CLEANING OLD MASTERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 402, 7 March 1947, Page 14

CLEANING OLD MASTERS

(A Talk by

COLIN

MACINNES

broadcast in the BBC’s

Overseas Service)

N_ interesting argument has been going on recently in the correspondence columns of The Times newspaper. The subject is one most people don't care much about, but there are a few who take it very seriously. It’s this: Should you clean a picture painted by an Old Master? Now to understand the argument, this word "clean" needs some definition, Obviously, no one could object to removing the surface dirt from a picture, to washing off the grime and soot which go to make the London air (together .with a certain amount of nitrogen and oxygen, of course), But what is more open to question, is whether the varnish or the actual paint of the picture should be touched. You can show that some old pictures have been heavily covered with varnish, and that this varnish has darkened, making the picture dull and colourless. You can even show that parts of the picture may actually have been repainted by an inferior artist later on. So those in favour of cleaning say: Take off the dirty varnish, remove the later repaintings, and let us see the picture bright and fresh as it was when it left the artist’s studio. And those against it say: You can’t be sure what ‘is later painting. If you start removing paint at all you may remove some of the original colours. And what is more, we shouldn’t expect to see old pictures looking like new ones. Any more than we expect to see an old lady looking like a girl. A "Ruined" Rembrandt For some time past the policy of the National: Gallery here in London has been to clean some of the pictures in their collection pretty thoroughly. And as every picture in the National Gallery is a masterpiece, the public has been waiting with considerable interest for the return of these newly-cleaned pictures to the gallery walls. And it is over one of these, a picture by the great Dutch artist Rembrandt (called "A Woman Bathing’) that the storm has © burst in the columns ‘of The Times. To describe this picture, I can’t dobetter than quote the Na ional Gallery’s | own catalogue: "A woman, holding up her smock, wades forward through a pool. On the bank behind her-left is a rich crimson-and-gold brocaded drapery. Behind-right-a dark tree trunk. Signed: Rembrandt, 1654." And according to some of the critics, this picture has now been ruined. Let us hear what they have to say. ; The first letter to The Times was from Sir Gerald Kelly, the Royal Academician, whose pictures hang in the galleries at Sydney, Johannesburg and elsewhere. He wrote: "I believe that a, series of terrible mistakes has occurred in the National Gallery. Some pictures have been so drastically cleaned that worn and spoiled passages in them are only too visible. I appeal to the trustees to call a halt to this dangerous activity." And now, Round Two. Rodrigo Moynihan, the young Associate of the Royal

Academy, who has just painted a portrait of Princess Elizabeth, joined in the fray. "May I add to Sir Gerald Kelly’s objections to the receng cleaning of paintings at the National ‘Gallery. I would like to draw attention particularly to Rembrandt’s ‘A Woman Bathing,’ which, I believe, has undergone a complete change of character." "Time Also Paints" After this opening skirmish, the big guns were brought into play. For the next letter was from the President of the Royal Academy himself, Sir Alfred Munnings. "With warning examples like Sir Joshua Reynolds’ ‘Three Graces’ skinned long since under some past rule, why do present controlling powers still allow this drastic cleaning to go on? Those who make periodical visits to the shrine of art may never know what is happening in between and on returning may discover too late, alas! that a change has befallen: ‘Some eoroemiag master whom unmerciful disaste: Followed fast and followed faster. ...’" The defence had so far been silent, But after 48 hours’ lull, two letters appeared which supported the Gallery’s cleaning policy. One was from Sir Robert Witt, a former trustee. He pointed out that "Time also paints" and that the mere lapse of years tends to darken almost any picture and lower its tone. This being so, the eye of the spectator inevitably comes to expect a ‘ somewhat darkened effect and to be surprised, even shocked, by seeing a picture which seems unusually bright in colour because it has just been cleaned. And here is what Victor Pasmore wrote. Pasmore is a very gifted young artist, whose pictures already hang in the Tate Gallery. "Far from being spoilt or damaged," he says, "the picture is now a revelation of beauty. The piece of paint which is missing from the hand is clearly: the work of a previous restorer long ago who repainted it afterwards either to cover up his mistake or to give the picture a more finished appearance." At last the National Gallery itself came into the open end laid its cards on the table-or promised to do so. The Gallery’s answer didn’t take the form of a letter, but of a little paragraph that appeared in the news section of The Times. Here it is: "An exhibition will be held at the National Gallery in Februaryr This will group together many of those pictures which have been cleaned during the last ten years, In an adjoining room will be an exhibition designed to illustrate the processes and results of cleaning. There will be partly cleaned pictures, photographs, and a catalogue in which full technical information will be made available to the public." So, you see, a truce has been called until this exhibition opens. And then, I have no doubt, the battle will begin again. A Hundred Years Ago What is interesting about this argument over cleaning pictures is that it (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) has all happened before. Let us turn back the files of The Times 100 years, to October, 1846, and we shall find a letter from the young author and critic, John Ruskin. It’s about exactly the same subject. And John Ruskin’s letter is so vehement-and so plain rude-that the letters of to-day seem mild and polite by comparison. Here is what Ruskin wrote. He was 27 years old, by the way, "I had seen in Venice the noblest works of Veronese painted over with flake-white with a brush "fit for tarring ships! I-had seen in Florence Angelico’s highest inspiration rotted and seared

into fragments of old wood, burnt into blisters, or blotted into glutinous maps of mildew; and I returned to England in the one last trust that though her National Gallery was a European jest, her art a shadow, and her connoisseurship a hypocrisy, though she knew neither how to cherish nor how to choose, and lay exposed to the cheats ~ of every vendor of old canvas, yet that such good pictures as through chance or oversight might find their way beneath that preposterous portico, and into those melancholy and miserable rooms, wete at least to be vindicated thenceforward: from the mercy of republican, priest or painter, safe alike from musketry, monkery and manipulation."

So you see, the cleaning of pictures, or "manipulation" of which Ruskin complains so eloquently-in fact a little too eloquently-has been a bone of contention ever since the Gallery opened. I went along to have a look at the pictures myself of course, as soon as the trouble started. And speaking personally, I’d like to say I don’t think the cleaning has damaged this "Woman Bathing," by Rembrandt. Maybe some of the paint Aas been removed, and maybe that mellow glow of old varnish has gone. But looking at the picture now efter the cleaning, it seems so lovely, so powerful, and so mysterious that I, for one, am quite happy for it to be just as it is.