Down through the centuries, artists have produced great artworks that have stood the test of time and, today, are priceless and irreplaceable. But time can ravage these works, and they need to be brought back to their original glory. That’s where art conservators come in. They use their skills to restore art that has fallen into disrepair.
In 1516, the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari (known as the “Frari”) in Venice, Italy, commissioned Tiziano Vecellio (circa 1488–1576) to create an altarpiece. It was his first big job. He completed the painting two years later and it caused a sensation. It was showing the ravages of time.
Masterpiece of Design and Color
The “Assumption of the Virgin,” also known as the “Assunta,” Titian’s masterpiece, is still the largest painting on wood panels in the world. It was painted on 22 horizontal planks of poplar. Shaped like a Roman arch, the painting is framed by Istrian stone. This type of limestone is formed from marine creatures over eons and has the strength of marble. Above the framed painting are three larger-than-life-size sculptures of Christ the Redeemer and the Franciscan saints Francis and Anthony.
Titian’s arrangement of the figures in the “Assunta” is simple yet multifaceted. The figures are larger than life, the painting itself is almost 22 feet high, and the subject is out of this world, so to speak. It was designed to be seen easily from afar as one enters the church.
Titian divided the composition into three sections. The lower third of the painting shows the disciples who witness Mary as she rises to heaven; the disciples seem distraught at losing the mother of Jesus.
The middle section depicts Mary as she soars upward, bathed in heavenly light and encircled by a throng of angels. At the top of the painting, God awaits her, his arms outstretched, with an angel at his side holding a crown for her.
The Virgin Mary is the central figure, where all eyes are turned. She is shown in a swirl of red and blue drapery on solid-looking clouds. God looks down toward her in a welcoming gesture, while the disciples look up in distress at losing her.
This work demonstrates why Titian is considered the master of color. He used striking reds, heavenly golds, and earthy browns to tell his story. The artist painted with a limited palette, yet his paintings have depth due to how he used his pigments.
During the Renaissance, numerous paintings were composed with just a few colors, according to Arthur Pope, director of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard. There might be a burnt sienna for brown, a yellow ocher, a white, a black, and perhaps a red. “A Venetian red, instead of burnt sienna, might be used to extend the palette down to red-orange; or Indian red, or even vermilion, might be used for occasional small accents.”
A Careful Restoration
Although the painting had been restored several times over previous centuries, recently Titian’s “Assumption of the Virgin” altarpiece was again showing wear and tear and needed repair. Around the 500th anniversary of the painting’s unveiling in 1519, restoration began. Conservation planning was launched in 2012.
The experts did the restoration in carefully planned steps. Over three months, they initially removed accumulated dust and debris. They also used this initial stage to diagnose the issues and to research the history of the painting’s maintenance. After the initial preparatory stage was completed, actual conservation activities commenced, which were expected to take 18 months.
Restorers found problems on the painting’s surface. Paint was lifting and flaking. Also, layers of paint and varnish were applied in later centuries which discolored the work.
Conservators also studied the back of the painting. Organ pipes had been installed in recent decades; when the organ was played, it made the painting vibrate. In addition, the wooden pipes of the organ, infested with wood-boring insects, were close to the back of the painting. For these reasons, the organ was removed in 2018 and donated to a church in another city. The restorers then eradicated the wood-boring insects around the wood structure; upon careful inspection, they found the painting’s support structure sound.
In order for restorers to do their work on scaffolding and still allow visitors to enjoy Titian’s masterpiece, conservators placed a replica of actual scale in front of the scaffolding.
Then the experts began to work on the painting itself. In small section by small section, they expertly lifted off flaked paint, cleaned the surface, and removed color and varnish not original to the work. Researchers discovered that there were areas of heavy, 19th-century overpainting, which was also removed.
Restorers also attended to the layers of grime on the Istrian stone, which covered the original gilding and the colored decoration.
Treasuring the Irreplaceable
Hundreds of years have passed, and we still gain comfort and joy from the paintings of great masters like Titian, perhaps because the great masters had penetrating insight to paint these heavenly scenes. And those scenes are irreplaceable. “Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and expressing the world,” according to Dana Giola, poet and chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.
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