Conservation and Art HistoryAuthor(s): James Coddington and Maryan AinsworthSource: Art Journal, Vol. 54, No. 2, Conservation and Art History (Summer, 1995), pp. 16-17Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777457 .

Accessed: 10/06/2014 14:29

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

College Art Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.78.109.52 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 14:29:56 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

edtrs0tae en*

Conservation and Art History

Jaumles (oddiugtoii a nd Maryau Aiusiorth

16 he essays in this Art Journal defy neat or tidy categoriza- tion. The breadth of issues addressed is matched by a breadth of periods, materials, and methods. Indeed, the

periods discussed in some of these papers fall outside the nominal area of the Art Journal, but in every instance wide-ranging meth-

odological concerns are raised. This, we believe, is a function of

placing the object itself at the center of investigation. The object and its physical history thus become a source of both broad questioning and detailed inquiry The disciplines identified in the prosaic title "Conservation and Art History" are served by the various methods

represented in these papers. Both are greatly enriched by the ef-

forts, often collaborative, of such investigations. The first question that needs to be asked is that of the object

of study. Mark Leonard and Louise Lippincott approach James Ensor's Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889 with a classic technical

analysis of the materials and methods of the artist coupled with a

commendably demystified account of the restoration. Yetthis forces a reexamination of the artwork's place in the history of art because its construction is not inherently modern as has been previously thought by some scholars. Similarly, by closely examining Edgar Degas's Study in the Nude for the Dressed Ballet Dancer, Daphne Barbour has added new evidence about this work that in turn raises

some general questions about Degas's working methods and unor-

thodox materials. This early example of a more characteristically modern fabrication illustrates how from the object to the artist to the period, the information ripples outward requiring new thought in fundamental areas.

Amy Oakland Rodman and Vicki Cassman argue that careful examination of the materials and techniques of Andean textiles can have a profound impact on our understanding of the marketing and dissemination of them, necessitating revision of assumptions about their style and provenance. It is a study that also enriches our

enjoyment of the objects themselves, investing them with the very real and sophisticated craft involved in their manufacture.

The investigation of how an object was made, important in

itself for conservation practice and for histories of technology and

innovation, can also be part of the more frequently asked question of why it was made. Carol Mattusch's careful study and close

examination of bronze herms from antiquity illustrates most suc-

cinctly that as we understand more about the specific manufacture of an object we can understand more about its cultural setting. This

enables us to see the value of the object both in its own time and in

its relationship to such current questions as the role of mass produc- tion in the making of art.

Every object is indeed created at one time, and so every

object is at some time "contemporary." The influence of markets on

the creation of art, central to the discussions by Mattusch and by Rodman and Cassman, is brought into contemporary focus by

Kimberley Davenport in her interviews with artists. Davenport also

engages directly the problematic issue of intention. Conservators

and art historians often talk or write of the artist's intention. The

answers given by today's artists to queries about their own inten-

tions are sometimes direct and sometimes subtly nuanced, offering information not just about these particular artists but also about the

difficulty of establishing intent, even in the best of historical circum-

stances, the direct interview.

The historical context of restoration itself is yet another

theme several papers examine. William Diebold identifies a deeply

tangled set of historical contexts in the case of the reconstruction of

the Aegina pediments. Giving priority to any one of these contexts

yields a different restoration outcome thereby altering the source of

inquiry, that is the object, itself. This profound dilemma is problem- atic enough when the restoration is generally known and docu-

mented. Laura Weigert identifies an important example of a

nineteenth-century restoration of medieval tapestries that has been

forgotten, causing the changed object to have been viewed "incor-

rectly" for years, with consequent distortions of the associated

scholarship. Simultaneously, she identifies the contingencies of

scholarship and restoration, further complicating the picture. The

peeling away of these historical layers in such an instance is also

SUMMER 1995

This content downloaded from 195.78.109.52 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 14:29:56 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

crucial to any future restoration, should Louis Joubert's version be

given lower priority at some future date. The juxtaposition of these two papers makes evident the extraordinarily difficult problem of

embarking on such a restoration or re-restoration while also making evident the need to restore in order to understand the object fully.

The entanglements of restoration are not only historical. That restorations make plain a set of values, whether formal values or cultural values, and thus can provoke heated debate is altogether still too familiar. Christopher Miele identifies clearly the political context of William Morris's efforts at architectural conservation and the characteristically strange bedfellows that politics engenders. Similarly, Andrew McClellan locates preservation as central to the

development and rationale of a modern institution, the museum. His recitation of the facts of the Louvre cleaning controversies from the

early nineteenth century are reminiscent of more recent disputes in France and elsewhere, but he adds the dimension of the pressure institutions and politics bring to bear on the genesis and resolution of these controversies.

There are numerous current restoration projects around the world that have prompted extensive commentary and attention. The omission of such high-profile projects from this issue of Art Journal is both conscious and symptomatic of the reality of the situation. It is clear that the heated rhetoric surrounding some of these projects has ultimately obscured the scholarship and the increase in knowl-

edge they have indeed contributed. The fact is these papers repre- sent a clearer record of the kind of inquiry that is engaged every day by conservators and associated art historians. That there were no contributions submitted about the high profile projects, whether

dealing with conservation per se or commentary on the restorations, is also indicative that the discussion has left the field of scholarly endeavor and entered an entirely different arena. This issue of the Art Journal is a much needed antidote to the fevered arguments that have surrounded some of these projects.

It would be a misreading of these papers to generalize that by examining the historical situation of restoration the enterprise of

restoration is hopelessly and absolutely hostage to relativism. Such historical information is useful to conservators just as technical data can illuminate a particular work for art historians. More information,

very simply, leads to more informed decisions.

Integrating historical and technical data can often produce ever more probing questions for each discipline to ask of the object. Thus it is that questions identified as the province of traditional art

history, such as the formal and physical qualities of the artwork and its provenance, among many others, are asked here. Questions identified with more academic approaches to art history, economic, social, and political analyses, etc., are also central to these essays. Similarly, teasing fuller documentation of an object's physical history from the historical record can be crucial for the conservator in

formulating treatment options. The work of art itself-the object- is inclusive, capable of embracing inquiry from many disciplines and

capable of enhancing those disciplines. Because the object and close examination of the object is at

the core of this issue, we are especially grateful to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for funding the colorplates in this issue of the Art Journal.

JAMES CODDINGTON is conservator of paintings at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He received an M.S. in art conservation from the University of Delaware.

MARYAN AINSWORTH, senior research fellow, Paintings Conservation Department, Metropolitan Museum of Art, received her Ph.D. in art history from Yale. She recently curated Petrus Christus: Renaissance Master of Bruges.

ART JOURNAL

17

This content downloaded from 195.78.109.52 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 14:29:56 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions