The paintings on display at the St. Louis Art Museum are not unlike glamorous showgirls — lit just so, positioned just so, poised for public admiration.
But behind the scenes, museum conservators examine the works before they’re loaned out, update records on their condition, and clean and protect the pieces en route to the galleries.
The job of paintings conservator Paul Haner involves both high-tech equipment and the patience of ages. At one point, he raises a cotton swab dipped in a cleaning solvent to gently lift away discolored varnish from a centuries-old Madonna and child painted on a wooden panel.
The conservation department is off-limits to the public, but visitors often voice intrigue at the mix of skill and science that goes into restoring old treasures.
As a result, the museum will open a temporary exhibit June 10 where a conservator will clean and touch up paint missing from three 18th century Hubert Robert works. Museum patrons will be able to watch the work unfold and get answers to their questions.
“People are either totally unaware of conservation, or it is such a mystery,” said Eryl Wentworth, executive director of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.
Several American museums, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts among them, have previously restored art in galleries open to the public. Since 2006, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery have let visitors watch preservation work through glass walls at five conservation labs. And the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore started opening a window to its conservation lab on weekends this year to show how they work and take questions.
The exhibits clear up some confusion about what art conservators do, and give visitors a new appreciation for how much attention to detail goes into documenting, storing, cleaning and conserving art treasures.
In St. Louis, Haner and an outside conservator, Mark Bockrath, met in January to assess the condition of the three Robert paintings. The museum hired Bockrath, of West Chester, Pa., to work in front of the public, with support staff in the gallery to take questions.
The paintings, which stand roughly 8 feet tall by 6 feet wide, depict romanticized architectural ruins. Robert’s work was so in vogue in the 18th century that Russia’s Catherine the Great tried to lure the Frenchman to her court, said Judith Mann, the museum’s curator of European Art to 1800.
The conservators first use a floor lamp to examine the paintings. While the canvases aren’t in bad shape, some places need attention: spots with small tears that had been repaired, areas where a little repainting was done during a previous restoration or where paint showed signs of abrasion.
The art is further examined under an ultraviolet light where natural resins, like those that would have originally been used on the paintings, glow green. More recent repainting looks purplish-black in that ultraviolet light because throughout history different materials were used in paints and varnishes at different times.
For an even closer look, they use a microscope and a loupe — a magnifying glass similar to what a jeweler uses. They set up a table with cleaning solvents, and with cotton swabs gently dab at the art to determine which cleaning solutions are best.
“There’s a tremendous feeling of responsibility. That’s why you do it so slowly; you should be a little nervous and respectful. You can’t be cavalier; that’s where the trouble starts,” Bockrath said.
The museum has four Robert paintings, and they’re not in bad condition, but they have changed with time.
“When paintings age, the paints themselves change,” Haner said. “Artists like Hubert Robert used natural resin varnishes that turn yellow over time, making blues look green and whites look yellow.”
He said when Robert created the sky, the artist used a darker color underneath and then used a brush to rub on a thin layer of a lighter color. Over time, the lighter color has become more transparent and the dark more prominent, changing the intended balance of colors.
Previous efforts to retouch some missing paint — called in-painting — have aged and darkened, so it doesn’t match the original paint.
Haner already cleaned one Robert painting that is currently on loan to the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. Bockrath will work on the other three, known as “View of Tivoli,” “The Obelisk” and “The Ruin.”
The cleanings will remove old varnish and retouchings. Once the original paint is revealed, a layer of varnish will be used to isolate the original paint. From there, new in-painting will be done “to reunify the surface and make it read the way it’s supposed to” before a top layer of varnish is applied, Haner said. The process makes the newer work reversible.
Conservators want to maintain the integrity of the artist’s intentions.
Bockrath said he may spend 80 hours looking at a painting while he’s working on it.
“It’s physically demanding work. It takes an enormous amount of concentration. It’s kind of a Zen thing. You just zone out,” he said.
“It is painstaking work, but conservators don’t think of it that way. The painting just starts to become more and more beautiful as you work on it.”
On the Net: St. Louis Art Museum: http://www.slam.org
The conservator expects to work during three sessions at the museum from June 10-21, July 7-19 and Aug. 25-Sept. 6.
© 2009 Associated Press. Displayed by permission. All rights reserved.
