Shiny and New
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
About 10 years ago, in 1998, Raphael’s painting, Madonna of the Goldfinch, disappeared off its wall at the Uffizi Gallery – for a decade long cleaning. This particular work had already undergone a series of restorations that began in 1548, when it first shattered into seventeen fragments during an ill-fated landslide. Still, because the restorations of years past were deemed unsuccessful, it was decided that the “wood sandwich” needed yet another restoration. The painting was thoroughly cleaned, revealing bright robes of crimson and cerulean on the Madonna, and a loss of hair and pectoral muscles on the Baby Jesus (the younger-looking boy in the painting). Also, Mary’s halo has somehow disappeared right off her newly-shampooed head. And Raphael suddenly became known as a “colorist”.
The problem with all this lovely coloration is that Raphael wasn’t exactly known for his palate of neon highlighters. He liked to model himself after the famed Leonardo da Vinci, and like his predecessor, was interested in realistic skin and landscape color. Giorgio Vasari*, who commended the work for its colors of “living flesh [rather] than of painted colours”, would probably pass out upon seeing this newly-minted Raphael. A child’s bedroom, on the other hand, would be brightened by it. In short, the painting became shiny (quite literally), new and completely unrecognizable.
Welcome to the world of restoration.
*a writer/artist who lived at the time this work was painted, considered to be the first Italian art historian