PRESERVATION OF WALLPAPERS AS PARTS OF INTERIORS

Preservation of wallpaper as a part of interiors
occurrence of similar damages, which the team of Markus Krön
needed to deal with.
It was possible to use the original function of the shoji system.
As mentioned before, shoji was used in Japan to build foldingscreens,
sliding-doors and other elements in oriental buildings.
In the case of wallpapers, a method now known as the Schablonentapete
from Freyschlössl in Salzburg was used to build a large
walk-through closet. Since the wallpaper could not be exhibited
in its original location, another solution needed to be developed
to preserve the decorative function of the object. The wallpaper
was attached to shoji panels, which functioned as the cover and
sliding-doors of the closet. In my opinion, the solution can be
seen as a kind of preservation compromise, which enabled the
preservation of the physical integrity and decorative function
of the wallpaper in the room where it belonged.
The described system can be applied either to a whole object
or to a segment of it, as long as the dimensions of the original
system are not altered. A separate segment applied to a shoji
frame should be easily integrated into a historic setting.
4.2.15. Retouching
Retouching is the last and usually the most time-consuming
aspect of the whole conservation process. It is used to minimise
the disfigurement of images and unify the overall visual impact
of an object. 381 According to Cesare Brandi, disfigurement or a
painful interruption in a form is called a lacuna. 382 In the artistic
domain, a lacuna is when there is an aggressive interruption of
the figurative pattern that is consequently perceived as a part
of the foreground of the image, and the comprehension and the
meaning of the artwork are damaged. 383 Lacunae in wallpaper
include scratches, edges of tears, holes, sprinkles of unremov-
381
Doris A. Hamburg, “The in situ Conservation Treatment of a Nineteenth-Century French
Scenic Wallpaper: Les Paysages de Télémaque Dans L’Ile de Calypso” in JAIC Online,
(1981), accessed December 8, 2012, http://cool.conservation-us.org/jaic/articles/
jaic20-02-007_indx.html.
382
Brandi, Theory of Restoration, 92.
383
Naila Murray and Eduard Vazquez, “Lacuna Restoration: How to Choose a Neutral
Colour?”, accessed February 17, 2013, http://www.create.uwe.ac.uk/norway_paperlist/
murray.pdf.
207