Friday 10 February 2017

Restoration ethics

1966 means a great deal to many people; to some it involved huge quantities of larger poured down throats hoarse from screaming Bobby and the lads on. To Florentines it conjures memories of a disastrous but somewhat less frequent encounter with a lethal liquid. When the Arno burst its banks it left a scene of devastation and over one hundred people dead. The worst affected area was St Croce, the lowest lying area of the city where its height reached up to 6.7 metres of water. This was primarily a humanitarian disaster, it should not be forgotten, however the flood caused a significant change to the Italian states' perception and therefore treatment of art. 

For a long time the masterpieces of former ages had become divorced from the heritage of the nation, they had morphed into a relic of the past. Hung up, lit up and gawped up at, art no longer helps to formulate the nations' psyche. In response to this loss of meaning art has become sacralised and revered but from a distance. The crisis of 1966 led to an example of this enduring attitude to art. Cimabue's crucifix was displayed in the refectory of the Museo dell' Opera of St Croce. Flood water reached up to the top of Christ's nimbus. A work of extraordinary beauty was, in places, stripped of paint and rendered as if the Son of God had suffered a terrible skin condition, St. John the Evangelist was neckless and the Blessed Mother had had disastrous plastic surgery. 

This was one of the first great tests for restorers. Restoration of priceless art in Italy has had a patchy history. There is a special place in the Art Historian's hell for the Restorers of the 19th Century, next to Savonarola and just to the left of the Council of Trent. Oils and waxes they relied on collect dust and darken over time. These confident moustachioed men have provided decades of work for the 'Laboratario del Restauro' now called the Opficio delle Pietre, the leading Restoration laboratory in Florence. The ODP has applied with the dogmatic zeal of the newly converted, one principle. The name of which gives the name to this articles unpromising title: Restoration Ethics. They believe that precious art must be maintained in its original state at all costs. This attitude has two elements when applied to painting rather than sculpture. The first, is the positive attitude to reduce the layers of varnish acquired over the years the original colours capture a stunning delicacy. Unfortunately this effect is tainting by the huge swathes of the fresco missing, normally from porous walls, occasionally theft of paint pigments. These gaps both natural and artificial are preserved by the rigidity of restorers' approach. The case of Cimabue's crucifix demonstrates the limitations of this attitude. 


The OPD endeavoured to restore the crucifix using a technique known as Chromatic Abstraction. They use the base colours of the composition in a pointillist style to fill the gaps of damaged frescoes. Chromatic Abstraction is as ugly as it sounds. An artistic slight of hand which deceives a casual glance but on closer inspection becomes hideously obvious. This is a self-conscious decision to be modern, by painting these epilepsy inducing dots in watercolour future generations will be able to wash it off if they choose to. Cimabue's crucifix has been attacked with such vigour by amateur Singer Sargents that they have had to hang it in the sacristy far from the public's attention where it looms above head height so that no one can see it properly. 

Restoration ethics demand both a reverence for the original work and a consciously modern approach to restore it. Under such immense strains of logic it is no wonder it collapses into the rushing floodwaters below. Restorers are in a position of immense privilege which their counter parts of two hundred years ago could not have dreamt of. The laboratories are funded by the state and receive sponsorship from some of the biggest companies in Italy. Arteria, the European logistics company spent over 10,000 euros on the most recent Crucifix restoration, the Ognissanti Crucifix by Giotto. They are given no deadline and the Cimabue project lasted ten years. 

Most significantly of all are the technological advances... technological advances - the catch all phrase to hide behind when ignorant of every single detail of said 'advance'. But I didn't spend a decade of my life studying Restoration, so there! It does seem obvious that our ability to project images gives an enormous opportunity to Restoration projects. If we are able to X-Ray the fresco layers to the Sinopia we have access to the preliminary drawings of the artist. Any Art Historian can demonstrate the colour scheme and the techniques are well understood. Why not be honest and paint in the fresco? 
Immidiately a raw of indignation erupts from the scientists clad in laboratory suits. Ranting about destroying the authenticity of the painting. Celebrating something because it is old seems profoundly arbitrary and contrary to any artistic aspiration. 

This idea is not without precedence, we know that Raphael frequently used Classical sculpture parts in his works- whole heads and torsos! Art is a state of constant evolution, it seems self indulgent to leave great gaping holes in art. Would Giotto appreciate that his Bardi Chapel in Santa Croce have huge chunks missing in the name of posterity? We have the ability to recreate beautiful art so why not? The facade of Santa Croce is no less beautiful once we learn it is the epitome of the gothic revival of the 19th century (the moustaches may have known what they were doing all along). Walter Pater, the critic argued that art is "simply for the moment". Current attitudes towards art strikes the immediacy of art and renders it lifeless on the wall. Restoration has become a contradictory and ugly solution that satisfies no one. 

To the Italians of 1966 the Cimabue Crucifix came to symbolise the plight of the entire city. Just as Cimabue's art united the city in his own time, as depicted by Frederic Leighton, the destruction and resurrection of the cross united the country. Art once again became 'of the moment'. This great opportunity was squandered and became a science and blind devotion to the facile nonsense of artistic integrity. The more complete and therefore accessible the greater power art has to unite a nation. Widespread sales of Pants depicting poor David's minuscule member are an absolute testament to this.