We like to think of precious works of art as timeless. That da Vinci’s Mona Lisa will
smile for centuries to come, but what happens when the march of time wears on and the colors
fade? Well that’s when science steps in.
Hey guys Julia here for DNews
We like to think of art as a way to make ourselves immortal. We’ll remember da Vinci’s name
because of the Last Supper, we’ll remember Van Gogh in the bright yellow of his sunflowers.
But time is a cruel mistress, and so is moisture, soot, and light. The effects of which dull
and damage priceless works of art.
So art restoration is as old as art itself. As soon as the paint on Da Vinci’s The Last
Supper was dry it started to crack. And so over the course of a few centuries, it’s
been repainted, glazed over, and touched up numerous times. Many others famous works of
art, including “The View of Delft” by Johannes Vermeer, have been retouched dozens
of times over the years. Sometimes the change is a restoration, to preserve or fix a damaged
piece, other times a change is made to reflect the changing times. So the art you seen in
a museum may have be touched by more than a few hands.
But that’s part of the problem, art restorations that seemed like a good idea at the time,
turned out to be disasters when new information is revealed years later. According to Yale
Scientific “Old conservation manuals suggested covering the entire painting in wood-ash and
then wiping it off with water, a process that caused an extremely alkaline substance harmful
to the painting to form.”
So the standby of restoration nowadays is to “ ‘ensure that you do no harm to the
work, and that wherever possible anything you do could be reversed by a later generation’.”
In some cases the passage of time means the accumulation of dirt and grime, as seen with
the Sistine Chapel which underwent a massive restoration that began in the late 1980s.
The solvent, called AB-57, is made of bicarbonate of sodium and ammonium and carefully applied
by brush. After sitting for a few minutes, it would be wiped away along with any grime
and layer of glue. That layer of glue is a matter of some controversy.
Some historians claim it was Michelangelo's doing, other’s claim it was a disastrous
restoration made years later. It’s hard to tell what Michelangelo’s original intent
was. It’s not like there were photographs back then, conservationists had to rely on
what people were writing about when the frescoes were first displayed.
And that’s one of the hard things to know about art that’s been around for awhile.
Is it grime or varnish or pigments put there by the painter? Luckily with modern science,
conservationists can figure out some of the answers without destroying priceless works
of art.
Great art should always see the light of day, but sometimes the light is the cause of the
art’s demise in a process called photodegradation. Basically the energy from light, especially
UV light causes the chemical bonds in dyes to break. This essentially makes the colors
fade. Which is one of the reasons you’re not allowed
to use flash photography in a museum.
But light can be a solution too. Many restoration attempts start with an x-ray or infrared imaging.
Infrared imaging works by detecting all of the wavelengths of light that the painting
absorbs and reflects, which is more than the human eye can see. Some of these infrared
wavelengths penetrate deeper than visible light. By getting past the paint, these infrared
wavelengths can see other layers of the work, revealing underdrawings and previous versions
of the work. Which can help tell restorers about the artist's original intent.
Like one recent analysis by Engineer Pascal Cotte revealed that da Vinci changed in his
mind. A lot. One painting, Lady with an Ermine went through three different versions before
he decided on the iconic white ermine we know today. The painting was analyzed by a new
technique called Layer Amplification Method (LAM) pioneered by Cotte himself. The technique
uses intense pulses of light to see between the layers of paint.
Cotte told the BBC that with this technique "We've discovered that Leonardo is always
changing his mind, "This is someone who hesitates - he erases things, he adds things, he changes
his mind again and again."
Just as light can damage and even reveal art, light can even breathe life into old work.
Until the late 1970s, Harvard University had murals by famous painter Mark Rothko hanging
in their cafeteria. Not surprisingly after years of damage from light and college kids,
the paintings went into storage. When they reemerged in 2014, the paintings were badly
faded. Rather than turn to traditional restoration methods, Harvard turned toward technology.
After finding the original colors from old photographs and other paintings, a computational
photographer from MIT Ramesh Raskar, designed an algorithm to match the old colors. Then
those colors were beamed at the paintings from wall mounted projectors. It produced
the illusion that the murals were as bright as the day they were painted.
As for da Vinci's most iconic piece, the Last Supper thanks to centuries of wear, bombing,
and poor fresco experimentation, it will never again return to its former glory. But maybe
technology can bring it back to life in a way. In 2012, a group scientists from Leonardo3,
a Milan based museum, digitally restored the painting. Without laying a finger on the fragile
fresco they reconstructed it through high definition photographs. Painstakingly reimagined
in pixels rather than pigments, the new digital version revealed details like a salt shaker
that appears to have been knocked over by Judas and maybe even a shadow of the artist
himself.
Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance man. In his time there were no clear boundaries between
the arts and the sciences, it was all within the pursuit of knowledge. He might have found
math as eloquent and beautiful as any of his masterpieces. Mathematician Tara Long discusses
a study that shows how math can be perceived as a beautiful piece of art in the brain in
this video right here.
So what do you think? Should art be restored if it’s damaged? Or should the passing of
time be included in how we see a piece? Sound off down in the comments below….