Training in the Conservation of Paintings - Calouste Gulbenkian ...

TRAINING IN THE CONSERVATION OF PAINTINGS
43. It is interesting in this connection that even restorers who have
themselves been trained as apprentices, and those who are themselves
giving such a training to their assistants, admit that there is a
risk in a pure apprenticeship training that these background subjects
might be neglected. Herr Wolters, head of the Doerner Institute in
Munich, which is not a training institute but accepts volunteer
trainees, regretted, on their behalf, the lack of such instruction in
the institute, although he did not see any possibility of supplying it.
A good master can direct his apprentices's reading and study of
works of art, and encourage him to attend art or science classes as
necessary, but this leaves too much to the enterprise of the student
and to the teaching predilections of the master to be recommended
as ideal.
44. We consider, therefore, that there is a need in this country for a
centre in which the theoretical and background instruction is carried
out; and in recommending this we would urge that very serious consideration
be given to the form of such instruction. We are assured,
for instance, that a restorer of paintings and drawings does not need
a deep knowledge of science; he needs only to be able to understand
the implications of what the scientists, and the equipment at their
disposal, can tell him. But in order to acquire this moderate but
specialised understanding, the student, especially one who has had
little previous interest in science, needs a course expressly devised
by experienced conservators, scientists and craftsmen, to show at
all points the relevance of the scientific principle under consideration
to the work of conservation. No such training exists at present.
Such a course would provide the restorer student with all he needs
to know in order to check his own instinct and judgment against
scientifically ascertainable fact; but such a course could also lead, in
the case of the more scientifically inclined student, to more advanced
studies which it should be possible for him to take in some other
institution. Similarly, the art history taught in the courses available
at the centre which we consider desirable would be to a great extent
a history of painting technique and materials, and would be closely
allied to the study of painting itself, but here, also, one would hope,
there would be the possibility of proceeding to particular studies
elsewhere for those who wished to enlarge their knowledge.
45. These considerations point to the advantage of close association
with a university or other institute of further education; and to the
inevitable dependence of a Central Conservation Institute on the
help and cooperation of the National Gallery Scientific Department
(paragraph 28) and of the Courtauld Institute (paragraph 87).
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