Art Restoration Goes High Tech

from the don't-mess-with-art-restorers dept

The Economist has a long article looking at all the various technologies now used in art restoration. It seems like quite the high tech business, these days. Though, there are some debates about what should and shouldn't be done to artwork. There's even one guy who wants to simply make exact replicas of certain pieces of art, and hide away the originals while only displaying the copies. There's also a good story for those of you who have opinions about those modern art canvases that are all one color. There was a painting called (amazingly enough) "Black Painting" that was damaged. In the attempted restoration process, they realized that someone had already tried to paint over Black Painting with (get this) black paint! So, now they're trying to remove the false layer of black paint while repairing the other damage to the painting.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    dorpus, 7 Nov 2002 @ 1:00pm

    long term effects

    In the 20th century, people bemoaned how we are becoming engulfed by sterile modern settings, because there was no longer an infrastructure for creating things the old-fashioned, labor-intensive way (rounded ceilings, brick roads, stone masonry, hand-woven fabrics, etc.).

    This and future nano-technologies should bring down the cost of making exact replicas of older artifacts. The new debate of the future will be on whether to keep 20th century artifacts like radio towers, telephone poles, concrete sea walls, etc. as "cultural assets".



    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.