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Course: Special topics in art history > Unit 2
Lesson 1: The conservator's eye- The conservator's eye: Marble statue of a wounded warrior
- The conservator's eye: Taddeo Gaddi, Saint Julian
- The conservator's eye: a stained glass Adoration of the Magi
- The conservator’s eye: Rembrandt's Aristotle with a Bust of Homer
- The conservator's eye: Madame Cézanne in the Conservatory
- Anselm Kiefer, Bohemia Lies by the Sea
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The conservator's eye: Marble statue of a wounded warrior
The video explores the art of restoring ancient sculptures, like the wounded warrior at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It discusses the balance between preserving the original artist's intent and acknowledging the artwork's age. The concept of 'invisible restoration' and the importance of patina, or surface aging, are also highlighted. Marble statue of a wounded warrior, c. 138-181 C.E., Roman copy of a Greek bronze sculpture of c. 460–450 B.C.E., 220.98 cm high (The Metropolitan Museum of Art). Speakers: Corey D'Augustine and Dr. Beth Harris.
Want to join the conversation?
- What if there were to be a 21st Century artist who's intention was to make the artwork look old? Would that be bothersome towards art historians/ those who view the art?(4 votes)
- Proficient art conservators can see a fake easily enough.
When I was in high school, I worked in a lamp store. We painted white plaster things and then "antiqued" them to make them look old. Nobody pretended they were antiques, just things that looked as if they'd been dug out of an ancient grave. No big deal.(3 votes)
- This was a great video. I saw the repair before it said it was repaired. I was shocked.(4 votes)
- if a new artist was to re add a nose and that art work whould stay at a museum whould thay also get credit for the art work? and what if the artist is dead and they whould not want anyone to try to fix it do they tell pepole before they died dont try to do anything to my art work?(2 votes)
- If this were to be permitted, the contemporary artist might be credited as a defacer. It would be better to make a plaster cast of the "broken" original work, then to put a replacement nose on the cast, and display that somewhere else (say, down at the fast food joint). Seeing the art "as found" and subsequently cleaned up is sufficient. As an example, consider what happened to Michelangelo's Pieta at the Vatican a few decades ago. A man attacked it with a hammer and knocked off bits. It was eventually restored, but the artist is still Michelangelo, not "Michelangelo and JoAnn Restorer".(3 votes)
- Restoration of Wounded Warrior's parts makes sense, but at3:35we see Aphrodite with her lower legs restored. Was there a way to know the exact previous condition of the statue? If no, then, wouldn't it have been better to leave it to visitor's imagination and place only torso?(3 votes)
- Do all sculpture need to be NAKED!(0 votes)
Video transcript
(piano music) - [Woman] We're here in
the ancient Greek and Roman galleries of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art looking at an ancient Roman
sculpture of a wounded warrior. - [Man] This is a dramatic
decision made by the museum here to show only a fragment of this work. He actually is missing
some very important parts, part of his head, his
nose, both of his hands, presumably a weapon, a shield. - [Woman] Some parts have been restored. - [Man] A huge portion of the figure's upper right torso is lost. And it's actually been resupplied here. What would it look like without
a big chunk of his abdomen? Maybe that's actually
more distracting in a way than lacking a nose. - [Woman] More distracting
and harder to understand what the ancient Roman
sculpture was after. For the ancient Romans and ancient Greeks, the human body was so important and that deliniation of
the muscles in the torso. That would be hard to see if that big part of the torso was missing. Whereas the hands and the nose, maybe we can live without those. - [Man] Maybe, but
definitely if we were looking at this same exact sculpture 100 years ago an artist would have been
hired to resupply that nose, those hands, add a weapon. They may have been completely
different from the original but that artist would have been trying to embellish this work,
make it look more beautiful. - [Woman] We know artists
like Bernini and Michelangelo were involved in helping to reconstruct ancient Greek and Roman works. But I can always tell
a Bernini foot and hand from the ancient sculpture. - [Man] Bernini wanted
you to know what he did because he wanted his
additions to be better than the original. As a conservator, we never try
to improve on the original. What we try to do is
to respect the original artist's intentions as much as possible and the way I like to think about it is we help the work age gracefully. We study the work, we try to understand the original artist's intentions, but we don't falsify
the historical record. We acknowledge the fact
that the work is quite old. - [Woman] On the other hand,
we're not acknowledging the fact that this has been restored. When I look at it, I can't see the seams. - [Man] Unless you're looking at this map supplied by the Metropolitan, or unless you're a conservator
with highly trained eyes, you don't know that that
abdomen has been restored. This is called invisible restoration. If we look at another
work of art in marble, the Parthenon, we realize
that's it's crystal clear which parts of the building are original and which parts are resupplied. - [Woman] These are
decisions that curators and museums and conservators are making with individual objects everyday. - [Man] Often when we
think about restorers or conservators we think about them putting together fragments of sculptures or making sure that paintings don't have peeling or flaking paint. That's half of what we do. But certainly the aesthetics
of art conservation are really important. Looking at this work, I see
that the patina is darkened. I see the age of this
work more than certain other works in the gallery here. The patina of a work of
art is the surface of it. It's extremely thin. What's important about it is first of all it's the part that you see. Equally importantly
that's the part that meets the oxygen in the air, that's the part that meets the ultraviolet light that can discolor many materials. It's the part that meets
the grime, the soiling from being underground
for such a long time. It's also the part that meets
your greasy fingertips if, please don't do this,
but if you start touching works of art in museums. - [Woman] So you're using this
technical term the patina, but in some cases I feel
like I'm seeing just dirt on the surface, is that
what you mean by patina? - [Man] Well here's why this
term can be really debatable, marble like many materials is porous. Grime can go into the surface of marble and certainly it can discolor
as it oxidizes over time. Is that a desirable patina or not? - [Woman] In this case the conservators in the museum made a decision
to retain this patina. - [Man] Depending on
when a work is restored, say in the 19th century when
a more aggressive cleaning was favored, perhaps it's now
looking rather bleached today, rather white. - [Woman] In fact in many
cases, these ancient sculptures where really brightly painted. - [Man] With, by today's tastes anyway, very garish colors. - [Woman] With ancient works, we're used to seeing pieces missing, we're used to seeing age on the surface. But if this was a modern work
and it was missing a piece, we might not be as comfortable with it. The restorer might take
a more proactive approach and actually fill something in. - [Man] The distance
in time now between us and the making of these
objects has a lot to do with how much aging is acceptable. If something is this
old, perhaps it's okay to have some grime and some
chipping and some cracking. But imagine if this is a
21st century sculpture, those same cracks, those same chips, might be really distracting
and might prevent us from appreciating the
original artist's intentions. Here my eyes understand
that this work is very old. Part of the reason I'm here
to look at this sculpture is that is very old. I wanna know that. What I'm most interested in this work is having both if I can. I wanna have this balance
between understanding the artist's intentions, but
I also want to understand the historical record. So on the one hand, conservators today are striving for objectivity. We're trying to do the right thing. But on the other hand, let's acknowledge that our tastes are deeply
conditioned by history. - [Woman] Even though we're
trying to be scientific and objective, we still carry
our historical moment with us. - [Man] We wanna make
sure that however we favor interpreting these works today is not the end of the story. Because clearly future generations
will have different ideas and different restoration
techniques as well. (piano music)