Brown Varnish Don't Make It

I was drawn to a piece in the December "Oldie" [out now] by Quentin Letts, on his horror that the restoration of works of art constitutes a kind of criminal act against them [I exaggerate, but forgive me]. I agree that the over-extension of the restorer's art can lead to unfortunate attempts to re-interpret the original work in the 'light' of misguided historicist imaginings of the artist's original intent [never a good idea], but the assertion that an uncleaned 'old master' is somehow superior to the artist's original vision is frankly perverse. As a writer he should ask himself the question 'Would I prefer my writing to remain as clear and legible to a future audience - as true to my original intention - or should I prefer it to obscured by a cloud of obfuscatory noise and confusion instigated by age and degradation? For this is exactly his point about works of art: it would appear that he feels that the fog of history writ large in the ageing varnish of old masters' painting is somehow more authentic than the artist's original vision for the work itself.

As an erstwhile trained and duly qualified practitioner of the Fine Arts, I find that stance somewhat puzzling, nay even offensive. Am I to believe that any artist, let alone a Renaissance master or two - never mind the geniuses that book-ended that remarkable period and beyond - would have elected to deliberately obscure their works, lovingly created using the latest, and most exceedingly expensively procured - and vibrant - pigments, behind a veil of mud-brown sheen, just to assuage the sensibilities of some future critic? To be honest, no I can't, and I won't. I once saw a fifteenth century triptych in a church in Bourg-en-Bresse, many, many years ago, that was simply and breathtakingly so vibrant that it could have been painted that week [it hadn't]. No-one can tell me that that the person who painted that would have wished a future audience to have seen it in anything less than the glory that it was at the point of its creation. Art is more than the bland appreciation afforded it by the chattering middle classes and the rich who can afford to to hoard it for profit or simply because they can: it means something to those that create it; and their original vision is where we should focus, not on the accrustations [neologism mine own] of age for its own sake. I love patina, but sometimes originality is where it's at...