Black Has Always Been Black.

And when you’re gone, who remembers your name?

Who keeps your flame?

Who tells your story?

A remarkable Jacobean re-emergence after 200 years of yellowing varnish Courtesy Philip Mould

PAINT RESTORATION OF MESMERIZING

I saw this on Twitter. He’s using acetone, but a cellulose ether has been added to make it into a gel (probably Klucel—this entire gel mixture is sometimes just called Klucel by restorers, but Klucel is specifically the stuff that makes the gel). 

Normally, acetone is too volatile for restoration, but when it’s a gel, it becomes very stable and a) stays on top of the porous surface of the painting, and b) won’t evaporate. So it can eat up the varnish.

It looks scary, but acetone has no effect on oils, and jelly acetone is even less interactive with the surface of the paint or canvas.

Will someone PLEASE clean the mona lisa

For those who are wondering, they cleaned a copy of the Mona Lisa made by one of Da Vinchi’s students, and here’s a side by side comparison:

CLEAN THE FUCKING MONA LISA.

A couple problems with cleaning the Mona Lisa:

The Mona Lisa is a glazed painting.

A Direct Painting is one in which the artist mixes a large amount of paint of the correct value and shade the first time, and applies it to the painting. A Glazed Painting is a painting in which an underpainting is painted, generally in shades of gray or brown, and a allowed to dry, before layers of very thin glaze - a mixture of a tiny bit of pigment and a lot of oil - is applied to the surface.  Some artists, such as Leonardo, choose to work this way because it provides an incredible sense of light and illumination (look at how the real Mona Lisa seems to glow).

The Mona Lisa is an incredible work of glazed painting, but that makes it fragile, so fragile that many conservators don’t want to work on it because it’s extremely difficult and a conservation effort go wrong for many many reasons. One of the reasons it could go wrong is that the glazes and the varnish layers are actually a very similar chemical composition, and a conservator could accidentally strip off layers of glaze while removing the varnish. 

In fact, in 1809 during its first restoration when they stripped off the varnish, they also stripped off some of the top paint layers, which has caused the painting to look more washed out than Leonardo painted it. 

The Mona Lisa also has a frankly ridiculous amount of glaze layers on it, as Leonardo considered it incomplete up until he died, He actually took it with him when he left Italy (fleeing charges of homosexuality), meaning it never even got to the family who had commissioned it, and instead constantly altered it, trying to get it just a touch more perfect every time. That makes it really fragile, with countless layers of very thin paint, many of which have cracked, warped, flaked, or discolored. It’s not just the top layer, its layers and layers of glazing throughout the painting that have slowly discolored or been damaged over time.

Speaking of damage, look at the cracking. That’s called craquelure; it happens with many painting’s (even ones that aren’t painted with this technique) because the paint shrinks as it dries, or the surface it’s painted on warps.  Notice that the other painting has very little of it, even though it’s almost the same age.

The reason the Mona Lisa has so much craquelure is because Leonardo was highly experimental, almost to the point of it being his biggest flaw. There were established painting techniques, and then there were Leonardo’s painting techniques.  The established painting techniques were created in order to insure longevity and quality, but Leonardo didn’t stick to any of them. This has made his work a ticking time bomb of deterioration. 

Don’t believe me, check it out:

This is how most people think The Last Supper looks

But this is actually a copy done by Andrea Solari in 1520.

The actual Last Supper looks like this:

The Last Supper has been painstakingly and teadiously restored, with conservators sometimes working on sections as small as 4 cm a day. To get to it you’ve got to walk through a series of airlocks (AIRLOCKS!?!?!) and they only allow 15 people at a time because the moisture from your breath and your skin particles will damage it. Despite all of the precautions and restoration, it still looks like that.

This is because Leonardo painted the last supper using highly experimental methods. He didn’t use the traditional wet-into-wet method that fresco painters used, and insead painted onto the dry plaster on the wall, meaning the paint did not chemically adhere.  Before he even died the painting had already begun to flake. It’s a miracle it’s still there at all.

They’ve done what restoration they can on The Last Supper because the painting will absolutely disappear if they don’t. The Mona Lisa, which is delicate, but much more stable, doesn’t need the same kind of attention. And, like many of his works, is just too delicate to touch, and the risk of doing irreparable damage to it is far too high. The Mona Lisa is insured for something like 800 million dollars, and that’s a lot of money to be ruined by one wrong brush stroke. (fun fact: the most expensive painting ever sold was also a Leonardo, the Salvator Mundi, and it went for 450 million dollars.)

Furthermore, there are probably only 20 or so authenticated Leonardo paintings in the whole world. If you look through the list, most of them aren’t even fully done by him, are disputed, or aren’t even finished.  It’s simply too difficult and too risky to restore the Mona Lisa, one of Leonardo’s only finished and mostly intact works, when there’s hardly any more of his paintings to fall back on.

Now the painting you see in the video above is 200 years old, not 600 years old, and I assure you, the conservators decided the risk to restore it was minimal (after extensive research, paint testing, x-raying, gamma radiation, etc.) and that the work they were doing was worth the risk based on the painting’s value.

Conservators make the decision all the time about how much they can do for a painting, because really, they have the ability to completely strip a painting of all varnish and glazes and just repaint the whole thing (which happens to a lot of badly damaged paintings, especially when there’s no way to save them - one of the very small museums in my area recently deaccessioned a Monet because it was barely original, and no one wants to look at a Monet that’s only 20% Monet’s work) - but doing that to the Mona Lisa, removing the artist’s hand from the most famous piece of artwork in history? Hell No.

(also, I’m not a conservator but I’ll be applying to a conservation grad program sometime next year, so sorry if any of my info is at all inaccurate) 

I found this really interesting, thanks for sharing.

can you believe how powerful and important this film is??

robin williams was rad as hell.. 

I’m still fucking devastated about this.

Same. I’ll never get over it and nothing has been the same since.

sigh

Just want to point out that Christopher Reeve was considering suicide before Robin Williams showed up. He didn’t just make him laugh, he saved Reeve’s life. Also, he paid for Reeve’s medical bills from the accident.

*stillgrosssobbingoverthis*

I will never get past his death.

crying

Yeah, I’m still not over this

The most beautiful, funny people are sometimes the ones hurting the most - and the best at hiding it.

It’s worth noting that Williams had a serious physical illness that affected his mental capacities, caused major paranoia, and drove him to suicidal thoughts and actions. He was more than just depressed.

But yes, we suffered great loss when he died. Memory Eternal☦️

Mark Hamill goodnaturedly patting Chadwick Boseman on the shoulder to celebrate his success is one of the most blessed images I’ve ever seen.

This is the Money Chadwick. Reblog In 47 minutes to get 48 million dollars.

A beautiful purple colored rice field in Yuanyang, Yunnan Province, China | Enrico Barletta

my American gf: pound me me: what’s that in metric

and that’s why you don’t go around fixing people

and that’s why you don’t give up pieces of yourself to make someone else whole

We do this more than we think. Sometimes we reject those who have helped us the most. Other times, we help those who allow their egos to hide their humilities.

someONE FUCKING MAKE THAT TEDDY BEAR HAPPY BEFORE I CHOKE BECAUSE I HAVE TEARS BRIMMING MY EYES HELP ME

it may take time but there is someone waiting to hold your hand

My tears

I’ve reblogged this already but I love it.

The first time I blogged this he was broken and alone. Now he has love :’)

So relatable 😩😩

Me in this teddy bear have something in common I’m waiting

I NEVER NOTICED UNTIL TEN MINUTES AGO THAT ANDY USED TO WEAR JESSIE’S HAT WHEN PLAYING WITH WOODY AND FOR SOME REASON THIS MAKES ME REALLY HAPPY

Wait a second…

Jessie’s previous owner, Emily, wore a hat similar to Jessie’s. And now Andy is wearing one.

Guys… what if Emily is Andy’s mom?!

please dont do this.  not 10 years later please dont give me toy story feels

luke’s laugh is the best sound in the world 

ACTUAL MESSAGE OF (500) DAYS OF SUMMER THAT NO ONE ACTUALLY REALIZES

what the fuck is this

protect her