Training in the Conservation of Paintings - Calouste Gulbenkian ...

TRAINING IN THE CONSERVATION OF PAINTINGS
qualify the student for a responsible subordinate position in a
museum or gallery where he would normally spend one or two years
before full independent responsibility could be assumed.
34. In recognising the need for a training period of seven years from
leaving school to the final award, we equate conservation as a profession
with medicine, architecture and the law. This is a point
which has been much stressed by our witnesses who are fully conscious
that recognition of the status of restorers by public authorities
with the resulting rise in the general level of salaries would itself be
an important factor in reducing the shortage of fully trained restorers.
Some of our witnesses have been in favour of a post-graduate
degree but we would prefer to stress the professional rather than the
academic nature of the training we propose.
Apprenticeship
35. For the development of the combined sensitivity, judgment,
knowledge and skill which make up the art and science of restoration,
and for the acquisition of confidence in its use, all witnesses agree
that the only adequate training is to work very closely with an experienced
practising restorer who is himself working on a sufficient
variety of first-class material. Either in the conservation department
of a museum or gallery or in the studio of a first-class independent
restorer, this form of training provides certain essential conditions:
(i) a high ratio of staff to students;
(ii) the presence in the studio of works of art of high quality and
sufficient variety throughout the training;
(iii) constant contact and consultation with the curatorial staff of
a museum or gallery.
Our witnesses believe that only in such circumstances can the
teacher properly assess the pupil's potentialities; and only so, while
performing simple tasks under direction, can the pupil learn, with
an immediacy which would be impossible in classes or demonstrations,
to give his mind to the problems and considerations raised by
work which is as yet far beyond his own capacity to execute.
36. Nearly all our witnesses who were themselves restorers had been
trained by working as an apprentice to a restorer, whether privately
or in the conservation department of a museum or gallery. It seemed
to us not surprising that they should unanimously recommend the
same type of training for others. This view indeed was shared by
most of the other witnesses we heard in this country, and our own
instinct supported it; but at first we suspected that we were sharing
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