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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
That painting you see on the wall of an art museum is the product of the artist and the times in which he or she lived. It is also the result of today, no matter how old it is, a major museum's conservator's work to keep the art looking its best. Their methods are meticulous1 and sometimes surprising.
As part of our summer series we're calling Backstage Pass, NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg visits the conservation lab at the National Gallery of Art here in Washington, D.C.
SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE2: Go in a main entrance. Walk to a door that opens with a passkey and down a long hallway. It looks like a school that you might have attended in 1904 - beige fake tile walls, darker beige linoleum3 floor. You're on the ground floor, but it feels like the basement.
It doesn't look like a museum. I'm going into painting conservation G115. We don't have to show you our passports? Or...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We've already scanned you coming down the hall - no.
STAMBERG: I got scanned?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: No.
STAMBERG: Well, it's for security. The conservation room is filled with priceless paintings sitting on row after row of tall wooden easels or lying on big, white-top work tables. I head down the long room to senior conservator Ann Hoenigswald. I'd met her years ago on my very first trip to this backstage lab. Then, she was working on one of Monet's series of impressions of the Rouen - that's R-O-U-E-N - Cathedral in France, filling in tiny dots of sky that had flaked4 off over time.
And I watched and watched. It was like being in the artist's studio because it was so available. There it was, no frame, no fancy lighting5. And I said to you, oh, please, could I just paint in one little blue dot? And you said...
ANN HOENIGSWALD: No (laughter).
STAMBERG: She had to protect the Monet - also her reputation and her job. She knew I'd tell. Ann had to mix her blue to match Monet's. Conservators must take classes in studio art, art history and chemistry for their repair work. Sometimes guidance comes from artists themselves.
HOENIGSWALD: Vincent Van Gogh writes back to his brother, Theo, and says, will you send me Prussian blue and ultramarine and three large tubes of lead white and things like that?
STAMBERG: Earlier painters - 300 years earlier, say - leave no clues at all.
Could I try your glasses?
MICHAEL SWICKLIK: Yeah, you can try them.
STAMBERG: Conservator Michael Swicklik peers through thick lenses that give him a 3-D view of a 15th-century canvas the Italian Fra Angelico may have painted. They can't be sure because "The Entombment Of Christ" is in awful condition, freckled6 with pocks where paint flecked off, gold on the saint's halos worn away, dulled all over from varnish7 that has aged8 to the color of caramels. Swicklik gets to work with cotton and a stick.
SWICKLIK: So we roll a little swab on a bamboo skewer9 kind of thing and then...
STAMBERG: Yeah. And then you dipped it in water.
SWICKLIK: No. This is actually a solvent10 mix...
STAMBERG: Oh, that's the solvent.
SWICKLIK: ...A solvent mixture. Yeah.
STAMBERG: Sometimes they just spit - gets grime off nicely.
You're going after the caramel on the saint's robe.
SWICKLIK: Yup.
STAMBERG: And you're gently touching11 it with the solvent...
SWICKLIK: Very lightly.
STAMBERG: ...In circles, light circles.
SWICKLIK: A lot of time, just a rolling action. So you - what you want to do is minimize any chance of abrading12 the surface as you go.
STAMBERG: Varnish is the enemy here. Painters or dealers13 or buyers put a clear coat of it on to preserve a painting or give it a nice sheen. Jay Krueger, the head of painting conservation, says, over time, the varnish ages and actually changes the colors of the painting.
JAY KRUEGER: You know, you remember that sky being blue, and it's kind of green now. Or you'd remember, you know, this is a lovely, silvery dress, you know? And it's yellow now. It's just a matter of that surface, that transparent14 layer, discoloring over time. So it'll turn reds more orange. It'll turn blues15 kind of greenish, darkens the light colors. And in an odd way, it kind of flattens16 out and lightens the dark colors.
STAMBERG: Conservators work to restore the artist's original vision, so they remove the darkened varnish.
Not so fast. First, they switch on one of the seven big blue tubes. They look like elephant's trunks suspended from the ceiling. They are vacuums curling kind of creepily down over various workspaces. They suck up fumes17 and smells and get rid of them. Whoosh18.
KRUEGER: You know, you don't want to have a 40-year career cut short because you're in a room full of open solvents19.
STAMBERG: Conservators tailor the solvents to meet the needs of a particular painting. Joanna Dunn is dealing20 with solvents so strong she needs blue rubber gloves to use them. Looking through a very fancy microscope, she bends over a 16th century Tintoretto, "Allegory Of Summer." The big canvas - it's more than 3-by-6-feet big - shows a zaftig blonde reclining in a field, her right breast just peeking21 out from her pretty pink drape. For some reason, a parrot turns his back on her. Armed with cotton swabs, skinny stick and solvent, Joanna Dunn goes after the usual suspect - varnish.
JOANNA DUNN: This coating is so old, I can't dissolve it without harming the paint. So the way to do it is to soften22 it with the chemicals that I'm using. And then I'm going back with a scalpel. And it actually sort of becomes gelatinous. And I can kind of push it off with the scalpel.
STAMBERG: Very carefully. At some point, she will put down the scalpel, pick up a paintbrush and fill in any spots that are missing paint.
DUNN: I'm only going to put my inpainting in the area where the paint is missing. I'm not going to cover any of the original paint.
STAMBERG: Conservators also need to get rid of paint that was applied23 in earlier restorations and then replace it with colors that match sometimes centuries-old originals and do it so that future conservators have an easier time when their turn comes. So I guess Ann Hoenigswald was right not to let me play Monet that day. But these professional conservators get to do it every day, going from one century, one style to another for future art lovers.
A few years ago, Ann had a Mary Cassatt - 19th-century American - on one easel and an El Greco - 16th century, Spain. El Greco was on another easel. The juxtaposition24 made Ann philosophical25 and something else.
HOENIGSWALD: Mary Cassatt admired none of the old masters the way she did El Greco. And I was practically in tears thinking, oh, my God. If she ever thought she'd be, literally26, side-by-side - it was very emotional, really. That's what happens in a conservation studio.
STAMBERG: That's what happens. In Washington, I'm Susan Stamberg.
1 meticulous | |
adj.极其仔细的,一丝不苟的 | |
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2 byline | |
n.署名;v.署名 | |
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3 linoleum | |
n.油布,油毯 | |
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4 flaked | |
精疲力竭的,失去知觉的,睡去的 | |
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5 lighting | |
n.照明,光线的明暗,舞台灯光 | |
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6 freckled | |
adj.雀斑;斑点;晒斑;(使)生雀斑v.雀斑,斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7 varnish | |
n.清漆;v.上清漆;粉饰 | |
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8 aged | |
adj.年老的,陈年的 | |
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9 skewer | |
n.(烤肉用的)串肉杆;v.用杆串好 | |
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10 solvent | |
n.溶剂;adj.有偿付能力的 | |
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11 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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12 abrading | |
v.刮擦( abrade的现在分词 );(在精神方面)折磨(人);消磨(意志、精神等);使精疲力尽 | |
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13 dealers | |
n.商人( dealer的名词复数 );贩毒者;毒品贩子;发牌者 | |
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14 transparent | |
adj.明显的,无疑的;透明的 | |
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15 blues | |
n.抑郁,沮丧;布鲁斯音乐 | |
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16 flattens | |
变平,使(某物)变平( flatten的第三人称单数 ); 彻底打败某人,使丢脸; 停止增长(或上升); (把身体或身体部位)紧贴… | |
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17 fumes | |
n.(强烈而刺激的)气味,气体 | |
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18 whoosh | |
v.飞快地移动,呼 | |
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19 solvents | |
溶解的,溶剂 | |
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20 dealing | |
n.经商方法,待人态度 | |
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21 peeking | |
v.很快地看( peek的现在分词 );偷看;窥视;微露出 | |
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22 soften | |
v.(使)变柔软;(使)变柔和 | |
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23 applied | |
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用 | |
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24 juxtaposition | |
n.毗邻,并置,并列 | |
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25 philosophical | |
adj.哲学家的,哲学上的,达观的 | |
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26 literally | |
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实 | |
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