{"id":251,"date":"2024-07-09T17:30:16","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T17:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/permutationcity.co.uk\/bp\/?p=251"},"modified":"2024-07-27T08:44:25","modified_gmt":"2024-07-27T08:44:25","slug":"learning-from-fine-art-restoration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/permutationcity.co.uk\/bp\/2024\/07\/09\/learning-from-fine-art-restoration\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning from… fine art restoration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So I don’t practice fine art restoration myself, or indeed have much at all to do with painting,\nI do sometimes watch Baumgartner Restoration<\/a>.\nIt features the restoration of mostly paintings using modern materials and techniques.\nWhile the artwork is not world renowned none of it can simply be replaced.\nThey are normally old pictures, each unique in their own way, and\ntheir history can be as important as the image on the canvas.\nA lot of the work is slow and methodical.\nThe priorities here are radically different from those in software development.\nI’m going to try and compare and contrast to see if there’s anything to learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fine art restoration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A typical restoration job is presented in one to three episodes depending on the complexity.\nIt normally seems to be oil paintings on canvas but the painting medium and background material do vary.\nThere have also been videos on sculpture or where the restoration of the frame was given centre stage.\nI’ll try to present a typical “day in the life” for one of these restorations.\nAn episode may feature each aspect more or less but I get the impression they always happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investigation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first stage is always to look and see what is there to start with.\nThis includes what the original artwork is and the reasons for the restoration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paintings can come in for simple reasons such as the accumulation of dirty and discolouration of varnish.\nMany pictures that at first glance seem to be dark and gloomy were never intended to be that way.\nPaintings can come in because of accidents, fires or physical damage.\nA huge tear might be an obvious problem but flaking paint could be more serious problem,\nflakes that are gone are lost forever.\nApparently most distressing to the restorer,\nthey can come in because of the state that previous restoration attempts have left them in.\nFrequently a botched attempt to clean a painting also removes paint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each picture is made of multiple materials, each painting is slightly different.\nSmall tests are made to check what solvents and cleaning agents should be used.\nTo clean off dirt you want something that is strong enough to bind to the dirt and nothing more.\nUltraviolet light is surprisingly useful.\nFinishes that look identical can react differently and show previous restorations.\nIndeed modern restoration materials are deliberately design to fluoresce to distinguish them.\nThe goal is to reveal and restore the painting not to cover up anything original to the artwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preparation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The second phase is one of disassembly, stabilisation and cleaning.\nEverything that is part of the original painting should stay and everything that is not should go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With particularly delicate paintings this phase can start by gluing paper across the entire surface of the canvas.\nThis may seem drastic but glue is removable and it locks everything in place during the rest of the procedure.\nThe painting is carefully removed from the frame and any previous backing to the canvas must be removed.\nIf unlucky this can involve a surprising amount of exceptionally careful manual scraping.\nNext it is taken to a heated vacuum table which can smoothly press any distortions out of the canvas.\nAny delicate or significantly damaged paintings may then be given a complete new lining.\nSmaller amounts of damage will be addressed individually by bridging tears or cutting canvas fillers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the painting was faced with paper the glue can be removed with a solvent, often just water.\nThis can even start the processes of cleaning and some dirt will come away with the glue.\nThe main cleaning phase is often done with cotton wool and gentle solvents.\nNormally less important parts of the painting are cleaned first to gain experience before\ntackling the important parts.\nRemoving the varnish is similar and he has to go over the whole painting again but with a different solvent.\nIf there is any previous retouching work then that to has to be removed.\nA carefully chosen solvent can often affect newer paint while leaving older paint untouched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Retouching<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The third phase is one of rebuilding, retouching and protecting.\nGetting the painting to the state the client wants and keeping it that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any holes, tears or cracks will have been minimised during the previous preparation.\nHowever the surface won’t be perfect and a filler is added to any remaining damaged areas.\nThe goal is not to have a smooth<\/em> surface but to have a matching<\/em> surface.\nIt may be smooth, it may have a canvas texture, and oil paint in particular can have texture in the brush strokes.\nThe filler can be textured, sculpted or removed as necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cleaned and stabilised painting can then be reattached to a frame,\nthe original if possible and new one if not.\nI particularly like the attention to detail given to the back of the frame.\nIt is just as neat as the front, ready for the next restorer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The painting may then be given an isolation layer of varnish for several reasons.\nTiny remaining blemishes in the finish can be filled in by an appropriate varnish.\nPaints look different under varnish and any retouching must be done with those<\/em> colours in mind.\nAn isolation layer can protect the original paint if we need to remove retouching at any point in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only now, finally, is any new paint brought to the painting.\nThe goal is not to create a new similar painting<\/em> but only to repair damage<\/em>.\nIf painting is missing from the original it can be replaced.\nIf paint is not missing then it should be left alone.\nAll too often previous restoration ends up hiding the original.\nThis means a fine brush plus lots and lots of tiny brushstrokes.\nIt may be that only a few small areas or whole sections of the painting need to be addressed.\nIt’s all done carefully and methodically.\nIt might take minutes or it might take days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final stage is a topcoat of varnish to protect everything in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Software development<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Modern restoration focuses on preservation above all other things.\nThey want the paintings to look good but they don’t want to risk damaging anything in the process.\nPhysical things are in many ways more vulnerable than digital so we have an advantage there.\nHowever it’s also easier to delete digital data so it’s not all one sided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The restorer often has to start with a multitude of tests.\nHowever he leaves the painting with notes attached to the frame describing his restoration.\nIt will be easier for whoever comes next.\n(Sometimes he even revisits previous work<\/a>\nif they suffers further damage.)\nWhile source control will show you exactly what changes were made to your code five years ago\nit will tell you nothing about why<\/em> unless you added that to the commit message.\nI regularly search through old histories looking for the why and all to often it’s not there.\nA decent commit message takes a few minutes but can easily save a hours or days in the future.\nYou can look at it like insurance,\nmost of the time you don’t end up using it but you do it anyway because it stops disasters.\nA short commit message doesn’t feel important now but you can pay for it in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The retouching is a comparatively tiny part of the work here.\nAll the rest of the work beforehand is to get the canvas and painting into the best possible state for the paint.\nI can definitely see advantages to having a well prepared codebase before writing new code.\nTo me this would mean:<\/p>\n\n\n\n