"This volume will be of interest to teachers and students of conservation and art history, as well as to practicing conservators and museum curators, professionals in related disciplines, and others interested in art history and paintings conservation."--BOOK JACKET.

Gustav Berger, internationally recognised as one of the most innovative thinkers in the field of painting conservation, offers the reader fresh insights into his deliberations over conservation problems and treatments. He is best known for his development of BEVA, an adhesive specifically formulated for use in conservation, and for his groundbreaking research in the cracking of paint. Included in this book are updated and revised descriptions of landmark investigations and approaches, as well as observations on how the results have fared. Anyone interested in the development of modern conservation practice will find this volume an invaluable reference and a fascinating read.

Conservation of Easel Paintings, Second Edition provides a much-anticipated update to the previous edition, which has come to be known internationally as an invaluable and comprehensive text on the history, philosophy and methods of the treatment of easel paintings. Including 49 chapters written by more than 90 respected authors from around the world, this volume offers the necessary background knowledge in technical art history, artists’ materials and scientific methods of examination and documentation. Later sections of the book provide information about the varying approaches and methods for treatment and issues of preventive conservation, as well as valuable reflections on storage, shipping, and exhibition. Including exciting developments that have taken place since the last edition was published, the book also covers new techniques of examination, especially MacroXRF scanning and Reflectance Transmission Imagery. Drawing on research presented at recent professional conferences, information about innovative methods for cleaning modern and contemporary paintings and insights into modern oil paints is also included. Incorporating the latest regulations and understanding of health and safety practices and integrating theory with practice throughout, Conservation of Easel Paintings, Second Edition will continue to be an indispensable reference for practicing conservators. It will also be an essential resource for students taking conservation courses around the world.

This handsomely illustrated volume traces the intersections of art history and paintings restoration in nineteenth-century Europe. Repairing works of art and writing about them—the practices that became art conservation and art history—share a common ancestry. By the nineteenth century the two fields had become inseparably linked. While the art historical scholarship of this period has been widely studied, its restoration practices have received less scrutiny—until now. This book charts the intersections between art history and conservation in the treatment of Italian Renaissance paintings in nineteenth-century Europe. Initial chapters discuss the restoration of works by Giotto and Titian framed by the contemporary scholarship of art historians such as Jacob Burckhardt, G. B. Cavalcaselle, and Joseph Crowe that was redefining the earlier age. Subsequent chapters recount how paintings conservation was integrated into museum settings. The narrative uses period texts, unpublished archival materials, and historical photographs in probing how paintings looked at a time when scholars were writing the foundational texts of art history, and how contemporary restorers were negotiating the appearances of these works. The book proposes a model for a new conservation history, object-focused yet enriched by consideration of a wider cultural horizon.

This volume presents the proceedings of an international symposium organized by the Getty Conservation Institute and the J. Paul Getty Museum. The first conference of its kind in twenty years, the symposium assembled an international group of conservators of painted panels, and gave them the opportunity to discuss their philosophies and share their work methods. Illustrated in color throughout, this volume presents thirty-one papers grouped into four topic areas: Wood Science and Technology, History of Panel-Manufacturing Techniques, History of the Structural Conservation of Panel Paintings, and Current Approaches to the Structural Conservation of Panel Paintings.

Artists’ oil paints have become increasingly complex and diverse in the 20th Century, applied by artists in a variety of ways. This has led to a number of issues that pose increasing difficulties to conservators and collection keepers. A deeper knowledge of the artists’ intent as well as processes associated with material changes in paintings is important to conservation, which is almost always a compromise between material preservation and aesthetics. This volume represents 46 peer-reviewed papers presented at the Conference of Modern Oil Paints held in Amsterdam in 2018. The book contains a compilation of articles on oil paints and paintings in the 20th Century, partly presenting the outcome of the European JPI project ‘Cleaning of Modern Oil Paints’. It is also a follow-up on ‘Issues in Contemporary Oil Paint’ (Springer, 2014). The chapters cover a range of themes and topics such as: patents and paint manufacturing in the 20th Century; characterization of modern-contemporary oil paints and paint surfaces; artists’ materials and techniques; the artists’ voice and influence on perception of curators, conservators and scientists; model studies on paint degradation and long term stability; approaches to conservation of oil paintings; practical surface treatment and display. The book will help conservators and curators recognise problems and interpret visual changes on paintings, which in turn give a more solid basis for decisions on the treatment of these paintings.

The first truly comprehensive analysis of the history, practice, and conservation of painting on canvas. Throughout its long history in Western art, canvas has played an influential role in the creative process. From the Renaissance development of oil painting on canvas to the present day—through Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and other art historical movements—the use of canvas has enhanced the scale of painting, freedom of brushwork, and spontaneity in technique. This book recounts some of that rich history in relation to corresponding developments in conservation practice. Rather than concentrating on the familiar concerns of cleaning and varnish removal, this volume considers the preservation of a painting’s structure. By focusing on recent studies on the fundamental nature of canvas and its mechanisms of deterioration, the book explains new approaches to the conservation of both contemporary and historical art—including reversible, passive, and preventive treatments, particularly with respect to lining. Written by Stephen Hackney, a conservation practitioner and leader in conservation research, On Canvas is the first book to take a comprehensive look at this important subject and is destined to become an invaluable resource for the field.