Individual Blog- Part 2: Restoring Da Vinci

The article I read was titled “Leonardo in a new light” and written by Emily Sharpe. It was about famous works of daVinci’s being cleaned and restored to what it would have looked like at the time of creation. Since then they have aged greatly and a yellow fog has plastered over the surface. Art officials feel it is distracting and takes away from the aesthetic experience of those viewing these greatly famous works. The first piece that was restored was “The Virgin On the Rocks” which is located in the National Gallery in London. They are now researching and trying to figure out the best way to do the same to the world renowned the “Mona Lisa”.

I have mixed feelings about this process being applied to these paintings. On one hand the results are beautiful and really pleasing to the eye. I understand how the aged effects were detracting from the image itself and its beauty. The way that “The Virgin On the Rocks” came out was stunning and added so much to its aesthetic value. However, I almost feel that this takes away from the authentic worth of the piece and the work shouldn’t have been touched because then it becomes more of other people’s work and less of da Vinci’s. Also, with the “Mona Lisa” it was determined that the paint layers were thinner than a hair and there was over thirty of them. Taking off the top varnish could easily remove some of the paint. I know that they have the top researchers and other authorities performing the cleaning, it just makes me a little nervous when we’re interfering with something so valuable that we will never have again.






 http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Leonardo+in+a+new+light/21415