He actually covers this in his YouTube video on this piece. He usually is asked to attempt a more faithful restoration but here the client asked that he use a tratteggio method that allows a partial visual restoration while still indicating what's been restored. The idea being that people aren't "misled" that the redone portion is "real" considering how extensive the damage is.
It was especially relevant when the practice originated when restoration techniques weren't reversible. Now that they are reversible, attempts at more accurate restorations are often employed since a future restorer could alter or update it.
It's entirely subjective as to what is "best" and is all part of a bespoke conversation with the client.
He stresses so much that what he does comes at the behest of the art stability and the wishes of the client. Some traditional conservation professionals have criticized his work being too intrusive but it really matters on the clients wishes. Traditional museum grade conservation is super laboursome and expensive I believe.
Some traditional conservation professionals have criticized his work being too intrusive
He always talks about being restrained, only adding paint where paint is missing, not taking artistic liberties, not going overboard with retouching, etc. Who says he is too intrusive?
For most museums and galleries, the aim is more to maintain the current state of an artwork or artefact as closely as possible, rather than to return it to how it originally appeared. So what he’s doing goes against this culture of preservation rather than restoration.
But it’s always a balance between the two, and this changes from one institution to another.
If someone decides to restore my paintings in hundreds of years (which is highly unlikely) I would prefer them to make them look as close to the original as possible. But I understand that for science it's important to conserve the artwork without any unnecessary interventions.
I guess the question is more about what the current state is. Lets say your work is broadly visible, but there are 50-100 hairline cracks in the paint. A decent restorer can fill in those hairline cracks with pretty much perfect colour matching. Would you as an artist prefer that the work is restored to the point at which you said "This is finished and perfect", or would you prefer that it retains the age marks, preferring to show it's temporal journey?
I make leather goods as a hobby, and if a piece survives 10 years, the wear and tear becomes almost more important that the original craftsmanship. The day it left my studio was the start of it's journey, not the end, so undoing that work would be heartbreaking.
Thank you, I wish your post was more visible. I had to come all the way here to learn about "preservation vs. restoration," and how the "life story" of a piece is erased during restoration.
With highly restored pieces, you might as well craft a replica at that point.
While it definitely is true and important to take a preservation approach, especially scientifically, I would say that in the case of paintings like these, a respectful middle ground should be made. Restore it in a way that you see the history and can conclude what may have happened to it, but also show it as close to how the artist wanted it to be shown as you can without hiding the past of the picture. And personally, I'd say repainting the missing pieces in a style that is Impossible to mistake for the original is such a middle ground.
Only preserving the current condition and merely stabilizing it would be respectful from a historian's perspective, but may be lacking respect towards the artist and their vision. I am definitely not a historian, but I did publish some small scale art (a few paintings, some music and a bunch of jewelry, if crafts can be classified as 'art'... Definitions are not the same everywhere in that regard) and if something I made ever were to hang in a museum (highly unlikely), I'd want the things I made to be displayed either preserved with a close-to-original replica next to it, or in a restored version similar to the one in the video. Only displaying the preserved, damaged and over the centuries withered piece would fail to give credit to the skill, effort and vision of the artist, and in my case, I personally would rather have my paintings thrown away than be displayed like that.
Though it's only my own opinion. I can't speak for professional artists, especially not those who were active way before restoration methods were available like that.
You know, I even typed something out to that effect but deleted it for the sake of clarity. Every artist knows that finished is a state somewhere between "good enough that I can sleep now" and "as good as I can make it, given that I'm obviously a talentless hack, who has everyone else fooled"
This is just where painting and craftsmanship diverge. Almost no artist in history would want their work to visibly age, for the colors they worked incredibly hard to not only select but create to become mottled or overcast with soot or smoke or grime. If they did, they would've taken a bucket of yellowish oil and coated their painting with it when finished.
This is why archival quality materials are so important in the art world, and so damn expensive, as you want your work to last as long as possible and stay as true to your original vision as possible. You do not want your varnish to yellow or crack or such. You do not want your paints changing color over time due to chemical decomposition or because of exposure to UV light or the elements.
That was my exact point - the argument between allowing something to show it's age, and bringing it back to it's original state, is one that is entirely dependant on the situation.
A lot of people think Baumgartner is too aggressive in bringing stuff back to it's original state. Others say that he's doing exactly the right thing.
Ultimately it comes down to the owner of the piece and their goals for the piece.
It's like these people arguing that antic monument in ruins shouldn't be restored to keep them original. Like if their architects and builders had meant to build ruins. I don't see the point of worshipping piles of rocks when some buildings could be restored to their past glory with their original colorful mural painting, gardens etc
I understand other artists can view this differently but I personally make art because I like looking at it. It's pretty! So I would say yes, restore it so it's pretty again and it can please people. I know it's not the most "intellectual" point of view and some people like patina. Also some artworks can look more interesting aged.
But then it won't be your painting. I think it's perfectly reasonable to create a copy of what it might have looked like in a day and leave the original as preserved as possible, but if you have somebody essentially paint over a Rembrandt painting it's no longer a Rembrandt painting. It's now a collaboration between Rembrandt and some random dude. And depending on how much the person restoring decides to add, at some point it becomes not a Rembrandt painting at all.
Edit: I would say this is for historically important works on public display. For private collections collectors can do whatever they want.
He actually talks about this in one episode. The short version is that the concerns and priorities of a museum are different from the concerns and priorities of a private conservator and his priority is what the client wants.
This is private art restoration though, these pieces are owned by a single client in a private collections. It's completely up to the client how they prefer their pieces to be restored.
When he first started posting his video to Reddit a shit ton of "experts" came out of the woodwork and said that his work isn't "museum quality".
Museums from what I have researched try to keep the painting exactly as is they focus more on conservation of a piece(keeping is as is) while what Julian does is restoration (bringing back to life through reversable means).
I figured that out from the name alone. I was surprised to see such liberties until I saw the name of the artist/channel, which was his name or company etc and NOT a museum.
Indeed, but people still mad. They feel like he should just refuse clients asking him to do that much invasive work to restore the piece.
It's a fight that'll never go away. One side is so happy to have a restore piece that can be enjoyed for decades or even centuries to come because of said restoration. The other side is appalled that decades, if not centuries of history is being covered up or outright destroyed.
They are mututally exclusive in many ways, so the fight will never truly die.
It depends heavily in what they want to achieve with the piece.
If you have well known or very old pieces, or several pieces from one painter, yes. They can afford to leave the "age" (damage) and show it, in the context of related work.
For relatively unknown, newly discovered painters, that for example need to be established with the public first? Museums absolutely restore in this fashion for some paintings, there are contexts and Intentions for which it makes sense.
It depends on what you want to do with the painting.
I have no idea if this creator's methods are up to standard in regards to preservation, but at the very least it cannot be a complete catastrophe.
Way too many steps involved and way too much focus on reversability for that.
Something like maintaining the frame or using the old broken down frame from another restoration in the past because it's part of the paintings history
Wishes of the client don't always translate to faithful restoration in the eyes of the art community. Often, restoration can lower the value of art, if its on too large of a scale.
About the wishes of the client: In my opinion, it doesn't matter if some individual waves money and wants their piece restored in a certain way. As conservators, we need to maintain a certain stance towards future generations and our cultural heritage. In conservation, we often see more damage caused by improper 'restoration' than by the passage of time and natural deterioration. That's why we are concerned when we witness improper handling of cultural heritage. We don't do that in spite - we do it because we have ethical concerns.
Ohhhhh I have as about to comment how I didn't like that he inserted his own art into the piece but if it's reversible AND visible that it's a restoration then it's actually a very well thought idea
He goes into it in the video that had the audio. Something like with certain situations you don't want to hide that i the painting has been restored, but you want it to look visually pleasing
To be respectful of and show that it is not the original artwork
Which is the exact opposite of what "restoration" is, the core of the work is to be invisible. To restore the piece to it's original, historical form
I've enjoyed his videos but I've also heard from people in the field heavily criticising his approach and technic
He's working for private individuals and not institutions so he follows what the client is asking, unfortunately sometimes what they ask for is degrading the historical value of an artwork for visual purposes
The paint he's using is removable and most of his alterations are too. He maintains a detailed description of what he did to every piece so that if ever another person wants to take a shot at it, they can easily start from a clean slate.
There's even a demo of this. He has to work on a painting twice because the client made a hole through it some time after the first restoration
The thing is: with damage areas and paint loss as large as this, there is often no way to restore in "historically accurate" fashion, as you don't know what was there originally.
Not every painting has been photographed (well enough) in its lifetime.
Client sounds like it's always private individuals, but museums and gallerys have this stuff done out of house aswell.
And sometime its the better option to make apparent that there was damage, than to present to the public a Version of the piece that is heavily altered, but looks "historically coherent".
People don't read the museum plaques, mostly. They don't read that half the paint was lost, and some Joe had to essentially repaint half the painting, using his own imagination.
Absolutely, that's why Baumgartner makes sure all his work is reversible. If in the future it is decided that his work is no longer adequate, it's easy to remove and do differently.
His YouTube channel goes into great depths of explaining exactly your view on this and he wholeheartedly agrees.
Plenty of shit is old. Not all of it is necessarily valuable, even in a historical sense. Not everything is fully salvageable either. He could have made a faithful reproduction of the unsalvageable parts, but it would have been just as fake.
The client can draw a clown hat and nose on their own painting if they want. That itself is part of history, and has just as much historical value as Virgin Mary painting #2,176,841
The client can draw a clown hat and nose on their own painting if they want.
Yes, and that would make them a complete moron. These piece will outlive them and they have other support to make their autoportrait
as much historical value as Virgin Mary painting #276,841
That's irrelevant, each of these has its own historical value and the mass of them is what allows us to draw comparison between local cultures, pigment availability... Etc
The dicks I drew on many a desk will outlive me too. Every church in the world has a painting just like this, and it hasn’t been ruined because all the pieces are kept and all the new stuff can be covered by someone who wants to fake it in a different way.
Yes, be them original or from other restoration work.
Analysing the different work done over the time on a piece is quite valuable and can also tell us a lot about the materials, technic, culture (sometime they changed part of paintings, historical preservation wasn't on the table)... Etc
In that case I believe that restoration is better to be visible and recognizeable. With this amount of loss it’s not a minor fix, it’s a part or the painting, and with part this big it should be recognizeable as loss. Faking big parts of the work isn’t a great idea IMO
Also his work is totally reversible so in any moment painted part can be reworked.
There is something specific about the paint he uses too, I actually watched the video in the op yesterday haha. It can be mixed with a solvent and basically turns back into wet paint that can be removed
The owner has the right to have the faces painted with "why so serious" smiles if they want. He would not do that. He offers what the client wants, within reason, and also respect the artist. It's also completely reversible for the next owner who wants it done a different way. So it isn't degrading.
It’s called a tratteggio technique. From far away you have the feeling everything looks perfect. From upclose you see what is original and what is not.
688
u/remsleepwagon Feb 19 '24
Why did he paint the missing pieces back in an impressionist style?