Preserving paintings, it’s not an alien term for everyone. Or if it is, then here you go. Paintings are not immortal, just like any material on Earth. The wood gets rotten; the paint melts off, some materials chip like chalk. In summary, the materials aren’t immortal.
Even ID printing companies make sure that their work lasts long enough that the wearers of the ID card should go ahead with their career in the company without damaging the ID for a long time. So, here is IDCard PH guiding you on how paintings are maintained through time.
Varnishing Sealants, The Expensive Dodgy Glues They Are
Even if you put sealant through, it melts off after a couple of decades. Epoxy sealants are tough for paintings, but it doesn’t assure that after 100 years, the painting gets immortalized. You see, getting your art immortalized means it needs maintenance. Just like a mummy.
Additionally, restoring a painting can make or break it. For example, look at the restored painting of the botched “Beast Jesus” painting. The painting was originally a renaissance work of the crown of thorns and Cecilia Gimenez, an 81-year-old artist who became a laughingstock of the art community because she did a bad job on it but let’s not judge her whole character and artistic career because of it. Miss Gimenez was a great artist and had better works than the Ecce Homo.
We couldn’t cite a national painting since we don’t know their methods to maintain historic pieces of art like Juan Luna’s “Spolarium.” So, in turn, we have looked upon sources wherein we found how the Mona Lisa got maintained. Up until the time of this writing, the Mona Lisa had a dodgy history when it comes to it. The worlds prettiest painting got stolen.
Also, it got vandalized a couple of times so imagine the curating staff of the Louvre in Paris. They pretty much had a couple of existential crises in their heads. Regardless, the Mona Lisa had a couple of changes through it, and they had to restore the thing. Here’s a guide on how the Mona Lisa got restored, and here are several tips on how to restore and immortalize your paintings.
The Frames
Unbeknownst to us, frames make or break the painting: pun intended. Ask your local id printing company about the importance of frames for ID cards. Back to the topic, the Mona Lisa had a couple of modifications of the frames. The Mona Lisa is a painting created on a poplar wood panel. Also, its outer frame was altered a couple of times in history.
The original poplar frame warped to the extent that by the 20th century, it started to have cracks, so the Louvre Museum committee had to improvise and create two butterfly-shaped braces made of walnut into the poplar panel. Which didn’t last, so they had to modify those braces again, add an oak material, and change the cross braces on the back so that the painting doesn’t fall apart, and that’s just the frame alone.
Actually, there’s a huge portion of the National Museum that had ornate and beautiful frames on them a lot of it has beautiful Greek-Roman style on their frames. That’s what I’ve noticed the previous time that I’ve visited the National Museum, very beautiful frames on very beautiful paintings. I’d love to go back again in the future.
Paint Restoration
Besides frame rectification, there’s also paint restoration in which people like the 81-year-old Cecilia Gimenez botched in the Beast Jesus painting. In 1809, the Mona Lisa received a wash job from the Louvre of Paris and a new coat of varnish. During the revarnishing process in 1910, it got stolen and on the eve of the 20th century, in 1913, the Louvre employee who stole it returned it and served time in prison.
After a few years, when it got returned, it got vandalized. Specifically, by means of getting vandalized, someone created scratches on the middle of the painting filled with watercolor after being vandalized. So, the early 20th-century refurbishing project became a work in progress.
The restoration process continues because the Louvre of Paris plans to restore it to the original 1809 glory of the Mona Lisa, where it had the original colors. Here’s how it got tricky because this was a long-term restoration project, the varnishing job affected the best painting on the planet.
So, if you were planning to have a family heirloom restored, keep well-taken photographs before consulting an artist to restore a priceless painting. The Mona Lisa and the Beast Jesus works are lessons for humanity to tread maintenance of artwork properly. After all, they are fragile because nothing really lasts forever.
Conclusion
It’s not only applicable for the Mona Lisa or national treasures like the Spolarium of Juan Luna. These methods of maintenance for paintings can also be used for family heirlooms, more than 50 years old that you have kept from your ancestors, your grandfather, your dad, your mom who does painting, and the knowledge is all yours.
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