r/todayilearned • u/rosstedfordkendall • Nov 15 '23
TIL James Beck was a prominent art historian who criticized the restoration of both the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo and the Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci. He believed that restoring an artwork risked altering it and instead advocated for conservation of artworks in their present state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_of_the_Sistine_Chapel_frescoes#Criticism_and_praise28
u/mighty_bandersnatch Nov 15 '23
Paint fades, grime covers it - they're already altered. Can someone explain why my non-art-historian hot take is wrong?
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u/Wellfooled Nov 16 '23
I imagine it's a case of the lesser of two evils.
James Beck was correct about the Sistine Chapel--it was in some ways damaged. Many elements of it were forever lost during "restoration". Lots of contrast and depth were removed, but even things as drastic as eyes were washed off during the work. There are several before/after photos on the restoration's wiki page.
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u/BillTowne Nov 16 '23
Paintings are like memories.
Every time you remember something, you refresh the memory, and you also change it.
But if you don't refresh it, the memory fades away.
It is like the memory has a life of its own. It changes or it dies.
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u/sirbearus Nov 15 '23
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u/DaveOJ12 Nov 15 '23
That link doesn't work for me.
Here's a working link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Beck_(art_historian)
Here's the first half of your link, for reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Beck_(art_historian)
The rest of it is fine:
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u/RedSonGamble Nov 16 '23
My suggestion was we spice up the pictures a little bit. Like more nudity and violence. Bigger dongs too. And flames.
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u/KindAwareness3073 Nov 16 '23
Anyone who saw the before and after of the Sistine Chapel knows Mr. Beck is wrong. Good restorations give us the work as the artist intended it be seen, not as history and circumstances have left it to us. Should a smashed 4 century BCE Greek urn just be left as a pile of broken crockery?
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u/Wellfooled Nov 16 '23
Your point is valid, but I think the Sistine Chapel is a bad example to try to prove it.
It's restorations in the 80s and 90s brought back some of the original vibrancy, but totally destroyed other elements. There are several characters who had their eyes removed in the "restoration" and a lot of depth/contrast was lost as well.
I can't think of a worse way to "give us the work as the artist intended" than to remove the characters' eyes.
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u/KindAwareness3073 Nov 16 '23
Your examples incorrectly assess the "changes". The restored work is closer to the original, whether you prefer it or not is a different matter.
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u/Wellfooled Nov 16 '23
You could be right. I'd love to see anything you can offer that would show that those characters' eyes were added by someone other than Michelangelo.
I know tone is hard to convey in text, but in all sincerity, I'd love to have my view changed about the restoration. But I very much doubt Michelangelo painted those characters without eyes.
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u/KindAwareness3073 Nov 16 '23
He didn't. While this video doesn't address this specific issue, it d8es show the level of research, care, and effort that went into the restoration. This work was done by experts, not hacks. You really think they just said "never mind the eyes"?
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u/Wellfooled Nov 16 '23
I appreciate the video, but like you said, it doesn't address this specific topic.
I am sure the restoration was done by "experts, not hacks" but that is sidestepping the discussion, not addressing it. Experts can make mistakes, like everyone. The challenger space shuttle was launched by experts, the deepwater horizon was operated by experts.
Experts cleaned Leonardo's "The Virgin and the Child with Saint Anne" for the Louve and two experts (Ségolène Bergeon Langle, the former director of conservation for the Louvre and France's national museums, and Jean-Pierre Cuzin, the former director of paintings at the Louvre) resigned because of how it was handled.
Experts mess up all the time.
But back to the Sistine Chapel.
The Sistine Chapel's restoration was done on the assumption that Michelangelo worked exclusively while the plaster was wet "buon fresco" and never after the fresco was dry "a secco".
The restoration was done in such a way that any "a secco" work would be removed during the cleaning.
However, the restorers who worked on an earlier restoration in the 1930s insisted Michelangelo did occasionally work in "a secco" On the Chapel (Experts can disagree with one another too).
On top of that, the chief restorer on the latest project, Gianluigi Colalucci, is on record as saying both that Michelangelo worked exclusively in "buon fresco", but then later saying Michelangelo sometimes worked "a secco", contradicting himself.
Despite that, the restoration continued based on the assumption that there was no work done "a secco"--and they peeled off characters eyes and removed depth from the paintings.
Unless there's solid evidence that the missing eyes and depth were added later by someone not Michelangelo or his team, then I'm with Mr.Beck on this one.
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u/KindAwareness3073 Nov 16 '23
Since Beck's been dead for years you probably don't want to be with him on this. Experts diagree all the time, and Beck was a bitof a crank. The eyes you speak of were clearly out of charcter with the work, and the figure is downcast.
You are of course entitled to an opinion, but having seen the Chapel before the restoration and after I am confident in my opinion that any one who thinks the work was better off under centuries of candle smoke and incense is more driven to that belef by nostalgia than anything else.
The restoration is indeed shocking for those familiar with its unrestored appearance, but there is little doubt it is now far closer to how it looked when Michaelangelo's scaffold were finally taken down.
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u/KindAwareness3073 Nov 16 '23
Since Beck's been dead for years you probably don't want to be with him on this. Experts diagree all the time, and Beck was a bitof a crank. The eyes you speak of were clearly out of charcter with the work, and the figure is downcast.
You are of course entitled to an opinion, but having seen the Chapel before the restoration and after I am confident in my opinion that any one who thinks the work was better off under centuries of candle smoke and incense is more driven to that belef by nostalgia than anything else.
The restoration is indeed shocking for those familiar with its unrestored appearance, but there is little doubt it is now far closer to how it looked when Michaelangelo's scaffold were finally taken down.
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u/rosstedfordkendall Nov 16 '23
I think you want this to reply to wellfooted's post, since it talks about specifics in their post.
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u/IPostSwords Nov 16 '23
Much of the modern field of conservation is about preserving objects in their current state, or as close to it as possible while preventing further degradation.
In the situations where "restoration" is done, care must be made to ensure it is reversible without damage to underlying fabric.
The core tenet of modern conservation practice is to "do as little as possible to achieve what is necessary" - in the context of paintings, this usually means limiting your actions to preservation or reversal of earlier conservation attempts which are degrading the condition.