The art of art restoration    

When I first saw ‘The Triumph of Death’ (1562-63), by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the painting throbbed: this land was sick, smothered in smoke; the fires on the horizon had been burning for ever, turning earth into dirt, air into haze. All was dull, lethargic, ill.

When I saw the painting again some years later, the smoke had cleared. Patches of green pushed up from the canvas; the peasantry’s clothes were suddenly bright; the sun appeared to exist. In its new clarity, some of the painting’s jaded horror had been replaced by a sort of comedy. The work had been restored, but something had been lost.

That ‘something’ is much easier to identify in the National Gallery’s recent – and much criticised – restoration of Piero Della Francesca’s ‘Nativity’ (early 1480s) (see below). You have to feel for the restorers, since two of the shepherds were in such poor condition they had to be almost completely repainted. Unfortunately, you also have to feel for the shepherds, who now look as though they’ve been in an accident at a tanning salon and got lost on their way to the hospital. Why did they end up like this?

I put that question to a man who should know: Maurizio De Luca, formerly chief restorer at the Vatican’s Restoration Laboratory, and a man who has been restoring the likes of Raphael, Michelangelo and Botticelli since 1967.

De Luca laughs mischievously. ‘I’d be happy to give judgment if you can fly me over! There’s always a lot of criticism of restoration, but retouching is often a lesser evil because at least it can be removed’, since the new paint goes over the original, whereas a fuller restoration can include a number of irreversible procedures. ‘A mistake in a restoration is like ripping a page out of a history book.’