Remember this? This restoration video delighted the internet but left experts horrified ⬇️
A viral video showing hundreds of years of varnish being wiped off a centuries-old painting has horrified experts in the field.
"The thing that was so terribly disturbing about that video is the guy starts right on the face of the sitter. When I saw this video the first time, after about 10 seconds, I just had to turn it off because I couldn't watch it anymore." said Rob Proctor, a conservator at Whitten & Proctor Fine Art Conservation in Houston."You can just hear him scrubbing," Proctor, who has run workshops on varnishes, told Live Science.
Next, they test that materials on small patches on the edge of the painting, before slowly proceeding inward toward the heart of the artwork, he said. Test patches allow the conservator to determine whether the solvent can simply sit on the painting to remove the varnish, or if mechanical action, such as rolling a cotton swab, is needed to remove the varnish, Proctor said.
In the case of the new video, one of the upsetting elements is seeing the gel dripping down the painting in an"uncontrolled flow," Spicer said. That's because different parts of the underlying paint may absorb more of the solvent or gel and be more swollen than other parts, so letting the substance just drip down the painting runs the risk of affecting the paint layer in one place even if other parts of the painting are fine, Spicer added.
The mechanical rubbing action shown in the video isn't how modern conservators are taught to remove material, Spicer said. Typically, people will roll a cotton swab to lift up the layers of varnish, rather than scrubbing the painting, she said.
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