Conserving Canvas Real Time: Days 1 & 2
The first two days of my workshop have been overwhelming to say the least.
Le Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musees de France (C2RMF) is a government-run institution that oversees the conservation of the artworks in the major museum collections of the country, with three laboratory and atelier (studio) locations: two in Paris, and one in Versailles. I am currently being hosted at the Versailles location, which is housed in the historical buildings of Les Petits et Grands Ecuries du Roi (The Little and Grand Stables of the King), directly across from the Chateau (palace).
What is interesting about the French art and cultural heritage conservation system is that instead of hiring fulltime staff conservators, it contracts out all the conservation work to qualified freelance conservators, but then requires those conservators to come and work on location at the C2RMF studios, so that the artworks never leave these premises. Over 100 freelance conservators are contracted each year to conserve and restore France's cultural heritage, which usually averages around 1000 pieces per year, 350 of which are paintings.
The second really interesting thing about the French system is that in France, there are two types of paintings conservation specialists: structural specialists (sometimes referred to as "Liners", though this term is colloquial and limiting, as it does not encompass all the different types of structural work they complete on paintings), and surface specialists: those who only do surface cleaning, varnish removal, inpainting, and revarnishing. In France they hold to the tradition that these skills require so much experience and investment of oneself to master, that one person couldn't possibly split their time between these two very different worlds and become proficient at both. As this workshop opportunity is very specifically about historical gluepaste linings, it makes sense that our team of expert instructors are all structural paintings conservators. One of our instructors comes from a long line of “Liners”, having learned the skill from his father, who in turn learned from his grandfather, and so on. While the tradition has been passed down, these current conservators have tweaked and adjusted both the recipes and their techniques as their experience broadened and deepened. They are so in tune with their materials and exactly how everything should feel: one instructor made a comment as he was mixing up the paste mixture that the “flour had changed” - apparently this particular batch of grocery store flour had a different feel than the previous batches - and he could tell instantly that it was absorbing and holding the water content differently - so he adjusted his mixture accordingly.
The structural conservation workspace at C2RMF is very different from other labs I've been in, mainly because its lack of solvents or crowded shelves of resins and cleaning solutions... the space is large (as many of the paintings they work on are very large), has a few large wooden-topped work tables, and a large tub sink - that's pretty much all the equipment they need to complete their work! I can appreciate the simplicity.
Something that makes this opportunity particularly special, is that France has always been very protective over their restoration techniques - the techniques themselves developed locally, separate from other countries in Europe, and the knowledge of these techniques have been treated as "protected cultural heritage" themselves. For the first time in remembered history, France has opened its doors to allow for outsiders to learn from their masters and share this knowledge with the rest of the conservation world, through the facilitation of the ongoing Getty Foundation-funded Conserving Canvas Initiative. It's really unprecedented.
Gluepaste linings are a type of structural conservation treatment originating in Europe, and have been performed and developed over centuries. There are countless regional recipes and methods. In addition to the French method, there's also various Italian methods (even specifically splitting regions into a Roman and Florentine method), Spanish "gacha" method, a British method, and various others reaching as far as Russia. The baseline similarity between all the methods is that the restorer is using a paste mixture of animal skin (collagen) glue mixed with flour to glue an old degrading canvas down to a new linen canvas in order to save the painting from loss due to structural failure. North Americans generally moved away from these traditional methods in favour of modern and synthetic lining materials, mainly because of the risk of catastrophic treatment failures related to water causing an oil painting to swell, contract, dissolve the ground layer, have paint cleave away from the surface, or wrinkle if the canvas contracts, bloom (develop a permanent white haze across the oil surface), or various other permanent damages. But, like with all conservation treatments, those who master a skill stand by the fact that if you are trained properly and acquire enough experience executing a method, you learn to control these variables related to your materials and mitigate the risks. Any conservation treatment, even with modern materials, can be dangerous when wielded by untrained and inexperienced hands. Europeans have stood by their gluepaste lining techniques, and have been promoting them more recently due to their sustainability (using simple, easy-to-find and affordable materials that won't likely get discontinued like certain synthetic resins), non-toxicity (synthetic linings often use toxic aromatic solvents), and ease of reversibility (once a painting is lined with a synthetic adhesive, it must always be, as that adhesive cannot be removed from the canvas matrix).
While fully immersive, this course is necessarily introductory: while steeped in these techniques for the time I am here, I will not master these skills in this short time, and therefore will not suddenly be able to add them to my professional practice in Canada. However, being taught these techniques which are so different from the modern and contemporary methods I am familiar and comfortable with will broaden my understanding from both a historical and material standpoint. Already I'm learning how to use simple materials like the expansion and contraction of wetted paper to create controlled internal stresses which have the strength to bring cupped paint cracks back down into plane. I have also learned the French method for reversing a gluepaste lining, which differs from my North American training.
While I've only completed day 2 of this workshop, my brain is already swimming with information. Our hosts are wonderfully welcoming, and are treating us to the best of the local cuisine each day for lunch. I look forward to what each new day has to bring!
