The Dirty Renaissance

The Dirty Renaissance

The Renaissance period is one in the art world that is held just short of the second coming. This “reawakening” is characterized by a renewed interest in human-centered classical art, literature, and learning. Many famous artists and thus pieces of artwork came out of this period, which are still studied by students of art and by professional artists. Famous pieces suck as the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper and the Sistine Chapel were created in this period of art.

It is easy to study these pieces of artwork by simply reading about them in textbooks, or looking at pictures of them on the internet. However, what has happened to the actual original pieces of artwork that the artists created? It would seem that with the technology that we have now, we could easily restore and clean these historical pieces of art, right? The process of restoration and conservation of these pieces of art is not always an easy process, and can possibly create more damage than it is actually worth.

People want to be able to actually see the historic paintings in person today, centuries after they were created. If no attempts were ever made to restore the paintings from the Renaissance, all that we would have left would be these pictures in books and on the web. This is a worldwide issue, that affects not only artists all over the world, but also students and teachers of art throughout the globe, who also would not want to lose huge pieces of history from such a great era in the world of art.

One of the most famous pieces of art that came out of the Renaissance was Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper. Da Vinci painted The Last Supper on a dry wall rather than on wet plaster, so it is not a true fresco or wall painting. This type of painting can not altered as the artist works, so Da Vinci sealed the stone wall with a layer of pitch, gesso and mastic, then painted onto the sealing layer with tempera. This method of painting has not been able to endure time very well and signs of deterioration began to show in the piece within several years of its completion.

Soon after the creation of the piece, it was considered ruined and so damaged that the figures in the piece could not actually be recognized anymore. The first attempt to restore The Last Supper came in 1726 by Michelangelo Bellotti. Bellotti filled in missing sections of the piece with oil paint and varnished the entire piece. This attempt, not being successful, was followed by many more attempts. In 1821 Stefano Barezzi, an expert in removing whole frescoes from their walls intact, was called in to remove the painting to a safer location. Barezzi did not know that the painting was not actually a fresco and badly damaged the center section of the piece. He attempted to reattach the damaged sections with glue, but was not successful. After this event, a lot of examining and studying was done on the paintings’ structure so that in future attempts the painting would not be damaged. Many more artists attempted to clean the piece, although they were not successful. During World War II the piece was further damaged as a bomb struck the refectory and the piece was damaged by the vibrations.

The final restoration attempt came in the year 1978 by Pinin Brambilla Barcilon. He embarked on a major restoration project in which he tried to alleviate Da Vinci's painting, and reverse the damage caused by dirt, pollution, and the ill-advised 18th restoration attempts that preceded his project. It was not practical to actually move the painting to a more controlled environment, so the refectory was converted to a sealed, climate controlled atmosphere. Scientific tests and original cartoons preserved in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle were then used to determine The Last Supper's original form. These were re-painted with watercolor in passive colors intended to indicate they were not original work, whilst not distracting the viewer from Da Vinci's original painting.

Another famous painting that came out of the Renaissance was Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. This painting was on the ceiling of a chapel, and had been damaged by water leaking through the roof, creating white stains that spotted the piece and caused some of the paint to swell. To add to this damage, the ceiling was covered with glue, smoke deposits and paint blunders that took away from the original beauty of the magnificent fresco.

The restoration attempt began after much time was spent studying the fresco so that they would not damage the painting while they were cleaning it. In fact, the research went into such great detail that the restorers even used the same type of scaffold that Michelangelo used so that it would fit into the same holes in the wall that Michelangelo fit his in when the piece was created. As one would imagine, much time was spent fixing other restoration attempts which failed. A special solvent was used to remove the layer of glue that was used during a different restoration effort. The cracks were sealed and missing pieces of the fresco were reattached. Overall, this restoration effort was a success. However, the restorers did not want their work to go to waste, so they installed a new lighting system and a new climate control to the atmosphere where the piece was so that future damage could be minimized.

This attempt to restore a historic painting was successful, but very time consuming. It actually took the restorers twice as long to clean and restore