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

CONCLUSIONS
individual forms of training, often excellent, but whose quality and
whose awards, if awards are made, cannot be standardised. In a
world of controversy, moreover, the multiplication of such small,
closed centres is likely to foster unnecessary doctrinal differences;
and these institutions provide their trainees -with no regular background
or technical instruction.
75. Moreover, if the present temporary scheme were to continue
restricted to the three national institutions at which it now operates,
it has been represented to us that the training could not be given to
any more than are having it now without losing the advantages it
has at present. The present staff and accommodation of these institutions
would not be sufficient to allow them to increase their
annual intake of trainees for a four-year course; indeed, we have
been told by the National Gallery that even with the present numbers
they have regretfully had to suspend for the duration of the
scheme the facilities which they had formerly made available to
restorers from abroad for short periods of study in the Gallery. The
staff and accommodation within the studios of the national institutions
could no doubt be increased to accommodate more students;
but the character of the studios would in that case be changed from
that of workshops solely concerned with the welfare of the galleries'
paintings to that of a national training establishment with responsibilities
to the students. Such obligations could only be satisfactorily
fulfilled by the institution of a complete course of mixed theoretical
and practical instruction, and the training would lose its present
character of apprenticeship, and the institutions concerned would
consider, in our view rightly, the provision of such training to be
outside their province. One of our main objects in considering this
solution was the possibility of adding to the number of trainees
without removing trained restorers from their important conservation
work to a separate institution. But representatives of the national
museums and galleries have themselves expressed the view that the
distracting presence of additional trainees would cause them more
difficulty than even the full-time removal of one trained restorer
from their staff.
A Central Institute of Conservation
76. After considering these possibilities we are convinced that what
is needed is not just more training. What is needed is rather a centre
by the existence of which the training now available in disconnected
studios may be drawn together and unified. We conclude that such
a centre must be an institution which is itself providing the complete
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