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Yes, the Mona Lisa needs cleaning, badly. Yellowed varnish is not hard to remove. Yet they preserve it, as some sort of misguided treasuring of the painting as
by JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Yes, the Mona Lisa needs cleaning, badly. Yellowed varnish is not hard to remove. Yet they preserve it, as some sort of misguided treasuring of the painting as an artifact. Instead of as a painting. So we go elsewhere to see how the real image is supposed to appear, as intended by the artist.
Leaving a painting filthy is a disservice to the artist and to the viewer.
- rhelz 3y agoAs long as the painting is stable, there is something to be said for keeping it as undisturbed as possible. Historically, we have had to trade off the risk of bad restorations the desire to see the painting in its full glory. But these days, couldn't they just x-ray/MRI it and do a digital reconstruction of it? We should be able to have our cake and eat too.
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoRestoration practices are at their peak. Don't look to the 1700's or 1800's to repeat scare stories of bad restorations. It would go fine, and look vastly improved. And you want to see it in it's full glory? Go to the Prado, they have one, painted the same day, side by side with the original. The point of the story after all. Which begs the question, who cares about the nasty one in the Louvre. Ok, leave it rot I guess, we have a better one now.