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“All actions aimed at the safeguarding of cultural property for the future. The purpose of conservation is to study, record, retain and restore the culturally significant qualities of the object with the least possible intervention.” (CAC/CAPC, Code of Ethics for Conservation)
The conservation of material culture exists within the larger framework of preservation of the natural heritage. Like natural heritage conservation, the museum discipline encourages preservation through both preventive measures and active intervention. In effect, objects of heritage value are either preserved by control of their environment, or they are actively treated with a wide range of technical methods. The active intervention the general reader encounters in such treatments as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Ceiling or Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper is usually thought of as ‘restoration’, and this is how it has been known for centuries. The term conservation in this context is unique to English. In most European languages restoration is used universally to denote the process of treating objects, whether the aim is to stabilize them or to return them to a previous state. In English there is a divergence where the fields of conservation and restoration continue as distinct entities, both technically and socially. The International Council of Museums has attempted to redress this problem with the creation of the hybrid term ‘conservator/restorer’ in its English language documents.
The concept of conservation in referring specifically to the preservation of material culture first occurs in the 19th century. For example, in a memorandum presented to the meeting of the London Society of Antiquaries in 1855, the issue of the destructive and misleading character of architectural restoration is raised, stating that “A monument restored is frequently a monument destroyed”. In defining the word restoration “In the sense of preservation from further injuries by time or negligence” the authors of the memorandum have produced a nascent definition of conservation. The memorandum also mentions the institution of a “Conservation Fund”, an early occurrence of the word conservation in this context.
The practical discipline that came to be called conservation developed from the late 18th century and into the 19th century with the aim of preserving significant objects from the effects of time and negligence. This represented a new direction in the care of collections; a thrust towards understanding and combating deterioration through technical investigations into its cause, and later into the processes of treatment and their impact upon objects. This development must be viewed within the larger historical context of industrial and technical development, the reassessment of history, and political and social revolutions.
Ever since people have been collecting treasures and personal mementoes they have also taken measures to preserve them. Restorers have been employed for centuries by rich patrons – such as merchants, kings, and popes – but it was only in the 19th century that the causes of deterioration became of interest. Archaeology provided enormous impetus. The Iron and Bronze ages of Europe and the Classic Middle East yielded to the trowel and the pickaxe. Objects removed from their safe beds of soil, sand and clay would sometimes deteriorate dramatically. Why was this happening and what could be done to stop it? Restorers couldn’t answer these questions. Chemical investigations were made, and slowly but surely the mysterious processes of dissolution and decay became understood and controlled. This represented a new direction in the care of collections; a thrust towards understanding and combating deterioration through technical investigations into its cause, and later into the processes of treatment and their impact upon objects.
The research of Michael Faraday provides a key to attitudes during this period of change and development. Although he is best known for his work on electricity (the unit if capacitance, the farad, bears his name), his 1843 study, On the Ventilation of Gas Burners, is a key document in conservation science. He determined by the scientific method that the ‘red-rot’ deterioration observed on book leathers in the Library of the Athenaeum Club resulted from attack by atmospheric sulphur dioxide emanating from the newly installed gas lighting. It is a pioneering example of science applied to the study of deterioration.
Friedrich Rathgen’s experimental work on archaeological artifacts in the last decade of the 19th century at the Chemical Laboratory of the Royal Museums of Berlin stimulated the investigation and elucidation of deterioration processes. This work was translated into English in 1905, and had a significant influence on scientific work at the British Museum. The identification and characterization of deterioration on museum objects stored underground during the First World War provided the museum preservation discipline with a further underpinning of scientific investigation. In particular, the work conducted at the British Museum in the 1920s by Alexander Scott of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, leads into the modern era.
A conference in Rome, organized by the League of Nations in 1930, was the first venue for the discussion of the need for control of the museum environment, and other preventive measures aimed at ensuring the longevity of collections. This conference is generally regarded as the first international effort to place scientific research at the centre of the preservation of art works and antiquities.
The discipline of preservation of museum objects grew rapidly in England in the period after the Second World War as a result of experimental studies, and through the scientific reassessment of the effects of deterioration and subsequent restorative treatment. The inauguration of the journal Studies in Conservation in October of 1952, and the re-issue in much enhanced form of Harold Plenderleith’s The Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art in 1956 signalled published legitimization of the term conservation as applied to the study and arrest of deterioration in works of art and artifacts.
Meanwhile, systematic abstraction of technical papers had commenced with Technical Studies in the Field of Fine Arts, produced by the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University from 1932-42, and continued with Abstracts of Technical Studies in Art and Archaeology, produced by the Freer Gallery of Art between 1943 and 1952. It continues today with Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts, produced by the International Institute for Conservation in association with the Getty Conservation Institute.
Regulation of ethical and professional practices was first outlined in the Murray Pease Report, which was adopted in 1963 by the American Group of the International Institute for Conservation. This became its published code of ethics in 1968, and organizations in many other countries followed this lead in producing codes for their own practitioners. By the creation and encoding of its own terminology, ethics, standards and literature the profession of conservation had distanced itself from the working class, largely oral tradition of restoration from which it had developed. Technical studies of works of art and treasured objects brought restoration from traditional working-class artisanship into the realm of science.
Both preventive and remedial techniques have advanced rapidly and heritage institutions such as museums, archives and art galleries control deterioration caused by such environmental factors as temperature, humidity, light, airborne contaminants and biological activity. They also deal systematically with all human aspects of handling, cleaning, storage, exhibition and transportation. The well-endowed institutions have conservation departments where both preventive measures and active laboratory treatment are conducted. Many nations support the less well fortunate institutions by providing government-supported conservation services.
Conservators must always strive to respect the material and objective reality of historic objects and works of art while still respecting the aesthetic values that they embody in stories, experience, usage and the passage of time. Active conservation treatment is often a tightrope between doing too little and doing too much.
“It is the responsibility of the conservator, acting alone or with others, to strive constantly to maintain a balance between the need of society to use a cultural property, and the preservation of that property.” (CAC/CAPC Code of Ethic for Conservation)
Sources
Canadian Association for Conservation and Canadian Association of Professional Conservators, Code of Ethics and Guidance for Practice (Ottawa: CAC and CAPC, 3rd edition, 2000)
Canadian Association for Conservation and Canadian Association of Professional Conservators, , Information for Collectors and Custodians (Ottawa: CAC and CAPC, 2004)
Canadian Association for Conservation and Canadian Association of Professional Conservators, , Selecting and Employing a Conservator in Canada (Ottawa: CAC and CAPC, undated)
Faraday, M., On the Ventilation of Gas Burners, Royal Institution Lecture, 7 April 1843.
IIC-AG, The Murray Pease Report: Code of Ethics for Conservators (New York: New York University, 1968)
Plenderleith, H. and Werner, A., The Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art (London: Oxford University Press, 1956)
Rathgen, F. and Bormann, R., The Preservation of Antiquities: A Handbook for Curators, trans. G. Auden and H. Auden (London: Cambridge University Press, 1905)
Scott, A., ‘The Restoration and Preservation of Objects at the British Museum’, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 70 (1922), pp. 327-338.
Price, N. S., Kirby-Talley Jr., M. and Vaccaro, A.M. eds., Historical and Philosophical Issues in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, (Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 1996)
[edit] Sources
www.cci icc.gc.ca www.capc acrp.ca www.iiconservation.org http://aic.stanford.edu/ http://icom.museum/international/icomcc.html
Bob Barclay 13:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)bob barclayBob Barclay 13:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Declined. The proposed article is not suitable for Wikipedia. This is a really great work, but unfortunately this isn't what Wikipedia is looking for. This is written more like an essay than an encyclopedia article, and sure enough, a search on Google for some of the phrases in the submission return a result on Google Books for a book by "Robert Barclay". Other information appears to be taken directly from some of the websites given, but it's hard to tell what or how much. Please see WP:COI, WP:NPOV and WP:MOS for more information on how to write a well-formatted, neutral article. Thank you for your time. Hersfold (talk/work) 01:23, 28 June 2007 (UTC)