|
LEONARDO
DA VINCI
University
of Western Australia Extension
JANUARY 2005
Four Lectures by
LORENZO MATTEOLI
FOURTH LECTURE
The Restoration of the Last Supper
Homage to Pinin Brambilla Barcilon
The
decision
The Milan Superintendent and Central Italian Authority for the Conservation
and Protection of Cultural Heritage had to deal with a rapid and unstoppable
decay process, provoked by a chain of unfortunate events which took place
over more than 5 centuries. It was clear that a meaningful part of the
masterpiece was still recoverable and that something had to be done that
was conceptually and technologically clear and certain. In this type of
work there is no margin for error.
The technique chosen and the operational method were defined in order
to achieve the best results with the minimum risk. The twenty years (in
fact 22 years) of work are more than justified by the results.
The painting is readable and also its basic importance for the history
of the Italian Renaissance Painting is revealed. The work of art has been
analyzed in technical and operational details that have been unknown up
to now and new light has been shed on the complex personality of Leonardo
in previously unknown terms.
Restoration as an archaeological process and as a mean for knowledge
A result that seems to me to have been missed by many commentators, but
that I think, on its own justifies the challenge, is that with the information
acquired about the painting, the technique, the media, the colours, the
pigments, and the details of the fantastic manual ability of Leonardo,
it would be possible today to produce a plausible original of the work
(not a copy!) as it appeared when Leonardo cleaned his brush for the last
time and left the Refectory after a long, intense and perhaps slightly
worried scrutiny of his Last Supper. The chromatic tones, painting gestures,
transparencies, luminosity, chiaroscuro, fading shadows, perspective ……
all are documented and clear.
While walking home that night, Leonardo was content and satisfied with
himself: at last something was “finito”, by golly! (or whatever
was the equivalent Florentine expletive of the time).
But something deep in his mind was nagging him, something he knew, but
could not tell anybody.
Pinin's
gift
The true gift of Pinin Brambilla is not only to have brought back to a
readable condition what was left of the original Leonardo painting, but
also to have made available for electronic modern graphic software the
data-base for the ultimate, supreme and unequalled form of restoration:
the actual remaking of the Last Supper as Leonardo saw it that last night.
Goethe’s dream, in his passionate report to his Lord the Grand Duke
Charles Augustus of Saxony, and the dream of Giuseppe Bossi - to save
the Last Supper from the almost complete devastation that he foresaw.
That will be possible with the sophisticated printing technologies now
available and with the legacy of knowledge and documentation discovered
in twenty-two years of constant and patient endeavour by Pinin Brambilla
Barcilon.
Never have so many owed so much - to one person!
Originals,
copies, clones
The vociferous critics like Mr. Ross King, James Beck and Martin Kemp
seem not to understand that the result of a restoration challenge, such
as the one performed on the Last Supper by Leonardo, is not only the new
readability of the painting and prevention of further decay which, in
themselves, would be great achievements, but also the precious knowledge
recovered and made available for future applications.
(Warning! dangerous idea ahead, supporting
these ideas could lead you into serious trouble! LM)
The specific culture that still today dominates the sector of visual arts,
rejecting the idea of a “perfect copy” is, in my opinion, not
justified. The copy to them has no value, even if absolutely perfect.
The puzzling thing is that this same culture naturally and unconditionally
appreciates the infinite copies which are constantly made of Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony or Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik or of the Beatles’
song “Imagine”, to name but a few.
Somebody has yet to explain to me the effective semantic difference between
an authentic object and its “exact” copy.
If two items are “identical”, by that very definition there
is no difference between them, other than in the perversity of our biased
sectarian culture.
When this cultural fad has passed, we will see the re-birth of beautiful
masterpieces, today lost through the inevitable ravages of time and negligence.
EDP (electronic data processing) technology is available. The technology
to transfer the data to the surface to be painted is available (millions
of chromatic shades can be reproduced). Data are gathered little by little
through works similar to the one performed on the Last Supper in Milan.
What is lacking now is the vision and cultural courage to proceed.
But that will come, and in the not too distant future.
The
challenge of the restoration
To give you an idea of the technical challenge of the restoration of the
Last Supper and from the human point of view, I will translate the first
two pages of the book by Pinin Brambilla Barcilon “Leonardo: L’Ultima
Cena” (Electa, Milan, 1999). The book has recently been published
in English and can be bought from Amazon for $82 (Australian).
“For centuries
the knowledge of the Cenacolo (from Latin “cenaculum” the dining
room in ancient Roman houses generally on the first floor of the house)
has been suspended between the myth and the mystifying interpretation,
amplified by the world resonance of the painting.
Everything, with the deeply innovative and stunning reality of the work,
conjured to transfer in time the idea of the original. It is a known history:
the truly qualified copies and the copies of the copies have rebuilt or
have tried to rebuild the most celebrated composition; writings, essays,
witnesses have repeatedly documented the situation of the Cenacolo, as
in a dramatic chronology that reported the slow and progressive agony
(death) of the masterpiece.
With Leonardo still living. the painting began its unstoppable decay according
to what Vasari wrote in 1566 (“ nothing can be seen if not a glaring
blob…”). This sentence also gives us the feeling of the magic
light of that “atmospheric breathing” that still emanates from
the painted wall and that we keep retrieving in the parts that survived
the ruins.
…
The task and commitment in front of a painting such as the Cenacolo, that
miraculously arrived to us with its little certainties and its many mysteries,
border often with despair and a feeling of helplessness to get a step
closer to the truth of this painter: “…the Lord of all things
that can fall into the mind of man…” (Leonardo Trattato della
Pittura pag. 9)
Scientific operation on this work is a privilege that implies a severe,
steel-like discipline.
The experience has been a new one with each day, captivating, but always
solidly contained within the boundaries of careful thoughtfulness, proof
and constant consultation.The great “patient” has now been treated
for more than twenty years: short terms cannot even be conceived. The
work carried out in these years has brought positive results, but also
showed us that many parts of the famous painting are irretrievably lost.
We are gratified anyway by the many discoveries made during the patient
work: the most important of all being the restitution of a precise painted
text, carried out with the attention and care essential when painting
on a board.
The daily diary of the work in progress supplies a precious data base
and unique information, invaluable to all those who are now studying the
matter in depth.
…
Objectives of the restoration
The objectives of the restoration were:
- To find and bring to light any original paint of Leonardo, cleaning
the grime and the re-paintings of previous restorers. Where no original
colour was detected through careful probing the paint of the restorers
had to be left.
- Once the original Leonardo colors were found and freed from any repainting,
a visual texture has to be re-constituted to allow readability of the
figures and volumes.
- To eliminate condensation and the dynamics that determined it
- To protect and control the environment in order to reduce or eliminate
causes of possible future decay (dust, grime, microscopic particulates,
spores and fungi)The methods applied
The method applied by Pinin Brambilla Barcilon can be summarized in the
following points:
1. Observation: The painting has been observed in detail with microscopes,
lenses and special lights to detect whatever information could be detected
visually: thicknesses, layers, type of scales etc.
2. Probing and testing: to detect the chemical composition of the layers,
pigments, hardness, adhesion, and to ascertain if under the top layers
any of the original paint was still in place;
3. Macro-photography: a survey has been made to document the situation
prior to the beginning of the last restoration;
4. A complete layout of the cracks was made in order to control possible
future deterioration.
5. Micro-probes to ascertain the type of plaster, preparation and priming
throughout the wall;
On the basis of the knowledge acquired, the different operational strategies
were then devised for the various specific situations “in the field”:
* Cleaning the grime, removing dust.
* Removing with light solvent the restorers’ re-painting.
* Removing with stronger solvent locally applied the harder glues and
putties.
* .Re-building the readability of the figures and volumes with sepia tonal
water colour on the voids (righettatura): Pinin’s great mastery.
Most part of the endless job was cleaning with solvents of different strength
to eliminate the re-painting of the various restorers. The solvents were
applied on leaflets of Japanese paper and patted delicately on the areas
to lean. The size of the leaflets were approximately 10 x 10 cm or smaller
Where the paint or the fixatives (glues and casein putty) left by previous
restorers were too hard. the cleaning was done by hand with small brushes,
scale by scale, fragment by fragment.
Each specific spot had to be considered individually to devise the correct
and consistent M.O.
From the objectives stated and the methods devised it was clear that the
process would take a very long time.
The Book by Pinin Brambilla (see bibliography) gives a complete account
of the restoration and through its plain and matter-of-fact language it
is possible to perceive the drama and the tension of the life-long challenge.
This is the review of the book on the Boston Globe:
Leonardo, The Last Supper
Pinin Brambilla Barcilon and Pietro C. Marani
Leonardo, The Last Supper, translated from the Italian, is the definitive
record of the recently completed restoration of Leonardo's great masterpiece
in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.
This book presents full-scale reproductions of details from the fresco
that clearly display and distinguish Leonardo's hand from that of the
restorer. With nearly 400 color reproductions, a comprehensive report
of the project by chief conservator Barcilon, and an introductory essay
by art historian and project co director Pietro C. Marani that focuses
on the history of the fresco, Leonardo, The Last Supper is an invaluable
historic record, an extraordinarily handsome book, and an essential volume
for anyone who appreciates the beauty, technical achievements, and fate
of Renaissance painting.
"The painstaking twenty-year project, directed by renowned restoration
artist Pinin Brambilla Barcilon, removed centuries of grime, as well as
the brush strokes of previous restorers who have been retouching the fragile
painting practically since Leonardo finished it in 1498. . . . Preserved
now by a sophisticated air filtration system and reopened . . . to the
public, by appointment only, the Last Supper is reborn. Brambilla told
reporters her work was a 'slow, severe conquest, which, flake after flake,
day after day, millimeter after millimeter, fragment after fragment, gave
back a reading of the dimensions, of the expressive and chromatic intensity
that we thought was lost forever.'"
The Boston Globe
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/504271_christ.html
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/504271_philip.html
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/504271_john.html
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/504271_thaddeus.html
A
diagrammatic history of the restoration sequence
diagrams by L. Matteoli
What is left
At the end of the long work of Pinin Brambilla Barcilon the results are
clearly visible in a painting that has the luminosity and highlights that
must have left the first visitors in awe five centuries ago.
The Book published (see bibliography) with the exceptional macro photos
witnesses both the result and the incredible monumental 22-year long challenge
of Mrs. Pinin Brambilla. Inevitably, there were critics and I collate
here some of the echoes of the controversy. At the end are my comments
on their exercise.
Restoration
of da Vinci's Last Supper 'an affront to art lovers'
By Chris Endean in Rome
AFTER 20 years of bitter debate that has split the international art world,
the public will deliver its own verdict this week on the controversial
restoration of The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece. The 500-year-old
wall painting, obscured by scaffolding for the past two decades, will
be unveiled at the Santa Maria delle Grazie monastery in Milan on Friday.
Italy's minister for arts, Giovanna Melandri, has hailed it as "the
restoration of the century", but a leading international art critic
describes the finished work "as a forgery". Professor James
Beck, who is a member of the art history department at Columbia University
in New York, said: "To claim this is the original is pure nonsense.
It's taking art lovers for a ride." Pinin Brambilla has spent two
decades - seven times longer than da Vinci took to paint the original
- peeling off layers of attempts to paint over the gaps in the famous
picture. But, with 80 per cent of the original Last Supper missing after
250 years of decay and degradation, the restorer has also done some extensive
repainting. Michele Cordaro, director of Rome's Institute for Restoration,
said: "The public will see not so much a restoration of The Last
Supper, but a conservation of what remains of da Vinci's original."
Prof Beck said: "Nonsense. This woman has simply produced a new Brambilla.
What you have is a modern repainting of a work that was poorly conserved.
It doesn't even have an echo of the past. At least the older over-paintings
were guided by Leonardo's work." According to Prof Beck, Miss Brambilla
has gone as far as to fill in Christ's head, although not even da Vinci
completed the figure. He said: "It looks silly. The mouth is peculiar
and off-centre." Supporters claim that Miss Brambilla work has brought
greater clarity and colour to The Last Supper: a group of dark and grimy
figures gathered around a grey table. Miss Brambilla said: "Take
Matthew. We always knew him with dark hair yet we discovered that he was
blond." She also points to the exquisitely painted flowers, bread,
glasses, knives and plates previously invisible but which now fill the
table in front of the Apostles. However, Michael Daley, editor of Art
Watch and a contributor to Art Review, has described Miss Bramble’s
work as "simply catastrophic". He wrote: "The restoration
has cut the painting's link with the past, reducing it to little more
than a naked wall." Even Martin Kemp, Professor of History of Art
at Oxford and a world expert on da Vinci, has questioned Miss Bramble’s
decision to fill in the gaps with similar tones of water-colours. Prof
Kemp, soon after the restoration began, said: "In The Last Supper,
the amount of original work by Leonardo is very small." The leading
Italian expert on da Vinci, Carlo Pedretti, recently likened work on The
Last Supper to an archaeological site, with restorers digging through
the past to excavate remnants of a once-great painting. Official criticism
of a project that has come to symbolise the government's investment in
state-of-the-art restoration techniques to conserve its rich artistic
heritage is frowned upon in Italy. Mr Cordaro said: "I don't think
Beck has even seen the finished product. Sixty per cent of the original
is still there." Giulio Bora, an expert in Renaissance history at
Milan University said: "No one could have worked better than Brambilla.
After all, they've been trying to save The Last Supper since the mid-1500s."
Da Vinci's refusal to follow tradition and paint the fresco on the monastery's
refectory wall when its plaster was still wet meant that The Last Supper
was cracking and peeling within his lifetime. By 1620, it was scarcely
recognisable and the Spaniards unwittingly stuck a door in the middle
of the wall. Artists tried a variety of techniques to restore the painting,
from the use of oils and glue to stop it dropping off to a bizarre Twenties
scheme to iron out creases. By the Fifties, over-painting was eating away
at the original and doing more damage than a Second World War bomb that
scored a direct hit on the monastery. Then, in 1953, Mauro Pelliccioli,
a master restorer, appeared to have safeguarded da Vinci's creation with
a glue-like substance that set like rock. But, in 1979, Miss Brambilla
was given the go-ahead to chip away at the protective shield and get at
the original. Prof Beck said: "Twenty years later, we are left with
a perception of Leonardo's work that never was."
(Daily Telegraph London)
Who Owns Art?
Who Owns the Last Supper?
by Tibor R. Machan
Professor James Beck of Columbia University was steamed, at least back
in 1995, when he expressed his dismay to "60 Minutes" about
efforts to restore Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. Today the job is completed
and there are still folks who share Professor Beck's outlook.
What is at issue? I am no art historian, let alone an expert at art restoration.
I understand, however, that there is a controversy about restoring famous
works of art, mostly in Italy. The reason is that the precise composition
of such paintings is rarely known. We know mostly that we do not know
and, when that is the case, meddling becomes extremely risky. Professor
Beck argued that in such cases it is best to leave things be, not to restore
but to allow the work to fade away. He says it is better that it should
die than that we should murder it.
Yet the city of Milan, which owns the work, disagreed and now the work
is, for better or for worse, artistically speaking, restored and available
for public viewing again. To this Professor Beck objected on grounds that
the painting doesn't belong to anyone, "it belongs to the world,"
as he put it. Moreover, what seems to irk the good professor is that large
corporations sponsor much of the restoration work throughout the world,
especially in Italy where so many masterpieces are located and cared for.
And that, to this professor (like to most others), is sacrilege. Corporations
and art cannot mix.
What is puzzling in this attitude, apart from its blatant arbitrariness
and prejudice, is its historical ignorance. All artists and thus all art
has had patrons, mostly the rich and powerful. Indeed, in olden days,
the rich and the powerful who sponsored works of art were sometimes rather
brutal men. Corporations may be big but mostly they get their wealth from
investors, not military conquests and colonial expansion. For my money,
then, the latest patrons are by far preferable to the earlier ones.
What about Professor Beck's claim that the world owns the works? Frankly
that's just nonsense. I certainly don't and I am included in this world.
I go to museums and enjoy the privilege of viewing the works of great
masters who sold or gave their works away so they came down in history
for us to enjoy. But no, we do not own them. If we did, we would have
come by them through theft!
So what does it mean when a famous professor from Columbia University
declares that the major works of art in the world are owned by the world?
My suspicion is that it means he wants to control what happens to them–on
our behalf, of course! Certainly he wouldn't want the works to be managed
democratically, by some kind of vote, nor individually, by each citizen
of the world. It would be impossible.
No, Professor Beck and others, properly self-anointed, should be in charge,
that is the most logical inference to be drawn from such a claim. And
most cases of such public ownership amount to nothing less than some people
invoking public ownership so as to accomplish a de facto personal expropriation.
Just watch it. When someone claims that an ancient tribe or a certain
people own a piece of land, look out. It is usually a way to expropriate
the land, to gain control over it, to make the kind of use of it the person
making this claim has in mind.
I do not mean that this is about deliberate fraud or even greed, not at
all. Folks making such claims are probably convinced that they are saying
something terribly profound and meaningful. It is just that they are wrong.
The world, contrary to the distinguished Professor James Beck, does not
own The Last Supper, nor any other artistic masterpiece. In the case of
The Last Supper the city of Milan is as close to its owner we can now
identify. So we have to live with the fact that they will be deciding
whether to restore it, among other matters. That is, of course, difficult
for some people to live with. They cannot come to terms with the reality
that they will be left out of controlling something they are so interested
in. But a sign of maturity is to realize just that.
* * * * *
Tibor R. Machan teaches at the Argyros School of Business and Economics,
Chapman University, CA, and is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution,
Stanford
Dear fellow correspondents
local newspapers ran an annoying feature recently about the unveiling
of Leonardo's Last Supper. The caption for a small front page photo in
the Friday, May 28 Raleigh, NC News and Observer (from the Associated
Press) says the work "took 22 years and drew many critics."
As described in the before ("1982") and after ("today")
photo captions on an inside page, "Leonardo da Vinci's grease- and
grime-blackened masterpiece is no more. After years of scrubbing and scraping
(sic), Italy unveiled "The Last Supper in its new lighter and brighter
form." The caption includes comments from Pinin Brambilla Barcilon,
who has overseen the work, and James Beck. It is said there's no such
thing as bad publicity, but this sort of thing really makes me mad. A
detailed technical report of the treatment is not appropriate in this
popular press context, but I don't think "scrubbing and scraping"
is an accurate description of the years of research and decades of work
put into this project, or indeed into any conservation project. This sort
of thing emphasises the need for AIC, conservation agencies, museums,
and individual conservators to generate accurate and understandable positive
information, and get it out there to the media and to clients and the
public directly.
Janet W. Hessling (hessling@mindspring.com)
Statement by Pinin Brambilla after twenty years of work:
"The painstaking twenty-year project, directed by renowned restoration
artist Pinin Brambilla Barcilon, removed centuries of grime, as well as
the brush strokes of previous restorers who have been retouching the fragile
painting practically since Leonardo finished it in 1498. . . . Preserved
now by a sophisticated air filtration system and reopened . . . to the
public, by appointment only, the Last Supper is reborn. Brambilla told
reporters her work was a 'slow, severe conquest, which, flake after flake,
day after day, millimetre after millimetre, fragment after fragment, gave
back a reading of the dimensions, of the expressive and chromatic intensity
that we thought was lost forever.'"—The Boston Globe
A final comment on the “critics” of the restoration
They are generally professors of History of Art, with no competence in
dealing with restoration or conservation problems. When you have no administrative
responsibilities or mandate to be accountable to, it is easy to suggest
that the monument be allowed to decay, if restoraton seems impossible.
If the proposal had to be considered seriously and not as a paradox it
is criminal nonsense.
Even the idea that it would have been better to keep the vulgar re-painting
by Bellotti, Mazza and Barezzi because they were “guided by the hand
of Leonardo” (James Beck) does not make any sense at all and is a
clear indication that whoever suggested it did not see the final result
of the restoration. If he has seen it, then the remark is plainly dishonest.
G. Bonsanti in his article on the “Giornale dell’Arte”
(see Bibliography) is correct when he writes that it is easy to criticise
Italian monumental restoration projects (Sistine Chapel, Last Supper)
because the fallout in free notoriety is huge. with no risk of libel suits
involved. These people are not considered at all for their actual research
and works, which is completely ignored, whereas their hysterical tantrums
about the Last Supper are published all over the World.
The hundreds of thousands visitors to the painting in Milan since 1999
are the best witnesses to shame the sycophantic critics.
My
personal conclusion
I think that the restoration was an almost unbelievable deed: it required
conceptual rigour, enormous courage and a lifelong dedication, competence
and skills, high technology tools, control and passion.
It was not only the restoration of a decayed painting, it was an archaeological
project that gathered comprehensive information, both on the making of
the painting and on the subsequent processes of decay and of maintenance,
successful or devastating as they were.
The data recovered on pigments, colours, media, priming, preparation and
plaster added to the original painted areas can in fact support the idea
to produce a new plausible original or to “clone” the Last Supper.
A “Clone” would be an original of Leonardo’s Last Supper
produced through EDP, The term, quite appropriate to the concept, has
been suggested by one of the students of the UWA Extension Course.
I proposed the idea to the Milan Soprintendenza ai Beni Artistici in the
letter that I report as an appendix to these notes..
Considering the possibility that, in the course of the next ten to twenty
years, even what has been recovered by Pinin Brambilla Barcilon may disappear,
fall off, or irreparably fade, the data-base collected is a unique, invaluable
asset.
Invaluable, unique assets sooner or later will be used.
When the present day unjustified elitist cultural rejection of “copies”
will be a thing of the past and when the concept of a “plausible
original” or of a “clone” of the original will be customarily
accepted by an unbiased, commonsensical way of thinking, the gift of Pinin
Brambilla will be fully appreciated and used for its incredible potential
: to see again the Last Supper as Leonardo saw it, when he cleaned his
brushes for the last time - and stepped down from the scaffolding.Appendix
1
Letter to the Milan Soprintendenza about the possibility to “clone”
the Last Supper.
Lorenzo
Matteoli
P.O. Box 732
Scarborough 6022
Western Australia
Dr.essa
Ede Palmieri
Soprintendenza Per I Beni Artistici E Storici
Via Brera, 28
20121 Milano (MI) Scarborough 10.12.2004
Cara
Dottoressa Palmieri,
This is to inform you about my thoughts after the long and lively conversation
on the phone on Friday December 3rd (2004): I thank you again for the
kind and patient attention and again I apologize for my technological
“petulance”.
I have never dealt with restoration of paintings and my competence is
limited to the interest with which I followed the works of the archaeology
and restoration faculty members at the School of Architecture in Turin
(Paolo Verzone, Daria Debernardi, Andrea Bruno) and one very specific
experience with Adriano La Regina.
My interest in the “Last Supper” is the result of a study that
I recently carried out to prepare a course on Leonardo da vinci for the
University of Western Australia. Quite obviously I saw the painting in
Milan last September.
And here are my thoughts:
1. The restoration carried out for over 22 years by Pinin Brambilla Barcilon
is a basic conceptual and procedural reference of unbelievable value:
cleaning, clearing most of the centuries old makeovers and abusive additions,
recovery of original parts, integration with neutral “tone”
effects to allow the perception of the figures and of the volumes. Control
of ongoing decay processes, restoration of healthy environmental conditions
of the wall and of the space so as to grant a long life to what had been
restored: a practical and conceptual encyclopaedia of practices, methods,
technologies, materials and procedures that covers the field from the
philosophy to the grammar of restoration. A unique text emblematically
supported by the most significant masterpiece of the Italian renaissance.
2. The restoration made available a wealth of data and knowledge the value
of which goes far beyond the specific restored subject.
3. This potential almost naturally suggests the idea of using the data
and the knowledge to “rebuild a plausible original” of the painting:
a complex data processing system to identify through physical and technical
deductions a way to define the colours and hues of the missing parts and
of Leonardo’s painting touch and manual trait.
4. I believe that this idea is feasible even today, but could be rejected
by the current philological restoration paradigm. The result could be
qualified as an arbitrary “copy” of the painting. The peculiarity
of being a “plausible reconstruction of the original” could
be denied. On top of that present day technology and EDP means could be
not yet mature jeopardising the end result.
5. But in 5, 10 or 20 years these conditions could change: EDP tools could
be much more sophisticated and the technology to reconstruct a “plausible
original” could become very reliable.
6. In the same time the process of decay of the painting as now restored,
even if very slow, could progress (not taking into account more dire possibilities
like earthquakes or crumbling of the wall): it does not seem completely
unreasonable to think of a more or less near future when the original
painting will have disappeared and all that will be left is the documentation
produced by Pinin Brambilla Barcilon: macro photographs and other material
physical and chemical data.
7. Also the present negative critical attitude towards “copies”
could change. A radical rejection which is very peculiar to our time,
but which is conceptually very weak if not completely untenable. Are we
sure that the Samotracian Nike is not a copy of a previous original that
was destroyed by some earthquake? Or that the Monna Lisa today in the
Louvre is not a copy of the original made during the many adventures of
the painting after the purchase by Francis the First (Fontainbleau, Versailles,
Tuileries, Louvre) or a copy made by Yves Chaudron between 1911 and 1913
during the famous theft by Vincenzo Perugia?I think that strategic guidelines
are needed to deal with this not so improbable future situation so that
the possibility to rebuild a plausible original (or a “clone”)
is set out and granted.
The physical archive should be prepared (spectroscopy survey) as well
as the digitalisation of the macro photographic database: an expert could
be helpful here.
As for the legal rights on the image the competent Authorities should
organize the means to control that unauthorized third parties do not produce
“plausible reconstructions of the original” for commercial or
tourist exploitation.
A feasibility study on present day technical possibilities to produce
“plausible reconstructions of the original” could also be useful
to allow proper preventive measures. Maybe mine are just fantasies, but
it is possible that they could be suggestive of some useful, practical
decision.
I thank you for the attention and send to you my friendly greetings and
the best wishes for the coming Christmas Season.
Lorenzo Matteoli
|
