Arts / USC NEWS

On the Surface

BY Diane Krieger NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Looking at paintings, we are conditioned to go deep, absorb the illusion of perspective, savor the effects of chiaroscuro. At the opening of a new show at the USC Fisher Museum of Art last week, visitors were encouraged to stick to the surface – focusing on cosmetic blemishes, discolorations, and evidence of tears and patching. 

Conserving Beauty, which opened Oct. 28 and continues through the spring, considers the conundrums and ethical dilemmas that come with owning a venerable collection. On hand for a special conservation demonstration was independent conservator Aleksei Tivetsky and his assistant, Tiffany England. In the middle of the room, sprawled out on a table, lay one such conundrum: a grand British landscape titled “The Pond, Hampstead Heath,” unsigned but long attributed to John Constable. The question: to conserve or not to conserve? 

Stroking the surface with oversized Q-tips soaked in a gentle solvent, England used delicate circular motions to lift layers of ancient varnish. “You can see there were tears here, and they were filled in,” she said. Pointing to the blue sky, she delivered more bad news: “It looks like that was over-paint that’s been discolored.” Over-paint is a no-no, and removing it drives up the price of conservation considerably. Given the dubiousness of Constable’s authorship and the poor quality of previous conservation efforts, USC Fisher administrators likely will spend their limited “collection care” dollars elsewhere. 

USC Fisher began conserving its permanent collection in the 1970s. The majority of its 2,000 holdings are from the 20th and 21st centuries and, therefore, not yet candidates for conservation. But among the 74 works originally donated by Elizabeth Holmes Fisher and the 48 pieces donated by Armand Hammer are many paintings by Old Masters, the oldest dating back to the 1500s. 

Most have suffered benign neglect, if not outright abuse, over the course of their long lives. It was commonplace for visitors to the salons and galleries of Paris to smoke and drink as they admired artworks. Indeed, “you could smoke in the Louvre till the 1960s,” said Vanessa Jorion, USC Fisher education and programs coordinator. 

Pieces in private hands were no better off. “In London in the 1800s, one of the duties of the butler was, twice a year, to polish the doorknobs and to apply a new layer of varnish on the paintings,” Tivetsky said. “After 30 years, you can imagine the varnish was the color of caramel.”

Ideally, oil paintings need to be stripped of old varnish, cleaned and revarnished every 30 to 50 years, according to Tivetsky. Such low-intensity conservation costs $1,200 to $1,500. With Old Masters, much more usually is required. 

Conserving Beauty offers a dozen conservation stories from USC Fisher’s collection – some happy, some sad. 

In the case of “Isabella Hunter,” a portrait by 18th-century Swiss painter Angelica Kauffman, it’s a happy one. Treatments done in 1987 brought this masterpiece back from the brink. While free of tears, the whole painting was in grave danger of disintegrating as pigment layers had begun to separate. Today, it radiates health. Shining a black light on the canvas, Tivetsky pointed out spots so skillfully retouched that they’re invisible to the naked eye. “That is good quality retouching,” he explained. Similarly happy results are evident in “Portrait of King Charles the First” by Anthony van Dyck and in Giovanni Pannini’s “View of Rome,” painstakingly conserved just six months ago by Tivetsky himself. 

“Rest on the Flight Into Egypt,” painted circa 1620-23 by Hans Rottenhammer and Paul Bril, is a sadder case. The artists had applied paint directly onto copper, making it impossible to do all but the most superficial cleaning now. Another piece that cannot be conserved is Joshua Reynolds’ portrait of “Sir Patrick Blake, Bart.” Notorious for his experiments with pigments and glazes, Reynolds was known to add coal and asphalt to his mixtures. With so much uncertainty about materials, the risks of treating a Reynolds often outweigh the benefits. “There is nothing we can do,” lamented USC Fisher curator Ariadni Liokatis. “This piece has not been conserved in our lifetime; we don’t dare.” 

Perhaps the saddest tale of the exhibition is that of “St. John the Evangelist,” until recently believed to be painted by van Dyck around 1620. Preliminary X-rays, however, revealed another portrait underneath – one executed in a technique typical of the 19th century. Exposed as a fake, the painting no longer was deemed a strong candidate for conservation.