Original scientific paper
Should we reconsider the old masters’ experiences? On how to approach historical painted facades and/or facades with painted images
Ivan Srša
; Croatian Conservation Institute, Department for Wall Paintings and Mosaics, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Painted facades and/or plaster with painted images is exposed to continuous weather changes and daily fluctuations in the polluted environment of urban centres, so from the technological point of view, the Croatian experience with the restoration of it is to say the least, negative. When lime plaster got substituted by extension plaster, the decay of historical buildings’ original remains accelerated, after which the sense of their further storage got replaced by a facsimile, originally on extension, and in recent times on industrial plaster and technologically compatible colors. The disturbing data about the number of facades, which in the past half-century have seen the original paint and / or painted plaster chipped in its entirety and replaced by extension or the ubiquitous industrial plaster, suggests that in the next two or three decades we could witness the compete disappearance of originally painted plaster, unless the practice immediately gets put to a halt.
During the past half century, experiments with a wide range of different materials for the restoration of frescoes have not been without fault either, regardless of whether works were carried out in the interior or on the facades. From organic to synthetic and inorganic materials, from the former promising reversibility to contemporary proclaimed compatibility, frescoes had to endure all of our attempts and failures. Therefore, bearing in mind the fact that the current procedures for the protection of historical plaster and paint less than seldom did not result in quality solutions which would preserve the original structure of a material, a possible solution might still lie in the facades that remained intact by restoration, and that carry multiple layers of paint and plaster.
Is it therefore not reasonable to ask why the same procedure has not been applied today, why the preserved historical layers of plaster and paint, after only limited restoration research, are not again protected by a new layer of lime plaster and lime-colored coating? Is it not perhaps better for the durability of historical plaster and painted layers on facades, to re-plaster and repaint the original in material identical to it and therefore hide it under a layer of pre-“sacrificed plaster and paint“, instead of continually exposing them? Putting the original or the original with subsequent historical layers under a new plastered and / or colored coating would prevent the decay, caused by their direct exposure to the atmosphere or the introduction of inappropriate industrial products for their „protection“. This substitute new layer, which can periodically be changed, together with the simultaneous control of historical layers’ state, can also replicate the historical imagery for which there exists a justification for representation, as stipulated by previous critical analysis.
Keywords
historical plaster; painted facades; frescos; restoration in Croatia
Hrčak ID:
106268
URI
Publication date:
20.12.2011.
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