(piano music)
- [Woman] We're here in the ancient Greek and Roman
galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
looking at an ancient Roman sculpture of a wounded warrior.
- [Man] This is a dramatic decision made by the museum
here to show only a fragment of this work.
He actually is missing some very important parts,
part of his head, his nose, both of his hands,
presumably a weapon, a shield.
- [Woman] Some parts have been restored.
- [Man] A huge portion of the figure's
upper right torso is lost.
And it's actually been resupplied here.
What would it look like without a big chunk of his abdomen?
Maybe that's actually more distracting in a way
than lacking a nose.
- [Woman] More distracting and harder to understand
what the ancient Roman sculpture was after.
For the ancient Romans and ancient Greeks,
the human body was so important
and that deliniation of the muscles in the torso.
That would be hard to see if that big part
of the torso was missing.
Whereas the hands and the nose,
maybe we can live without those.
- [Man] Maybe, but definitely if we were looking
at this same exact sculpture 100 years ago
an artist would have been hired to resupply that nose,
those hands, add a weapon.
They may have been completely different from the original
but that artist would have been trying
to embellish this work, make it look more beautiful.
- [Woman] We know artists like Bernini and Michelangelo
were involved in helping to reconstruct
ancient Greek and Roman works.
But I can always tell a Bernini foot and hand
from the ancient sculpture.
- [Man] Bernini wanted you to know what he did
because he wanted his additions to be better
than the original.
As a conservator, we never try to improve on the original.
What we try to do is to respect the original
artist's intentions as much as possible
and the way I like to think about it
is we help the work age gracefully.
We study the work, we try to understand
the original artist's intentions,
but we don't falsify the historical record.
We acknowledge the fact that the work is quite old.
- [Woman] On the other hand, we're not acknowledging
the fact that this has been restored.
When I look at it, I can't see the seams.
- [Man] Unless you're looking at this map
supplied by the Metropolitan,
or unless you're a conservator with highly trained eyes,
you don't know that that abdomen has been restored.
This is called invisible restoration.
If we look at another work of art in marble,
the Parthenon, we realize that's it's crystal clear
which parts of the building are original
and which parts are resupplied.
- [Woman] These are decisions that curators
and museums and conservators are making
with individual objects everyday.
- [Man] Often when we think about restorers
or conservators we think about them
putting together fragments of sculptures
or making sure that paintings don't have
peeling or flaking paint.
That's half of what we do.
But certainly the aesthetics of art conservation
are really important.
Looking at this work, I see that the patina is darkened.
I see the age of this work more than certain
other works in the gallery here.
The patina of a work of art is the surface of it.
It's extremely thin.
What's important about it is first of all
it's the part that you see.
Equally importantly that's the part that meets
the oxygen in the air, that's the part
that meets the ultraviolet light
that can discolor many materials.
It's the part that meets the grime, the soiling
from being underground for such a long time.
It's also the part that meets your greasy fingertips if,
please don't do this, but if you start touching
works of art in museums.
- [Woman] So you're using this technical term the patina,
but in some cases I feel like I'm seeing just
dirt on the surface, is that what you mean by patina?
- [Man] Well here's why this term can be really debatable,
marble like many materials is porous.
Grime can go into the surface of marble
and certainly it can discolor as it oxidizes over time.
Is that a desirable patina or not?
- [Woman] In this case the conservators
in the museum made a decision to retain this patina.
- [Man] Depending on when a work is restored,
say in the 19th century when a more aggressive cleaning
was favored, perhaps it's now looking rather bleached today,
rather white.
- [Woman] In fact in many cases, these ancient sculptures
where really brightly painted.
- [Man] With, by today's tastes anyway,
very garish colors.
- [Woman] With ancient works,
we're used to seeing pieces missing,
we're used to seeing age on the surface.
But if this was a modern work and it was missing a piece,
we might not be as comfortable with it.
The restorer might take a more proactive approach
and actually fill something in.
- [Man] The distance in time now between us
and the making of these objects has a lot to do
with how much aging is acceptable.
If something is this old, perhaps it's okay
to have some grime and some chipping and some cracking.
But imagine if this is a 21st century sculpture,
those same cracks, those same chips,
might be really distracting and might prevent us
from appreciating the original artist's intentions.
Here my eyes understand that this work is very old.
Part of the reason I'm here to look at this sculpture
is that is very old.
I wanna know that.
What I'm most interested in this work
is having both if I can.
I wanna have this balance between understanding
the artist's intentions, but I also want to understand
the historical record.
So on the one hand, conservators today
are striving for objectivity.
We're trying to do the right thing.
But on the other hand, let's acknowledge
that our tastes are deeply conditioned by history.
- [Woman] Even though we're trying to be scientific
and objective, we still carry our historical moment with us.
- [Man] We wanna make sure that however we favor
interpreting these works today
is not the end of the story.
Because clearly future generations will have different ideas
and different restoration techniques as well.
(piano music)