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

TRAINING IN THE CONSERVATION OF PAINTINGS
Supplementary instruction for trainees in other studios
46. If, as we recommend, an institute is established which provides
a carefully prepared scheme of special instruction in the scientific
and art-historical background of conservation, and also in the theory
of conservation, we would also recommend that the lectures and
seminars in which such instruction would be given should not be
confined to the few students in training at the Institute. The institute
would be performing an important function if it were able to
supply, at any rate for those within reach, the instruction which, as
shown in paragraph 44, is missing in the studios of the national
museums and galleries. We would recommend also that such instruction
should be made available in concentrated courses of two
or three weeks or more to supplement the apprenticeships of those
who are serving in other parts of the country. No doubt the Institute
would also wish to satisfy the inevitable demand for special advanced
or refresher courses for British and foreign restorers.
Instruction for curators and art historians
47. We have been impressed by the need, brought to our notice by
several of our witnesses, for authoritative courses in conservation
for those who do not intend to become restorers themselves, as an
essential element in museum studies or in art history. This need
could well be met by the Institute we have in mind.
Training in a variety of media
48. We have also consulted our witnesses as to the need for the
training of restorers of paintings and drawings to include experience
of other arts and crafts, and the desirability of a training institution
which covers, not merely murals and polychrome wooden sculpture,
the conservation of which comes so close to that of easel paintings
as to be almost inevitably undertaken by those trained in work on
easel paintings, but also stone and metal sculpture, ceramics, textiles,
furniture and the rest. Our witnesses agree that, from the point
of view of the restorer of paintings and drawings there is little or no
advantage in a training which devotes time to work on other media.
We have seen conservation courses designed on the principle that
students take up their training with a general interest in conservation
and decide on their preferred branch after a year or two years training;
but although such students undoubtedly exist, we would not
expect them to be those who ultimately become restorers of paintings.
Restorers of paintings, we would suppose, would normally be
drawn to this work, whatever their former experience, by a basic
interest in painting which later concentrates itself on conservation.
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