate about what has been accomplished in the recent past, what is going on currently, and what goals should be created for the future. Considering world conditions, is this not the appropriate historical moment to pause in the “business as usual” syndrome and formulate a wide-reaching debate on these issues, including that of shipping art objects around the world, before making irreversible alterations to the original texts?

/by
,

Modern Restoration & the Renovated Crucifix in the Duomo of Crema

At the risk of appearing obvious, it occurs to me that there are three categories of modern restoration which are effectively operative for paintings and sculptures:

(1) those for the art trade and private collectors

(2) those for museums and public collections

(3) those produced for a specific religious purpose, in churches and chapels.

In the first, the treatment of works destined for the art market, whether to be sold privately or at public auction, the art trade has certain demands and realities. Once an object finds its way into the hands of dealers, the tendency is to take considerable liberties in order to make it saleable. The dealers seem to know what their clients want, and they tend to give them exactly that. Very frequently, especially in the past, dealers actually did their own restorations, or at least had a restorer in-house who did them according to instructions. In such antiquarian restorations, the governing notion is to make the object as attractive as possible and, to be sure, authentic-looking.

The second category pertains to works in museums and public collections. Whether the institution is public in that it is controlled by a city, state or nation, or it belongs to a foundation, certain controls can be expected, at least in Europe where most nations have Art Ministries and Art Superintendencies with a certain level of jurisdiction. The operative goal in this category is the notion of “legibility.”

Third category, the one that concerns me in this essay, includes works which belong to religious entities and which continue to function as originally conceived, such as wall cycles with strong didactic overtones, or altarpieces with a current ceremonial and theological role.

As a parenthesis, another category can be constructed somewhere between the second and the third, as the church/museum is, in fact, reflective of the newest trend in Italy. Churches like Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, for example, have a dual role, both to fulfil the needs of the faithful and to act as custodian for the Brancacci Chapel, with frescoes by Masaccio, Masolino, and Filippino Lippi. A decade ago, the chapel was transformed into a communal museum at the Carmine with a special entrance, and a prescribed path for viewing the various highlights including a quick visit to the Brancacci Chapel. I suspect those church members especially devoted to Saint Peter will have to do without the Brancacci.

Similar actions have occurred more recently across the Arno at Santa Maria Novella which is more generically a communal church/museum, with an entrance fee and those abominable electronic guides. Accommodations have been made for the faithful, but I suspect they should avoid looking at Masaccio’s recently restored Trinity, or risk the cost of the entrance fee. San Lorenzo in Florence has not one fee, but several: there is one to enter the main body of the church along with Brunelleschi’s unequalled Old Sacristy, another for the New Sacristy (which has long been a museum), and yet another for the Laurentian Library. One should not pick on Florence, however, since many churches in Venice operate under the same principle of the church/museum. In terms of restoration, the question of what is the appropriate mode for such an hybrid institution is particularly perplexing.

I seek here to consider only the third category in connection with an issue which was brought to my attention and which encapsulates a number of vital questions connected with modern art restoration theory and practice, especially in Italy. The object in question is a miraculous, over life-size, painted wood Crucifix which was created for and remains in the Duomo of Crema, a Lombard city not far from Milan. The work, of unknown authorship, probably dates to the 1340s and is neither of exceptional beauty nor is it significant by usual art-historical criteria. Nonetheless, a nexus of challenging issues can be related to it. They include two remarkable, not to say out-of-the-ordinary, characteristics: (1) a historical tradition which connects the Cross with the liberty of the city of Crema, giving it a civic quality; and (2) the tradition of the Cross as the subject of miracles. Especially relevant is the miraculous event which occurred during civic strife in 1448, when an evil man ran into the Duomo, grabbed the Cross and placed it on a fire on the main square. In order to avoid being scorched, the sculpted figure of Christ lifted his feet from the flames, an action which explains the fact that His feet are a few centimetres away from the wood plank to which He is attached.

The sculpture has accrued a black surface over the centuries whose origins are not known. The coloring does coincide with the tradition that it was in a fire, and that may explain this “iconographic” detail. Alternatively, the painted surface might reflect an effort to give the sculpture the look of being of bronze, which turns dark. In any case, the black surface has been a feature of the Cross known and revered by the faithful for centuries. How to deal with it has become the central issue for the current restoration (2000-2001). Should the old, traditional and revered – but not original – black be retained or should it be removed? If the object were housed in the Metropolitan Museum in Art in New York, or the Bargello in Florence, the answer would be much easier to achieve: it would have been removed without much thought. But the Cross is housed in the Duomo.

The situation surrounding the restoration of the Crema Cross has unexpected aspects. The restorer in charge, the Cremese Paolo Mariani has taken a position favoring a minimal intervention, supporting the retention of the black coating. The same view was originally expressed by the Bishop of Crema. The Soprintendente per i beni artistici e storici per le province di Brescia, Cremona e Mantova, with headquarters in Mantova and the authority over Crema, is ideologically on other side.

To complicate this case, the commission to carry out the restoration did not originate from the superintendency, but from the Bishop with the financial support of a local bank. In 1999 the Bishop sought a conservational restoration (“restauro conservativo”) of the Crucifix in conjunction the with Jubilee Year of 2000. Work on this object, most sacred in the hearts of the people of Crema, was handed over to the respected restorer, who is also a professor of restoration. He wanted to make the restoration open to the public at fixed times and was determined to undertake all possible tests to determine the physical condition of the work, including a TAC examination which was actually done at the local hospital. Basically Mariani sought to create a conservational intervention, without altering the traditional appearance of the Cross, thus to maintain what the people were used to seeing. His point of view was consistent with that of the Ufficio Beni Culturali of the Diocesi of Crema.

In contrast, the Soprintendente Dott. Giuliana Algeri intervened with a letter of 19 August 2000, insisting upon the removal of the black surface in order to “recover” the verist aspect of the original. The Soprintendente went on to describe her methodology, which included the “intuition [sic] that beneath there was antique painting which was confirmed by micro-stratagraphic study” (“intuizione che al di sotto ci fosse una dipintura antica che veniva confermata da indagini microstratigrafiche”). Besides she believed that the original painted surface – the one placed immediately on top of the priming layer of gesso and glue – could be found. And further it was expected to liberate further the surfaces in order to recover a chromatic aspect more compatible with the “epochal credibility of the polychromed sculpture” (“veridicta epocale della scultura policroma”). In these remarks we find the authoritarian rhetoric of official modern restoration.

The restorer was clearly in complete disagreement, asserting that “if one were to bring back to their original states all the artistic and architectural works of the past, eliminating all of the events which had occurred in the interim, Italy would be a country in which the works of art would be reduced to embryonic idols” (“se si dovessero riportare allo stato primitivo tutte le opere artistiche ed architettoniche del passato, eliminando tutti gli eventi che si sono materialmente sedimentati nel tempo, l’Ialia diverrebbe un paese nel quale le opere d’arte sarebbero ridotte a larvali feticci”). On a technical level, Mariani claims that what is regarded as original application of flesh tones is in actuality a coat that was applied after the fire of 1448, and not the fourteenth-century surface. But even this – let us call it the second surface – is highly incomplete. The original painting, which can occasionally be seen beneath this one, is present only in a minuscule percentage of the surface.

Notwithstanding his personal opinion, the restorer believed he was obliged, despite his philosophy and his intimate knowledge of the object, to follow the instructions of the Superintendency. He apparently felt that his knowledge and experience was such that it was better to continue to do the restoration rather than to be replaced, presumably by someone with less experience, and therefore salvage the salvageable.

Several conclusions can be reached in this case: (1) the Soprintendente has the final word on the treatment of art in her territory, which generally speaking is an important safeguard against whimsical, parochial interventions; (2) the Soprintendente was neither sympathetic nor aware of the distinctions between the different “kinds” of restorations listed at the beginning of this item and, perhaps unaware, she applied a museum standard; (3) the Soprintendente was much taken with the modern rhetoric of restorations regarding the recovery of ancient splendour, even when very little of it exists; and (4) the restorer, like many of his confreres, is caught in a unenviable situation to either follow the “orders” of the authorities or lose the job; Mariani seems to have chosen the course of inflicting the least possible damage to the work. Should he have refused to follow the instructions of the Soprintendente? My intuition is, probably.

The lesson, if there is one in this case, is that the system does not provide for any significant appeals over the authority of the Soprintendente. Should a system be created in which committees of disinterested individuals can, like a judge, weigh the evidence? Undoubtedly. Such a system would probably have prevented what is unfolding in Crema where the removal of the sacred, traditional aura is perpetrated in favor of a pseudo-ancient one.

/by

At Risk: Buddhist Art in Afghanistan

Ancient statues of the Buddha in the war-torn country of Afghanistan are under threat.

Reports hit the international media on Saturday that prior threats by the Taliban authorities of Afghanistan to destroy all of the statues within that nation were being summarily carried out. Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban supreme leader, first initiated the order on February 26th, claiming that statues were tantamount to idols, and thus were against the tenants of Islam. The edict proclaimed, “Because God is one God and these statues are there to be worshipped, and that is wrong, they should be destroyed so that they are not worshiped now or in the future.”

In addition to some 6,000 works of art held in the Kabul museum, attention has focused primarily on two monumental statues of Buddha carved into a mountainside in Bamiyan. The statues, dating from the fifth century, are 120 feet and 175 feet, the latter believed to be the tallest statue of a standing Buddha. Reports were issued on March 3rd that the destruction of these two works was already underway, as explosives were used to demolish the heads and legs of the figures. While no images showing their present condition can be obtained due to an outlaw of photography by the ruling government, the Taliban’s Information Minister Quadratullah Jamal has stated, “Our soldiers were working hard to demolish their remaining parts. They will come down soon.”

This hardline stance has led to a wave of international reaction. UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, has begun an international petition and has founded a special bank account for the cultural heritage of Afghanistan, which will be used for emergent funding of actions to protect these cultural objects. While many Buddhist nations have been relatively quiet on the issue, claiming that criticizing the action would be against Buddha’s teachings, other nations have voiced their opinions. Iran, which is also ruled by an Islamic government, came out against the Taliban’s order, along with Pakistan, Russia, and Germany. And while United Nations’ Secretary General Kofi Annan also requested that the Afghan government spare these statues, the larger international community is diplomatically powerless to impact Taliban’s decisions. The authority of Taliban, which controls more than 90 percent of Afhanistan, is not recognized as legitimate by the UN, which instead upholds the ousted government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani. Sanctions against Taliban, issued because of their refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden, have increased the hardships suffered by the people of this war-torn nation. With the country entrenched in civil strife and facing a humanitarian crisis, many suspect that the timing of this edict may have as much to do with politics as religion.

The museum community has also spoken out against the destruction of these statues. The Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has been at the forefront of this movement, issuing a statement on March 1st that they would fund the rescue and preservation of transportable works of art. Officials from other institutions such as the Harvard University Art Museums and the J. Paul Getty Museum have expressed their support for this action, as have the Association of Art Museum Directors. ArtWatch International has similarly lauded the Metropolitan Museum’s efforts to salvage any remaining statues.

/by
2001-03-01 Sant Orso Cathedral painting Ottonian Renaissance

Aosta. Presentazione dei Atti, Medioevo aostano: La Pittura intorno all’anno mille in Cattedrale e in Sant’Orso.

2001-03-01 Sant Orso Cathedral painting Ottonian RenaissanceL’esito finale di una iniziativa messa in opera più di una decina di anni fà, quando allora c’era il signor Rollandin, Presidente della Regione, René Faval, Assessore alla Cultura, il Dr. Domenico Prola e Flaminia Montanari alla Soprintendenza delle Belle Arti, si é concrettizzata oggi con questi volumi che contenono gli atti del Convegno.

Prima di tutto é doveroso per me offrire a voce alta i miei ringraziamenti, la mia ammirazione e la mia stima alla bravissima redattrice dottoressa Sandra Barbieri che a cominciare dal progetto del ” Medioevo Aostano: La pittura intorno all’anno mille in Cattedrale e in Sant’Orso” fino alla pubblicazione degli atti ne è stata la locomotrice assoluta. Ha eseguito tutto il suo compito con intelligenza, buon gusto e con accuratezza esemplare. Se il libro dovesse appartenere soltanto ad una persona, sarebbe sicuramente suo, complimenti Sandra! Desidero aggiungere che senza il minimo dubbio questa pubblicazione rimarrà nella storia un testo essenziale per tutto il mondo. Nel frattempo altri storici e ricercatori di diversi livelli sono intervenuti, mentre all’origine c’era anche l’architetto Renato Perinetti che, come abbiamo sentito, possiede un assoluto controllo sulla materia aostana medievale e sui problemi, come ha rivelato nel suo contributo degli atti, colmo di novità di dati e di concezioni. Ha inoltre offerto uno spunto rigoroso per farci comprendere l’archeologia,”se si puo’ dire” della cattedrale stessa, con le riconstruzioni e molti suggerimenti tutti convincenti. Naturalmente tutta l’operazione si è svolta in un’atmosfera di completa collaborazione interdisciplinare tra architetti, storici dell’arte, studiosi di storia, restauratori, e scienziati. Il risultato dei test dendrocronologici, per esempio, offre una conferma per gli anni della costruzione, tesi sostenuta da Perinetti. Questo fu reso possible con l’intervento del Laboratoire Romand de Dendrochronologie, Moudon-Suisse. D’altro canto Daniela Vicquery si è occupata degli affreschi di lunga data. E’ stata lei a dirigere i lavori delicatissimi del restauro del ciclo, partendo dal 1987. Il suo desiderio operativo fu di non indirizzarsi “verso una musealizzazione del ciclo pittorico; ma si è tentato invece di alterare il meno possibile l’ambiente, in modo da non smarrire il riferimento spaziale all’ interno del contesto architettonico”. E questo deve essere condiviso ed applaudito.

Il discorso di Joseph-Gabriel Rivolin che tratta d’ un esame profondo delle fonti locali delle due chiese principali in argomento: la Cattedrale e la chiesa Sant’Orso, affrontando problemi di antica data sulla istoriografia, sulla cronologia nonché su i presunti costruttori delle chiese, sulla fantomatica chiesa di San Giovanni Battista, e in generale ha realizzato un quadro storico che resterà essenziale nei tempi per comprendere la pittura dell’epoca.

Il contributo focale e altrettanto impegnativo è quello proposto di Hans Peter e Beate Autenrieth, che in un certo senso rappresenta la parte più rilevante del libro, dedicato a Domenico Prola il predecessore di Perinetti in qualità di Soprintendente che diede il via ai primi lavori per il ritrovamento degli affreschi. Questi due studiosi hanno lavorato senza sosta per quasi un quarto di secolo, per approfondire argomenti sulla pittura murale aostana. Questo rimarchevole saggio diventerà da oggi un sine qua non per gli studi della pittura aostana mediovale, e anche europea di quegli anni. Il loro testo arricchito da più di 300 note sarà una miniera per i futuri studiosi. E’ quasi impossibile fare un resoconto adeguato di questo lavoro, poichè fu eseguito con passione, percezione acuta, e amore. Cominciando dal tesoro della documentazione fotografica, dalle ricostruzioni, dagli studi sulla calligrafia, dai paragoni stilistici tra gli affreschi della cattedrale e quelli di Sant’Orso. Gli autori hanno ponderato le iconografie dei murali nella Cattedrale, notando particolari unici per l’epoca, come la rielaborazione delle storie di Sant’Eustachio, e la combinazione dei soggetti del Nuovo e Vecchio Testamento. Hanno aggiunto infine che “…l’iconografia …non è ancora chiarita in tutta la sua complessità.”

Non soddisfatti di studiare soltanto le immagini nel loro contesto, gli Autenreich hanno anche esaminato la tecnica pittorica e problemi sulla distinzione delle mani sia nel ciclo della cattedrale, che in quelle di Sant’Orso. Hanno individualizzato due pittori distinti nella Cattedrale, uno
di quali, loro concludono, fu il pittore della Collegiata di Sant’ Orso. Questi loro suggerimenti di connoisseurship saranno un punto di partenza per tutti gli studi futuri.

Gli storici dell’arte sono, in genere, molto interessati, se non addirittura fissati, sulle datazioni. Dal canto loro i nostri autori hanno concluso proponendo una data intorno alla metà del secolo XI, specificatamente il 1040-50, che sembra essere confermata dall’esame dendrocronologico. Inoltre questi studiosi hanno preso in considerazione i delicati problemi che il restauro comporta. I loro commenti sui restauri combaciano molto bene con i miei, quando dicono “noi proponiamo a questo punto di desistere assolutamente da ogni ritocco o restauro pittorico….e di rinunciare a sostanze protettive. ”

A riprendere il soggetto affascinante della iconografia sia del ciclo della Cattedrale che di quello di Sant’Orso è stata la professoressa Costanza Segre Montel in un ampio studio. Montel pur prendendo in considerazione spunti da altri, fa le sue osservazioni basate molto su esperienze provate in Piemonte. Essa riconosce anche i rapporti fra i due progetti e pone più enfasi sulla loro corrispondenza. In particulare modo ha portato alla luce il registro con gli antenati di Cristo ricostruendoli a cominciare da Abramo a Santa Maria. Per quanto riguarda l’altra serie, Montel sottolinea che ci sono vescovi a mezzo busto che offrono problemi iconografici ancora molto difficili. Anche questo studio rientra nel contesto dei problemi delle “mani” dei due cicli, che vede un maestro presente in tutti e due. Questo contributo è munito di un ricchissimo apparato di note.Investigazioni di carattere scientifico vengono presentate da varie persone in rapporto al restauro, con differenziati contributi tecnici che formano una documentazione fondamentale per il futuro. Il commento di Lorenzo Appolonia, Simonetta Migliorini e Carlo Vaudan asserisce che “il processo di restauro è, di per sè, un atto di aggressione sulla superficie dell’opera d’arte.” Questo importante riconoscimento dovrebbe essere scritto in lettere maiuscole in tutte le officine di restauro. Ciò non vuol dire, però, che il restauro non debba essere fatto su un oggetto, ma è preferibile che si riconosca almeno l’esistenza e la possibilità di un’altra scelta. In questo caso, come ci ricordano gli autori, non si poteva individuare la pittura che era coperta da un voluminoso spessore, senza restauro.

Anche i restauratori hanno ragionato sul loro intervento, in cui la parte più problematica, almeno per me, si trova nella rubrica “Il ritocco integrativo.” I tecnici rilevano che: “Si è quindi cercato di intervenire in modo limitato, ma adeguato a dare una omogenea leggibilità ….alle superfici.”

Per chi si intende questa leggibilità? Per gli specialisti, per i visitatori qualificati, o per i turisti in media? Il problema della leggibilità è antico e molto complesso: ci sono soluzioni che richiedono molta ridipintura fino al punto di offrire una tonalità neutra. Poi, senza proseguire troppo su questo argomento, ci si deve chiedere fino a quando possa essere leggibile, perchè gli anni 1980 sono senza dubbio diversi da quelli del 1990, chissà come si presenterà una buona leggibilità nel 2010? Anche le questioni di reversibilità sono molto argomentative e difficili, ma di questo si può discutere altrove più adeguatamente. Cito, comunque, il testo del chimico dell’ Opificio delle Pietre Dure di Firenze [Mauro Matteini] che scrisse di recente: “I restauratori sanno bene quanto sia difficile realizzare nella pratica un’effettiva reversibilità e come sia quasi impossibile, in particolare, andare a rimuovere un consolidante a distanza di tempo.”

Nel campo del restauro uno dei punti più urgenti è una manutenzione continua e il controllo ambientale con tutti i problemi. Per esempio, alla Sistina, dopo il restauro degli affresci di Michelangelo, si mise in operazione un sistema allora considerato moderno e, secondo il Vaticano, efficace. Per vedere le soluzioni proposte per la Cattedrale di Aosta, si consulti l’articolo di Carlo Vaudan e Simonetta Migliorini negli atti.Un contributo di un genere totalmente diverso è stato offerto dallo storico Giuseppe Sergi, che presenta un quadro delle condizioni politiche nel presunto in cui gli affreschi furono eseguiti. Storico-artistiche sono, invece, le osservazioni di Andriano Peroni, che propone i punti di partenza per la programmazione degli affreschi nell’ottica di una architettura fittizia, ricreata con l’aiuto di minime tracce rimaste. Il contributo di Herbert L. Kessler è centrato sul problema iconografico-culturale del ciclo di Sant’Orso dove sussiste una mescolanza di immagini del Nuovo Testamento e di eventi agiografici. Questi appaiono del tutto casuali e frammentari per certi studiosoi mentre per altri fanno parte di un programma coesivo. Siccome non è possibile risolvere completamente il problema, Kessler li connette con altri cicli presenti ad Assisi e a Roma, fino al punto di collegare Sant’Orso (anche dedicato a San Pietro) al Vecchio San Pietro.

In una lezione presentata da Paula D. Leveto, che concentra la sua attenzione su i famosi murali di Castelseprio, che per mezzo secolo se non dippiù sono stati discussi dagli specialisti per quanto concerne la loro datazione. Con l’aiuto di modernissimi metodi, come il Carbone 14, e con una esaminazione tecnica dei materiali, Leveto è giunta a una conclusione, contraria di quella esposta da Bertelli, per cui gli affreschi sarebbero stati dipinti durante una fase posteriore alla construzione dell’edificio, un tipo di argomento questo molto rilevante per gli affreschi aostani. Nel caso di Castelseprio, esistono indicazioni fisiche che dimostrano che la preparazione e la dipintura furono eseguite in un singolo processo. La situazione contemporanea della pittura murale sono state studiate da Marie-Thérese Camus per certe chiese nella Francia centrale che ci offrono paragoni assai indicativi con Aosta, mentre Joaquin Yarza Luaces fa un confronto con la pittura e le miniature nei regni di León e Navarra intorno all’anno Mille.

Armata di un bibliografia formidabile, che comprende dozzine di manoscritti, con questa pubblicazione si è aggiunto un immenso e utilissimo repertorio fotografico dei due cicli. A parte, il secondo volume potrà essere utile agli studiosi con cui facilmente potranno fare i confronti dei due monumenti: questo “Atlante Fotografico” è in sé un modello di qualità.

Sono, devo ammettere, molto orgoglioso di aver fatto parte di questa pubblicazione anche se minima, con la convinzione che abbiamo davanti a noi un modello di come si deve fare uno studio di questa complessità. Sono anche convinto che con la presenza di questi due volumi la centralità di Aosta per il sviluppo della pittura subito dopo l’anno Mille, ironicamente giustamente 1000 anni fa, sarà confermata. Nel senso non di retorica politica, ma dal punto di vista della qualità sia per gli studi, sia per le pubblicazioni, sia per tutto il lavoro dedicato alla presentazione dei lavori fatti che hanno reso visibili questi meravigliosi dipinti, la Regione della Valle d’Aosta deve essere vivamente congratulata.Voglio augurare, infine che tra non molto un simile congresso possa essere organizzato per la scultura aostana della stessa epoca come era stato già programmato, con particolare attenzione a Sant’Orso, e con la speranza che Sandra Barberi avrà ancora la forza di portare avanti questa iniziativa.

/by
2001-02-06 Churches Charge Admission Santa Maria Novella admission tourism Florence
,

City of Florence to Charge Admission at Santa Maria Novella

By James Beck

Should churches charge admission fees to see art?

The recent decision by the city of Florence, with the approval of the Superintendent of Fine Arts (Soprintendente ai beni artistici) of Florence Dr. Antonio Paolucci together with church authorities to charge admission to visit Santa Maria Novella has raised a host of questions pertinent to the culture as a whole. One should keep in mind that this is by no means the first time churches in Italy (and elsewhere) charge entrance fees. At the top of a growing list is, after all, the Vatican which for decades has been requiring a fee or really a ticket to visit the Sistine Chapel. Of course the Vatican is not Italy. And strictly speaking and with considerable finesse, the Sistine Chapel has been defined as part of the Vatican Museums and by so doing any ethical ambiguities have been effectively sidestepped. Museums customarily, though not universally, have been selling admissions for centuries.

The same ‘solution’ has been applied to the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, more recently, following an extensive not to say brutal restoration of the frescoes by Masolino, Masaccio and Filippino Lippi. In this instance the comune of Florence, museum-ized the chapel, lumping it together with the little museum that was always there. Furthermore they eliminated an entry to the Brancacci Chapel from the church itself, effectively eliminating its religious connection. As with the Sistina, the fiction was reinforced that one was not actually paying to enter a church, but rather a museum.

The situation surrounding entrance to the Baptistery, Dante’s bel S. Giovanni, with encrusted marble decoration outside and glistening late Medieval mosaics inside, is slightly different. The tourists must now pay to visit the unforgettable building which stands in the piazza of the Duomo, across from its façade and Giotto’s bell tower. The same has been true for decades at Pisa’s Piazza dei Miracoli where Cathedral authorities have been collecting entrance fees for their marvelous buildings: the Camposanto, the Duomo, the Baptistery. The holy buildings are grouped with the Museum of the Works of the Cathedral and the Museum of the Sinopia on a “cumulative ticket,” for which there is a discount off individual admissions.

Now the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, located a stone’s throw from the train station from which its name derives, will have an admission fee amounting to 5,000 Lire (about 2.50 in Euros). The art in the church and in the cloister is of the highest quality and rivals that in most public museums. Chief works of Cimabue, Giotto, Orcagna, Masaccio, Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Filippino Lippi, Ghirlandaio, and Paulo Uccello are here. The decision to reclassify the building, in modern jargon, into a “chiesa-museo,” results from two events: the clean up which was conducted for the Jubilee and the restoration and repainting of Masaccio’s unequaled Trinity, painted in late 1425 or 1426.

2001-02-06 Churches Charge Admission Santa Maria Novella admission tourism Florence

Once the total cleaning of the Brancacci frescoes across the river in Santa Maria del Carmine had been completed in 1988, and probably not for the first time, the fame-hungry sponsor (who has since disappeared from the restoration scene) was anxious to become associated with the restoration project of the Trinity, so as to monopolize the Masaccio market. The intervention was postponed until 1999, when officials, taking advantage of the fact that the church was closed in preparation for the Jubilee, moved ahead. Now the fresco will be ready for tourists again. In retrospect it seems almost inevitable that the same fate would await the Trinity and the church itself as the Brancacci Chapel.

Masaccio’s Trinity fresco is, in terms of the history of art and the history of culture, extremely influential. Here for the first time we find a thorough explication of the new perspective, along with the rendering of monumental human figures of decided gravity. The spatial complexity of the Trinity continues to amaze and baffle even the most sophisticated critics. In the Trinity, for the first time, profile portraits of the donors are rendered on a large scale. For good reason, then, the Trinity is featured in all general histories of art as a seminal painting, surely worth the price of admissions: half the cost of a movie or a sit down coffee at Rivoire.

But the ethical question remains to be confronted: should churches charge admission at all? This apparently simple question encapsulates diverse elements. First of all ownership needs to be established. Who owns the artistic treasures of the past? Actually in the fifteenth century, the Florentine government provided quarters for several popes at Santa Maria Novella, and there too Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci prepared their cartoons for the battle murals for the Palazzo Vecchio at the beginning of the following century. Does Santa Maria Novella belong to the Holy Roman church in the larger sense, or to the particular order, in this case the Dominicans, or, perhaps, to the Florentine commune which provided funding? What about the Italian state; or better yet, the entire world?

The city of Florence has assumed the right to create a not-for-profit company (“un’associazione senza fine di lucro called Opera Santa Maria Novella”). As for the state, de facto authority has been assumed by the Superintendent of Fine Arts who reluctantly signed onto the new system. The rarity represented by Santa Maria Novella begins with the facade which was designed by Leon Battista Alberti, sufficient on its own to make it qualify as a world treasure. So far, looking at it is free. Surely, Masaccio’s Trinity stands out even in the most august company but so does Brunelleschi’s rare wooden Crucifix and Orcagna’s unrivaled Strozzi Altarpiece. Thus the inclination persists to advocate world ownership. As things now stand, the Italian government has a good deal of authority, because after all, at least the responsibility for the treatment of the building and its contents, and in the case of the restoration of the Trinity, lies with the government. The issue of ownership requires serious debate.

But if the ownership of Santa Maria Novella represents a thorny issue, the need for an injection of funds is obvious and represents another path for inquiry. The building is visited by thousands each day during the “season,” although Santa Croce in Florence probably has more. [Will this church soon follow?] Such traffic requires every category of maintenance, supervision, guards, cleanup, restorations. Then we can imagine a modern, fully stocked shop which is a sine qua non in every museum worthy of the name these days. Unquestionably the tiny group of Dominican Friars has an overwhelming burden. In other words, they need the financial relief, and if possible generate some income from their treasures. I realize that an infusion of funds would be highly welcomed and necessary. So, gentle reader, you may quite properly ask what is all the fuss about; why am I raising the issue at all?

For an answer, let us return momentarily to the Brancacci Chapel. The frescoes there have been an informal academy for artists since they were painted, and were studied by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Cellini who regarded them as a kind of touchstone for art. Even after World War II, artists and art students continue to slip into the Carmine virtually as a ritual to pay their respects to Masaccio, who in his short life had altered the course of art. All that has ended partly because no one wants to get in line, get a ticket, pay, and be admitted for a short and finite visit, en masse.

What is the proper conduct for such institutions as Santa Maria Novella? How should the culture approach the question? It seems to me that one approach is that related to education. Very few would deny that the provision of an education, up to the age of sixteen or eighteen or even through university, is the responsibility of the commonwealth, the state, the constituted society. Such a responsibility rests at the very heart of state, like health care, road building, providing for defense and protection of its people. Perhaps art should be placed into this same equation. In Italy, where art is ever present, one could make a persuasive case. To be sure, the central government already does take on many responsibilities over art, especially in terms of its care, which includes restoration. Should we expect that government accept the responsibility of keeping a church-museum like Santa Maria Novella open, functional and free?

If the state is unable to do so, for whatever the reasons, one might expect that the European Union might be called upon to step in. A perfectly good case can be made to preserve the “free” status of the rare objects housed in the church.

And if all the avenues of various levels of government fail, payment in the form of a voluntary contribution might be instituted which removes the onus of a mandatory fee. After all among the visitors are relatively penniless artists, art students, younger travelers, tourists with families, and those who might wish to come back again and again, as the Trinity of Masaccio demands.

A true cultural debate seems to be in order.

/by