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INTRODUCTION TO MAINTENANCE & RESTORATION
The modern approach to maintenance and restoration issues tends towards minimal intervention, which is to say that the less invasive the remedial work carried out on a sculpture, the better. It is an unfortunate that in the past, a great many fine works have been devalued in terms of both artistic merit and monatary value, by well intentioned but over zealous cleaning and restoration. By the same token, there is clearly nothing to be gained in allowing artworks of cultural importance to rot where they stand.
No better example exists than Michelangelo’s ‘David’ of the difficulty in establishing a balance between the need to preserve our sculptural heratige for future generations and the importance of maintaining the artist’s original intentions (which often includes an acknowledgement of the long term effect of the environment on their sculpture).
At the time of writing, a controversal debate is in progress over the proposed restoration of this most famous of sculptures [ref]. Although the ‘David’ is obviouly a marble carving, however the issues that surround the sculpture’s proposed restoration are no less relevant to cast metal sculpture, or indeed any other form of visual artwork.
Displayed within the controlled environs of the Florentine Accadamia, as it has been since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Michelangelo’s David (completed in 1504), was perviously situated outside in the centre of Florence, for a period of some 400 years. Like the copy that today stands in front of the Palazzo Veccho, the original was exposed to the elements, mob rule (an arm was broken during the Medici riots in 1527), and vandalism (this was as a result of an attack within the Accadamia by Piero Cannata in 1991, which damaged the sculpture’s toes). Perhaps most disturbingly, and indicative of the shifts in modern attitudes towards the long term preservation of sculptural artworks, the ‘David’ was washed with hydrochloric acid by a ‘restorer’ (Aristodemo Costoli), in 1843 – some 30 years before the sculpture’s relocation to the Accadamia.
The current argument concerning the proposed restoration of the ‘David’ allegedly centres around the contrast in two proposed cleaning techniques. Firstly the use of gentle, traditional cleaning methods (in this instance, ‘dry’ cleaning with chamois, natural hair brushes and cotton etc), as proposed by the restorer Agnese Parronchi; and the alternative approch favoured by Parronchi’s superior at the Accadamia, Franca Falletti, which would include the application of active chemical compounds to the sculpture’s affected surfaces.
The differences in opinion and approach have not only split the Department of Works at the highly regraded Galleria dell’ Accadamia (resulting in Parronchi’s resignation), but also split wider opinion, leading many leading academics and experts to call for nothing to be done, or at least have any proposed remedial work suspended until a wider commission can be convened to fully examine the issues and implications of an active restoration. There are many who would argue that to erase the activities of the past is an attempt to ignore the history, even alter the ‘life story’ of the sculpture. The issues at stake, not only in the case of the ‘David’, but many other artworks also, are clearly ambiguous, deep, complex and wide ranging, all at the same time.
In the light of such controversy and differences of opinion, it is impossible to suggest a single programme of maintenance or restoration to fit all situations. Each individual artwork should be examined on it’s own merits, though in all cases, nothing should be done without expert investigation and advice. As a rule, invasive restoration treatments should only be initiated in cases where a failiure to do so would probably result in severe damage or loss of the work (through extreme corrsion, or extensive vandalism and other physical damage).
This minimalist approach to restoration is not to suggest that [cast] sculptures should not undergo some routine maintenance, or reinvigoration from time to time. Indeed some regular maintenance may well prevent the long term deterioration of a sculpture which would eventually lead to the need for extensive (and expensive), restoration. Any maintenance done should however, always be sympahetic to the artwork, the intent of the artist, and not accelerate any deterioration in the sculpture’s fabric.
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