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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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They call her the Green Lady, because she arrived covered in algae after a stint as a garden statue. Now the 2,000-year-old Figure of a Woman is cleaner, but -- nose missing, right arm splinted and propped on a crutch-like structure -- she greets visitors like a member of the walking wounded. The woman stands at the entrance to the Yale University Art Gallery's new summer exhibition. Called "Time Will Tell: Ethics and Choices in Conservation," the exhibit displays a range of damaged artwork in varying states of repair. It offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of art conservation -- stabilizing a piece to prevent further deterioration -- and restoration, which aims to enhance public appreciation. But the point is not to illuminate the technical intricacies of diagnosing and addressing the ravages of time. Rather, "Time Will Tell" raises fundamental questions about art, in museums and in living society: what is art, anyway? What is authenticity? Who decides, and how? Take Figure of a Woman, a fine example of ancient Roman portrait statuary. In the eighteenth or nineteenth century, somebody fashioned a nose and right arm to replace her missing appendages. The prosthetic arm is too big and "in the completely wrong position," says a gallery curator, Lisa Brody '91: comparable portrait statues of that period show ladies' right hands at their cheeks, while this arm extends out to the side. The combined errors of size and position make the Green Lady's arm unstable; hence its current support system. The age and history of the restoration work give it "an independent value, separate from the original statue," observes Larry Kanter, a gallery curator. Yet it's clearly inauthentic. So what to do? There was a time when the people in charge of displaying time-worn art thought nothing of modifying it in ways that were meant to imitate or even improve upon the original. Then came a period, in the 1950s, when conservators believed in stripping off all such encroachments -- no matter how old, and no matter how severe the underlying damage. Now, Yale curators and conservators are trying to chart a middle course. "We wouldn't do a complete restoration" of Figure of a Woman, Brody says. But they will mitigate destruction so obvious that it's "distracting" to viewers -- a noseless woman, for example. Among the guiding principles, says the gallery's chief conservator, Ian McClure, are accuracy and transparency: rather than trying to fool viewers, any restoration will be apparent to those who know where to look. A seventeenth-century Dutch painting by Jan Baptist Weenix presents different questions. Layers of paint have been added, including "quite significant changes in the composition," McClure says. Gross adulterations that should be removed, right? But the changes "could have been made very early on. It's even possible they were done by the artist's son," himself a well-known painter, McClure notes. So what is the historically accurate course of action? The exhibition leaves the question open. Next to the Weenix painting hangs an African screen, coated in layers "that look to us like dirt," McClure says. But the screen was a ceremonial object, and the coatings are actually blood and saliva, deposited during ritual use. Clean the coatings off to approximate the screen as originally constructed? Or preserve them as part of its history as a cultural artifact? Further complicating these questions of authenticity, McClure says, is the fact that in Africa, "these rituals are dying out and becoming purely shows for tourists. So even the people taking part aren't sure what they're doing." The exhibit runs through September 6. But the questions
it raises will remain for the foreseeable future. |
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