Varnish has been applied to protect the paint layer. But layers of old varnish discolour and trap dirt and contaminants, letting a painting vanish into the dark.
conservation
Tragic stories of great paintings that no longer look anything like their originals, from Leonardo da Vinci and William Blake.
Asphalt has been claimed to be responsible for the slow destruction and loss of many paintings, from the ‘Raft of the Medusa’ on. The evidence is tenuous.
The colours you see in paintings today may have faded badly from their originals. Examples of madder lake, smalt and indigo.
In his attempts to emulate Rembrandt and Rubens, he experimented with thickened oil paint that has led to poor structural integrity, and severe damage to the paint layer.
Paintings that don’t look like they were intended to be, from Leonardo’s Last Supper, to Manet’s cut-up Execution of Emperor Maximilian.
The modern gulf between arts/humanities and sciences has no sound historical basis.
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