Giorgio Vasari ’s “ Last Supper , ” catastrophically damaged by the 1966 flooding of the Arno River in Florence , has at last been pick together again — with the help of glue made from sturgeon . That ’s good : Pisces the Fishes .
TheGetty Foundationin Los Angeles funded the dingy work , which was so complex it had been put on hold for nearly half a century until the necessary artistry restoration techniques had been build up . These include the awing array of materials and technological unconscious process used by art refinisher , who zero - in on extraordinarily specific parameters of a given musical composition of fine art : its thermal expansion , its reaction to humidness , even the barometric pressure in the room or display case , all of which give these object the feel of biological specimen on display in a natural story museum . They are not stagnant artifacts , in other words , but living object that perspire , swell , breathe , and react to sunshine .
Whole new type of materials also need to be grow to pursue the task of object restoration . In the specific case of Vasari ’s “ Last Supper , ” the case-by-case panels of the painting — which had been tell apart after their flood legal injury — shrank differentially by as much as 3 centimeters , heave the overall painting and making it impossible to check back together .
As the Guardian explain last calendar week , the house painting ’s Humpty Dumpty - comparable condition was bring to an death by some rather low - technical school means — such as pushing “ flyspeck slivers of wood ” into the gaps between panels — in increase to a weirdly unexpected example of biomimicry , like re - coat the surface of the picture with “ a glue made from sturgeon brought to Florence by Russian experts after the flood . ” The back of the painting was then surgically stabilized using a series of “ specially crafted ” crossbar , similar to brace used in resetting a broken leg ; one of these twosome was in reality made by Vasari himself to help hold the original picture in one piece .
In any example , the chemical substance , caloric , and atmospheric stabilization of diachronic object is an extraordinarily interesting field in footing of its technical pauperization and its scientific advances . Every painting , statue , piece of piece of furniture , sarcophagus , and other ancient physical object you see in a museum today is its own little technical accomplishment , like rare orchidaceous plant held in little greenhouses of illumination and temperature specifically tailor for them , minuscule atmospheres and ecosystem displayed on plinths for you to see and bask as “ history . ” [ Guardian ]
image courtesy of theGetty .
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