A Very Unusual Workshop And School Training Rare Professional Art Restorers

Atelier du Temps Passé is a fabulous workshop and most unusual school!  Let me take you inside to see the incredible work these students are training to master a rare craft and little known career; art restorers!!

Knowledge of ancient techniques and modern science are the tools of the trade for restorers of art.  Students there learn to restore paintings, all types of documents and graphics and even damaged statues in a comprehensive professional restoration workshop.

Every prominent museum in the world definitely would need one or several, yet these very accomplished polished professionals are a rare breed.

During my visit, I felt immersed in learning about a profession I knew little to zero, as their work is all done behind the scenes for the most part.

 

 

 

 

 

I have often marvelled at the restorations of ancient mosaics, frescos and monuments, sometimes seen being accomplished, but never had I seen the meticulous details that go into the restoration of paintings and documents.

Although I knew practically nothing about this very noble profession, I certainly identified with some of the challenges they face in restoring a damaged piece of art.

As a therapist, all of my “works” are human beings beaten up and tattered by life in need of being bought back to see their original beauty, that has been hidden from their eyes.

I also identified with the patience that art restorers must have to finish their marvellous restorations. Like psychotherapy, it takes time and much skill, but unlike art, there is much effort and patience on the part of patients!

Meticulous and very detailed work is needed for months to bring back the original glory of a chipped, torn, threadbare and splotched painting or faded and torn document.

This includes restoration of frames or new framing that would further enhance and protect the painting.

The atelier also does gold leafing to frames as well.

As I discovered, few of the students went directly into these type of studies, which is understandable, since the specialized field of restoration is a rather exotic sideline of the art world.

Hidden behind the scenes, they toil serenely at a snail’s pace in order to bring about such a successful restoration, that most observers would have no idea that the piece of art was ever damaged in the first place.

I could only shake my head at the sight of the poor painting above taped together that had been rolled and then folded flat, causing multiple creases, separation and tears.

I could not imagine how in the world anybody could restore something that looked so unsalvageable! In my eyes, it looked ready for the trash bin, but not at all to the restorer!

The restorer actually said that this wreck of a painting posed less of a challenge than the one next to it, that looked fairly normal to me.

I have always said that hope is eternal for patients, but apparently, this applies in art restoration too!

How is the world could that be I asked.  Her answer was that the other painting is not only more modern but more valuable too.

Plus it was actually more fragile and that pollution had sullied the paint beneath that had not been varnished correctly.

In order to effect a restoration, it would require a method of nanotechnology that I was told is more precarious and difficult to achieve.

 

 

 

 

 

The first step is diagnosing the damage and dating the art and finding out about the materials used to create it during that time period.

Atelier du Temps Passé also does authentification, to rule out counterfeits if needed.  They are in partnership with Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Sorbonne’s lab of Molecular Archaeology, which develops non-invasion methods of detecting various aspects and materials used in the work of art.

A microscopic investigation is important in this process and in some instances repairs to the underlying fibres making up the canvas can be made using microscopic instruments, different but not unlike those used in medicine.

Students must learn about the chemistry of paints used during the past and how oxidation of these paints occur over time in order to restore the painting to the original colours of the artist.

Paintings can deteriorate due to the wear and tear of time, but also due to light, humidity, and pollution.

Authentic restoration means restoring the work as closely as possible to the materials used during the time it was created.  Surprisingly this includes the glues used on the canvas!

Various glues were used in different parts of the world.  Works from Eastern Europe and Russia used glues made from the sturgeon fish(the most expensive) or fish membranes.

French and other European artists used glue made from the skin of rabbits.  Not surprisingly as rabbits have been and remain popular in classical French and other European cuisines.

After the application of glues, small irons are used to seal the glue in place.  These are used in repairing chipped paints to restoring edges of the canvas. 

Meet lovely Zoé, who was busy demonstrating copying techniques that restorers are called to do for various reasons.  She is a student from London who was undertaking a new career path after initial studies in psychology.

Despite my insistence that she had artistic talents because I found her recreation of the painting a masterpiece that looked better than the original, she humbly refused to consider herself an artist, because to her eyes she did not design, nor create the original painting.

My argument that she must be an artist at the core to have done a wonderful job of painting the copy with expertly recreated lighting, shading and immaculate detail only brought her to concede that she is in an artistic field, rather than being an artist.

She went on to describe how the manual aspect of art restoration provides a zen-like ambience for her, to feel lost in the moment of extremely detailed endeavours.

I noticed that acute focus of attention in some of the third year students working on their “memoires”, which is rather a thesis to be completed and presented as a testimony of their skills at the end of their studies.

Obviously, skilful attention to detail is an absolute must in order to restore art.  Carl Jung called those type of people as being sensate, a personality variant consensus with artists, surgeons, etc, versus the intuitive, such as myself and most other therapists.

A student admitted that a very faded and threadbare damaged painting was certainly a challenge for her that will take several months to restore, but the process, however tedious was something she vastly enjoyed doing.

She would have to reglue the whole work to another canvas to prevent the painting from literally falling off, preserving what she can without further damage; a procedure I did not see possible to my uneducated eyes.

Another student was restoring a painting that had been completed covered over with paint.  She suspected it was a saint and that the artist felt compelled to hide due to the possibility of persecution.

Religious and political persecution compelled several artists to conceal works out of fear.  But many poor artists would paint over their works to save money on canvases, or if they did not like the original one underneath.

Vincent van Gogh was notorious is doing this and Picasso would too. Modern x-ray technology is used to discover these hidden anomalies.

I certainly could identify with this too as it applies to some patients, who since childhood have been overly moulded by narcissistic parents away from their true self and talents only to discover these hidden remnants of themselves later in life.

Then there are the facades or personas some patients take on out of the need to protect themselves or project a false image.

I came away from my visit with much appreciation for these professionals in training.  Restoration is a very valued and much-needed skill in our modern throwaway society which has a tendency to place greater value on newness and replacements.

Fortunately, in France and other countries of Europe, preservation and conservation of art, monuments, architecture, historical buildings and certain artistic traditions are valued with ongoing efforts to preserve, restore and maintain them.

New scientific and medical investigation, invention and innovation I applaud at full speed.  But in art, beauty expressed is timeless and deserves to be preserved and glorified for generations to come.

From what I saw in talking to these impressive students and the expression of the passion they felt in undertaking such difficult work; damaged works of art will certainly find new life in their expert and knowledgeable hands.