How not to clean pictures: the risk of gels

An art dealer has taken down the video nasty of this picture being scrubbed 'clean' with a harsh brush while gel drips across the cleaned area. You can still see it here as of today. The American Institute for Conservation issued a critical statement and conservators were furious. I don't know who was cleaning the picture, but a conservator on social media calls him 'Scrubby Jelly Pants'. The vigorous scraping with a harsh brush is horrifying, and obviously risks damage. We'll never know how much harm was done; working that quickly makes assessment impossible. In the image above the uncleaned eyebrow looks clearer than the cleaned one, despite the varnish. Of course it's possible that it's an effect of light or they were touched up by a later restorer, but the most likely explanation is damage to the original paint. But although the risk of mechanical abrasion is obvious, my concern here is with the relatively new use of gels in conservation.

Gels allow better control of solvents, restricting penetration. Conservators worry that residues could continue to act on painting long after the restoration, but extensive research suggests that the risk is low. My concern is slightly different: it's that new techniques encourage over-confidence. The defence of Scrubby Jelly Pants has been to assert that gels can be tailored to remove only varnish. Bullish conservators have always claimed only to remove varnish; no one wants to say they're removing original paint. But it's just not true. There's always a risk of removing original paint, particularly when it's applied as glazes that might be made of pigment suspended in varnish. Gels are not magic, and cleaning pictures is not an exact science.

Psychologists speculate that we have a 'risk budget', so we respond to new safety measures by taking more risk. Make us wear seatbelts, and we'll drive faster. The other risk is that new techniques are over-sold. There's a mountain of research on the benefits and uses of gels in conservation, but none of it says you can mix a Magic Gel that can be safely slavered over a picture and scrubbed away without risk. One of the main benefits of gels is the controlled application of solvent; in this video it is so thin it runs down the surface. If it were truly the case that the solvent can only dissolve varnish, and not affect underlying paint, it would not be necessary to apply it in a controlled way. The whole point of gels is to mitigate that risk.

The Hippocratic Oath - "first, do no harm" - is not appropriate in conservation. It would mean doing nothing. Old pictures, unlike people, do not heal or regenerate. Over time we can only ever have less of the original artwork. The challenge is to minimise the damage and weigh it against the benefits. Conservation is essential and desirable; a great masterpiece hidden behind dirt and varnish can't be enjoyed by anyone. But the idea of doing irreversible damage to irreplaceable art is horrifying, so the temptation is to deny the trade-off. I recently heard the leader of a major conservation project assert that there was 'no risk' involved. That either misunderstands risk, or mistrusts her audience to understand the trade-off.

Conservation has become highly professionalised and sophisticated. Good conservators use artistic knowledge and skill in the application of advanced scientific techniques that are extensively tested and debated. But their work is not widely appreciated outside the field. There ought to be a better quality debate about the costs and benefits of conservation projects, rather than spin about 'zero risk, all benefit'. The failure to have that debate is part of what creates the space for videos like this to go viral, and for bad conservation techniques to thrive.

Privatisation at the National Gallery: a reflection, and a modest proposal

The National Gallery has outsourced its security; the guards' strike was an abject failure, as AHN explains. The Union had a weak hand, and played it badly. The National Gallery always held all the cards, but they mismanaged the situation spectacularly. They unfairly dismissed an employee, but not just any employee. They sacked a union rep during one of the most contentious negotiations, which was a fantastically stupid move that caused the situation to escalate. 

The NG brought the strike on itself. Outsourcing is still a bad idea, but its implementation was handled incompetently. There is a serious lack of basic managerial competence and basic savvy. It is not simply that a senior individual made the decision to sack the union rep, but also that the management structure allowed the decision to be taken—it's a collective failure. And then it was compounded by upholding the decision on appeal. Morons. And where was the expertise from the Trustees, who are meant to provide outside guidance? The board seems stuffed with dilettantes who relish the social cachet but don't bring much to the table. I'm always appalled when the board minutes record their delight with the progress of restoration, which few of them are even qualified to judge. 

I'm not ideologically opposed to privatisation. My objections to outsourcing one of the key functions of the gallery are practical. But I do understand the need to save money and operate more efficiently, so in the interests of constructive engagement let me suggest a better candidate for outsourcing: conservation. The NG's conservation department has, in its history, done incalculable damage. Most of the collection has been drastically over-cleaned, given the collection a different appearance from museums in Europe that have been more cautious. 

The conservation department is expensive, powerful and dangerous. It holds great institutional power at the NG (the Head of Conservation was interim director before Nicholas Penny). It should be subservient to the curators. And it is dangerous, because its institutional authority means that it is immodest and subject to groupthink, promoting its bad ideas elsewhere—like the appalling overcleaning of the Leonardo's Virgin & Child with St Anne in the Louvre, promoted by NG conservator Larry Keith.

An internal conservation department has a natural incentive to create work for itself; who is going to say that nothing currently needs to be done, so they should take a holiday? On the other hand, it may on occasion have too much work to do, such as preparing pictures for a big exhibition, which incentivises haste. Given the lumpiness of the work schedule, it is a natural candidate for outsourcing. The day-to-day work of inspecting pictures annually ought more properly to fall to the curatorial department, which ought to have the skills to inspect pictures physically for damage and identify conservation work required. Outside consultants can be brought in to assist as required. 

The internal cost of cleaning a small picture is £34,500, which is far above commercial rates. And the NG is less competent than many independent conservators. They are now having to crowdsource to raise the funds to keep the conservation department going. Enough! Close it down. Save the money, and hire contractors. If they don't have the money, restoration will have to wait - which is not necessarily a bad thing, given the disastrous consequences of their historic haste.