Critics Page
Guest Critic
Unvarnished Truths
By George BisaccaThe history of restoration–today we call it “conservation” in order to distinguish it from a misbegotten 19th-century notion of returning the work of art to some imagined pristine original state–is fraught with controversy.
Beneath the Surface
By Keith ChristiansenQuestion: if you don’t know how a picture was painted, how is it possible to give it an attribution?
Hitting Singles
By Jim CoddingtonWhat’s a bad day for a conservator? Well, you can imagine.
Brokering Truths: The Inescapability of Subjectivity
By Michael GallagherThe modern role of a professional paintings conservator has, in many ways, been shaped by controversy.
Use it, or lose it
By Kate LewisWhat comes to mind when you think about conservation? Perhaps you heard about the $177 million restoration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 2015, the conservation of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi before its record breaking sale at Christie’s in 2017, or maybe you read about the Dia Art Foundation repairing Nancy Holt’s monumental Sun Tunnels in May this year.
Art, History, and Europe
By Lisa RosenI first discovered painting conservation while on a tour of the Getty Museum. I remember entering the conservation lab and seeing Old Master paintings on easels and tables right there in front of me. The conservators, oblivious to our little group, were intent on their work.
Fact and Feeling
By Larry KeithFor as long as we derive any kind of aesthetic or emotional pleasure from a painting, almost every act of conservation can be loaded with subjective interpretation; furthermore, many of the discrete phases of a given conservation treatment are inextricably bound with others.
The Leonardo Effect
By Diane ModestiniI knew nothing about Leonardo’s late work. Robert told me that the painting was a version of a lost painting, known only from a 17th-century engraving, two drawings, and numerous copies.
Entwined: Artist’s Voice and Conservator’s Expertise
By Carol Mancusi-UngaroArtists make art and conservators preserve that art for posterity. The creative impulses differ but the engagement with material, sensitive regard for appearance, exquisite play with intention, and flat-out work bear a comfortable familiarity that enables intellectual interplay between them.
David Novros
Just because the experts have misunderstood the relationship between painting and sculpture since the Renaissance, there is no reason to continue misunderstanding it in our own age of technological infatuation.
