Conservation of Fresco - Essay Example

CONSERVATION OF FRESCO INTRODUCTION Fresco is an Italian term meaning 'fresh' and in connection to art it is referred as fresh or wet plaster. Fresco actually refers to the material or medium used in the art of painting similar to water, oil and so on. To be clear it is a variety of painting known as fresco painting. We can also call it as mural painting. It is difficult to trace the exact time of the fresco art. But through evidences we have come to know to some extent that fresco art has originated during the Minoan civilization dating back to the second millennium BC. Innumerable artists practiced fresco painting during the years to come, and this art became popular through the Greek, Roman and Byzantine Empires. Unfortunately, not many frescos have survived. Some rare Roman frescos are found in Herculaneum and Pompeii. Christians wo lived during the early period from 250 to 400 AD, painted some small frescos as a form of decoration of Roman catacombs, the burial place. The popularity of fresco painting declined after the Renaissance. But Mexican painters Diego Rivera, Jose Orozco, and David Siqueiros were using the techniques of fresco painting in their murals and through this once again the revitalization of fresco art took place. Again during the American Depression, painters like Thomas Hart Benton were engaged in fresco production. Now, fresco art is no longer used as it was used before, the main reason is because of its susceptibility to humidity and weathering. Regard to this reason, many artists have abandoned the fresco painting in the production of serious art. This paper will try to explain a little about fresco painting in general and then move on to the process and technique used in the production of fresco art. Then the paper would deal about the conservation of fresco paintings and finally explain its importance. THE FRESCO PROCESS Calcium carbonate is the binding material that is used in the production of fresco art. It is nothing but lime which is processed as limestone, then burned and finally slaked. This is the actual process to convert lime to lime plaster which in its final output becomes hydroxide plaster. The thing that we should note here is that this chemical gets colour- binding properties in the end. Calcium hydroxide emits the water into the air absorbing carbon dioxide from it. This results in the formation of calcium carbonate upon the surface of the material thus forming the plaster. The colour is applied before this change occurs so that it gets settled underneath the plaster formation which then looks similar to a glass. When viewed through a microscope, a particle or piece of fresco looks like thousands of minute mosaic put together and creates an astounding appearance. The art produced in such a way is called as fresco art or painting. It is not very difficult to paint a simple fresco if we are well aware of the process and technique. Many people throughout the world are engaged in fresco painting as entertainment or part of their hobby. Finally, to make this process very easy here is a short cut. Fresco painting is nothing but applying pure colour onto wet lime and the next thing that happens is the formation of crystalline substance over the wet surface. Now, the whole thing dries up producing fresco. One of the great things to have in mind is that all over the world ancient people followed this process in the creation of fresco art. Though the people of the ancient civilization had no means of communication, yet they all followed the same process in the making of painting and this is so surprising to us. It has led modern chemists to analyse the process through the study of ancient artists of different places. ELEMENTS OF FRESCO There are five elements that are used for creating a fresco. I have listed out one by one below so that there may not be any confusion. 1. The Structural Wall - This wall is the physical body in which the artist creates the fresco art. 2. The Design - Refers to the fresco's environment or architectural setting. 3. Lime Plaster - The prepared material to be used for painting. 4. Sand - Sand is very helpful in the creation of fresco art. 5. Pigment Colour - Used to add beauty to the fresco art. These are the five elements that are needed to produce a fresco. The greatness is there in the artist's hand and mind to use them in such a way to produce great masterpieces. TECHNIQUES IN FRESCO PAINTING To produce a great art is always difficult and so is the technique. Creating marvelous fresco art requires great skill and patience. Normally, few artists of those days who were engaged in fresco production worked collaboratively under a master's supervision. Because, producing fresco on a large wall was very difficult and assistance was always needed. When producing a fresco on a wall, the artist started from the scaffolding and moved downwards, top to bottom technique. It is regarded that it was during the Renaissance, the fresco was utilized the most. During this period, a type of fresco known as 'buon' was largely used because of its simple requirement of plaster. In the production of 'buon' fresco, a rough under layer was added and this layer was known as 'arriccio'. This rough layer is applied before the painting process and it is usually given some time (days) to dry. The next step was to draw the composition and this was done using the red pigment called as 'sinopia' which is somewhat invisible when applied. Such use of this material gave birth to the art form called sinopian paintings. Later, paper drawings were transformed as wall paintings through a technique where the main lines of the drawing were selected and are shooted over the wall with the help of 'spolvero' which produced back dots on the wall as a result. This also helped a lot in the development of painting from paper art. When it comes to paint or beautify an already existing fresco, the first step that is done is roughening the surface and then blending the colours over it. The next step in the creation of fresco is the use of a thinner known as the 'intonaco' which is nothing but a smooth layer of fine plaster. It is important that the artist has to do his job before the layer gets dried up. This area is normally called 'giornata' meaning day's work. This is the problem associated with 'buon frescos because the deadline depends on the drying of this layer. So, once the artist applies this layer on the surface, he leaves it to dry for an hour and then starts his work of painting and would finally finish it before it gets dried up. It would take normally ten to twelve hours for drying and the artist has roughly six or seven hours to finish his job. This makes the painting of 'buon' frescoes all the more difficult. In a wall-size fresco painting, many 'giornatas' are there and blending all these areas into one single fresco is a challenging job. Finally, the artist allows the fresco to dry completely and in the end he slightly rubs the fresco with sand. CONSERVATION OF FRESCOES The permanence of art depends on many external things. Fresco paintings are normally mild ones that makes it difficult to stay for extra time. The first thing that we should think of is the preparation of these frescoes. Only if the solution prepared is strong enough it would bring life to the painting. Paintings of the ancient period are so grand in their preparation that makes it survive even after thousands of years. CONSERVATION PROCESS These are some steps that are usually followed in the conservation of damaged frescoes. First, a protection and support bandage of cotton gauze and polyvinyl alcohol is applied. Difficult sections are removed with soft brushes and localized vacuuming. The other areas that are easier to remove are removed because they had been damaged by less water and this removal is done with a paper pulp compress saturated with bicarbonate of ammonia solutions and also with deionized water. These sections are strengthened and reattached then cleansed with base and the wall and pictorial layer are strengthened with barium hydrate. The cracks and detachments are stopped with lime putty and injected with an epoxy resin loaded with micronized silica. This is how the frescoes are restored to their original state. THE SISTINE CHAPEL One best example that can be included for the conservation of fresco is the painting of the ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, produced by the greatest painter of all times, Michelangelo. The artist worked on 65 foot scaffolding, painting what would eventually become the greatest work of art in the Western world. The painting when exposed to the public brought great appreciation and popularity for the art and the artist. The paintings have been numbered to more than three hundred and every art is unique in its expression. The frescoes on the ceiling can be divided into eleven transversal sections. There are totally nine bays as well as the spandrels and pendentives over the entry door and the altar. Situated above the upper comice are the lunettes that form the highest part of the walls of the chapel. In the scheme of divisions, the key elements are the thrones of the seers (prophets and sibyls) flanked by plinths and colonnettes decorated with pairs of putti supporting the cornice running above the crowns of the spandrels, at about a third of the way across the curve of the vault. Beyond the cornice, the vertical frames flanking the thrones are prolonged as the arches crossing the vault. They divide the vault into nine bays in which the stories of Genesis - from the Separation of Light from Darkness to the Drunkenness of Noah - are represented as if they were seen above the space of the chapel, beyond and through the imposing structure of the painted architecture. In the five bays above the thrones of the seers, the field of the narrative scenes is limited in size by the presence of four figures of ignudi, sitting on plinths and bearing garlands of oak leaves and acorns, and of two medallions painted to resemble bronze, with episodes drawn from the books of Genesis, Samuel, Kings, and Maccabees. The narrative scenes begin from the altar wall and proceed toward the entrance; Michelangelo painted them in reverse order since he started from the area near the entrance wall. On the side walls of the chapel, five prophets alternate with the same number of sibyls, so that each prophet is paired with a sibyl on the opposite wall: the Delphic Sibyl and Joel, Isaiah, and the Erythraean Sibyl, the Cumaean Sibyl and Ezekiel, Daniel and the Persian Sibyl, the Libyan Sibyl, and Jeremiah. The other two prophets - Zechariah and Jonah - are represented on the major axis of the Sistine Chapel. At the corners of the vault, two spandrels join to form the larger triangular fields of the pendentives, with one of the two vertices pointing downward rather than up. Their surfaces create notable difficulties from a compositional point of view, especially where it was necessary to paint narratives. In the pendentives to the left and right of Zechariah, the story of Judith, and the combat of David and Goliath are represented, respectively. The scenes painted in the pendentives at the sides of Jonah depict the Punishment of Haman, at the left, and the Brazen Serpent, at the right. Occupying the triangular fields between the thrones of the prophets and sibyls, above the lunettes, the eight spandrels of the side walls contain family groups with figures seated or reclining on the bare ground, in poses that seem to draw on the theme of the flight into Egypt. Together with the groups or single figures in the lunettes on either side of the tablets, they represent the generations of Christ's ancestors, according to the sequence of forty generations listed at the beginning of the Gospel of Saint Matthew. These are the over all representation of the frescoes in the chapel and now let us move on to how conservation was taken for this great and immortal master work. CONSERVATION OR RESTORATION OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL FRESCOES It was in the year 1980, the Vatican announced the plan to restore the ceiling frescoes in the Sistine chapel. After much delay, the work started with the only objective of preserving the work of a prominent artist of the past. It caused the government, millions of dollars and about twelve long years to complete this project. The whole world was waiting to look at the aftermath of the paintings. To the surprise of the whole world, the paintings had a tremendous effect in its expression after the restoration process. The paintings were vibrant and expressive than before and it gained a massive popularity and admiration as the result of the conservation process. Though this is the opinion of majority, there are people who are really not satisfied with the restoration. They proclaim that the restorers have spoiled the originality of the work of the supreme artist, Michelangelo. These people condemned the idea of cleaning and restoring long before it was implemented, but despite their efforts the Vatican permitted for the restoration process and this had led to several intricacies among people. And such people who believed that the work had been spoiled were never happy to accept the work anymore. In my view, preserving an art is not a mistake and what the Vatican did is acceptable. In fact, the Vatican arranged and brought together a team of great artists, cleaners, art historians and conservationists around the world and carried out this project. Millions of dollars were spent and every step the team took was recorded and the conservation process was done very carefully for twelve long years. Despite all these things, as already mentioned there emerged a group that was totally against the restoration. They strongly believed that the whole process of restoration was a disaster. They were not ready to accept this restoration for they thought that the beauty of the art had been lost through restoration. To answer this attack, the Vatican arranged for a meeting where all the critics were allowed to speak of the restoration process. Everything was noted and answered properly through the preserved records in detail. These records were clear and to the point and the documentation was really awesome. Though all these measures were right enough and agreeable, this particular group was not at all convinced and they had their own disastrous visions. There are two theories or schools of thought that supported this negative view. 1. The Feldman Theory 2. The Beck Theory THEORY OF FELDMAN Dr.J. Feldman was the prominent art historian from New York who was behind this theory. According to him, in the name of restoration the cleaners were actually removing the layers of 'chirarscuro' applied by the great Michelangelo. And this appeared to him as something wrong done to the artist and the art, so he produced a petition signed by various artists of U.S. to temporarily withdraw the cleaning process. The defects pointed out by Feldman were that through his comparison of the photos of the painting before and after, he told that the musculature and dimensionality of the figure was less when compared with the original one. And then he also stated that the colours had gained unnecessary brightness and that it was not the intension of Michelangelo. Using other works of the artist as an example, he proved that Michelangelo had typical colour palette style and that now it had been lost during the restoration process. THE BECK THEORY Dr. Beck, U.S. art historian was the man behind this theory. According to his view, the restorers were actually causing harm to the beauty of the art achieved by Michelangelo. He agreed with what Feldman had proposed and was also different in his view of the destruction of the art. Though he did not file any petition, he strongly opposed that the cleaners were spoiling the painting by removing the layers of glue appearing on the paintings. He said that these glues were actually applied by Michelangelo himself to create a sculptural effect of the paintings. But his view was denied by the Vatican team and they removed all the glues from the paintings. They told that these glues were only some formations due to the effect of climatic conditions and is no way related to the art. But, another historian named Alexander Elliot agreed to what Beck had stated and he made it clear that this glue was intentionally used by Michelangelo as a toning layer to produce extraordinary effect. Though we are not sure of the truth, we should understand that the conserved frescoes had its own effect from then on. CONCLUSION So far, I have explained the art of fresco painting. Though the use of this type of painting may be declined in recent times, in my opinion it has not perished. May be we have withdrawn that's all. Fresco paintings are rich in their expression and involve a lot of skill for creating it. This is the type of painting practiced by many great artists and had been in popularity for thousands of years. The conservation technique used for frescoes is done only with the objective of making them appear beautiful and we should understand that there is nothing wrong in this act. We are only trying to bring the art back to life by assisting it with improvements and not destroying its originality. Thus, we should welcome the conservation process to be carried out for paintings which have lost their splendor during the pass of time. Only when we do such restoration, things can exist for some more time. As imitation is to poetry, conservation is to paintings. As the famous philosopher Aristotle argued in his work that imitation is not copying but a creative process, such is conservation to paintings as it only preserves and produces more brilliance. I would like to conclude my paper by stating that conservation is necessary to all arts. Only when we preserve it, the future can own it. So, let preservation be supported and welcomed. SECONDARY SOURCES 1. http://msopal29.myweb.uga.edu/ 2. http://www.muralist.org/fresco/intro.html Read More