Painstaking and tedious, art conservation and restoration still remains a niche, trans-disciplinary genre in the country despite a growing demand
If you walk into the Royal Gallery of the Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata, you will be greeted by ‘The Jaipur Procession’—a Company-era oil on canvas by Russian painter Vasily Vereshchagin, touted as the world’s second-largest oil painting. While it hangs majestically inside the 19th-century heritage building, visitors often walk by, unaware of the various processes involved in the upkeep of this mammoth (196 inches x 274 inches) piece of art.
“Before the renovation of the Victoria Memorial Hall in 2019, the Royal Gallery—with this painting—remained locked up since 1996. Prior to that, the painting was on display for about 60 years,” says Dibakar Karmakar, restoration assistant (oil paintings) at Victoria Memorial Hall. So when in 2019, the painting was set to go back on public display again, it had to be restored part by part—both for its maintenance and to make it display-worthy. And if you thought this was an easy feat, think again.
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This artwork that was found in a water-logged house was restored in steps by conservators at the Kolkata Institute of Art Conservation. Here, the artwork can be seen during the process of restoration. Image: Courtesy of Kolkata Institute of Art Conservation and Kolkata Centre for Creativity.
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A portion (trunk of the Ganesha) of this soapstone sculpture that originally cost Rs10,000 needed repairs to the tune of more than double its price. Image: Courtesy of Kolkata Institute of Art Conservation and Kolkata Centre for Creativity.
“Since it was impossible to move the painting, we started by ordering a tall ladder and some scaffolding and set out to restore it in four levels from top down,” explains Karmakar. Clearing the dust settled on the pigments and working on the frame that had turned black were of utmost priority. “The paint had begun to peel and the varnish on it had also started turning brown. So we used surface-and-solvent-cleaning on the painting, one portion at a time,” he adds. The 175-year-old painting also needed adhesives to be injected into layers of its Impasto work as Karmakar and his team of two could not go behind it, and had to finish the task by using the ladder and scaffolding. According to Karmakar, the entire process took about six months. If this process sounds tedious, then so is the entire realm of art conservation and restoration in India, as its importance has long been overlooked, largely because of the lack of availability of trained professionals.
Demand and supply
While art conservation was restricted to only museums and public entities such as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) and the Mehrangarh Museum Trust until a few years ago, more awareness about it has also led to more demand. For example, take 65-year-old retired teacher Pranati Ray’s case, who has inherited several artworks from her father, including ones by Abanindranath Tagore—Rabindranath Tagore’s nephew—who established a new national vocabulary in art and helped regenerate the decadent art and aesthetic scene in India. However, she had noticed that some of the water colours were fading because of the exposure to sunlight. “A little research led me to understand the importance of storing the works in cool, dry places, which I had no idea about. My father had them up on his wall and I never thought of maintaining them because I wasn’t aware that it was a thing,” says Ray.
Fortunately, this is changing nowadays with more private enterprises catering to demand from both private and public collectors, as well as individuals and institutions. Among them is the Kolkata Institute of Art Conservation (KIAC), which was set up at the Kolkata Centre for Creativity in 2018 and is associated with the Tata Trusts Art Conservation Initiative. It reviews collections and offers condition assessment; remedial treatment of art objects; collection care advisory; and training on the conservation of art and heritage. “Having a fair share of art in our collection, how to help the art health was always on our minds. For the longest time, we couldn’t find the right kind of people with the right know-how, and when the collaboration happened, the right pieces of the puzzle fell into place,” says Richa Agarwal, chairperson, KCC and CEO, Emami Art.
Anupam Sah, head of art conservation, research and training at CSMVS Museum, Mumbai, believes the demand for art conservation is now pushing institutions to roll out more courses in museology and conservation such as the one at the Indira Gandhi National Open University, especially suited for Indian art, to train individuals, even if they are mostly diplomas. “The demand is coming from everywhere, cutting across geographies and socio-economic divides. People have realised that they have to take care of their art in a scientific manner,” he says. Sah, who is regarded as one of the pioneering art conservationists in India, is optimistic about an upcoming Master’s course in conservation at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai; which will be only the second Master’s course in the country since the one started at New Delhi’s National Museum Institute in 1991.
“WHILE PREVENTIVE CONSERVATION AIMS TO STOP THE FUTURE RISK OF DEGRADATION, REMEDIAL CONSERVATION ADDRESSES ACTIVE DETERIORATION TO ENHANCE THE LIFE OF THE OBJECT. IN ART CONSERVATION, THE CONSERVATOR HAS TO LOOK AT THE WORK FROM THE POINTS OF VIEW OF ART, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETICS. THIS HELPS THE CONSERVATOR UNDERSTAND IF THE WORK ONE IS DOING IS MAINTAINING THE AUTHENTICITY AND HISTORICITY OF THE ARTWORK”
Anupam Sah
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The Jaipur Procession—a Company-era oil-on-canvas by Russian painter Vasily Vereshchagin— touted as the world’s second-largest oil painting took a team of three conservators at the Victoria Memorial Hall about six months to restore and ready for public display. Image: Victoria Memorial Hall
Melding science and art
Bringing together craft, skills, microbiology, chemistry and other sciences, along with art history and humanities; art conservation, as a practice, spans multiple disciplines. It begins with recognising the objective signs of deterioration on an artwork, followed by an investigation that includes processes such as multispectral imaging using X-rays and infrared rays. Identifying the cause of damage is next, which can then be addressed by either remedial or preventive conservation methods.
“While preventive conservation aims to stop the future risk of degradation, remedial conservation addresses active deterioration to enhance the life of the object. In art conservation, the conservator has to look at the work from the points of view of art, science, philosophy and aesthetics. This helps the conservator understand if the work one is doing is maintaining the authenticity and historicity of the artwork,” explains Sah.
When I walked into the KIAC conservation lab on a sunny morning last month, I was guided to a painting lying in storage, which was recovered from a water-logged basement, and was painstakingly restored by the team, along with five different conservators during a workshop held earlier this year. Separation of the paint layers and an understanding of the imagery and the losses were the preliminary steps to restore the painting.
During the process, documentation comes in handy as any past work can then be studied or used as a foundation to understand or determine the future course for conserving a piece of art. For example, Karmakar pointed out how the lack of enough information available about Vereshchagin’s painting made it difficult for the conservators “to decide where to start and what plan to adapt”.
For art conservation and restoration, chemicals such as adhesives, consolidants and solvents are used to address problems arising from elemental damage to biodeterioration and more. The restoration of aging canvases and more structural repair are also vital to prolonging the lifespan of an artwork.
“I THINK THE SENSE OF URGENCY AT THIS POINT STEMS FROM THE FACT THAT THE ENTIRE POINT OF CONSERVATION IS ROOTED IN OUR DESIRE AND NEED TO PRESERVE ART AND OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS"
Dibakar Karmakar
Roadblocks in restoration
While the lack of documentation and paraphernalia could be two of the obstacles that conservationists face, the other is the lack of experts available to address the rising demand for art restoration. While chemicals such as ethanol, isopropyl and xylene are abundantly available in India, “a laboratory-grade, tested, refined varnish and various kinds of art-friendly, PH-neutral adhesives with the right kind of transparency and even good quality linen canvases,” says Karmakar, “are best imported.”
Prices for art owners or collectors such as Ray might go up because of the material involved, and, in many cases, it might also become unaffordable. For instance, KIAC had a soapstone Ganesha sculpture lying in their storage, which originally cost around ₹ 10,000. However, the repair cost included finding a soapstone expert to come to their lab and ensure that a suitable material was being used. This ultimately led to incurring a cost that was more than double the original price. This prompted the owner of the sculpture to donate it to the lab as he could not afford to pay for its repairs.
Meanwhile, Sah says though demand had now risen, the concerned institutions also needed to fill in the vacancies in the various conservation teams to allow restoration work to be carried out in the best-possible way. “With a vacuum of open positions in our institutions and more rigorous courses now coming up, maybe it’s time for the government to start moving papers to fill in the posts with properly-trained art conservationists,” he says.
But like Sah, Karmakar and Agarwal also believe that the gaps in the niche world of art conservation are slowly being filled as both private and public bodies join hands to preserve and restore artworks. “I think the sense of urgency at this point stems from the fact that the entire point of conservation is rooted in our desire and need to preserve art and our cultural heritage for future generations,” says Karmakar.
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