Reviving history: The intricate art of painting restoration at Subotica City museum
Original text was published here.
“The old paintings, centuries old, frames lined up one after another like in a queue, patiently awaiting inspection, and several sculptures silently observing the bustle in the ‘clinic’ filled with the scent of solvents and varnish, are just a fragment of the atmosphere in the restoration studio of the Subotica City Museum, which, like any waiting room in a clinic, is packed with ‘patients”.
“This is actually a kind of examination and treatment of a painting, except that the patient doesn’t scream,” says Dr. Žužana Korhec Pap, a painter-restorer and museum advisor, as she diagnoses in a white coat the artwork currently under her care.
Lying on the vacuum table, the “exhausted” painting has completely surrendered to the skilled hands of the restorer, who gently applies putty to the cracked parts of the canvas with a rounded knife, like a balm to heal the open “wounds”.
“What I’m doing now is called putting. Wherever the base is missing, where there are holes or tears in the painting, I push in the putty, or ground chalk, so that the painting becomes a unified surface. You see here, where there were holes, all these small areas are now filled,” explains Žužana, pointing with her fingers to all the wrinkles that time has etched into the painting over more than 200 years.
The artwork in question is “The Holy Trinity” from the collection of the Franciscan Monastery, which ended up in the City Museum of Subotica because our interviewee used its decorative frame for an exhibition about the Schöfft family of painters. When she saw the condition of the painting, she decided to keep it in her studio for a while and give it the appropriate “treatment.”
„ Every artwork has its own story. Just like when we get sick and go to the doctor, here we also start with the current condition, which means photographing it to document that state. If necessary, we do photo research, we can take a sample from the painting, or even take it to a medical facility for an X-ray, the same kind used for people,” the restorer explains, adding that she is assisted by her colleague with whom she shares the studio, museum photographer Svetlana Kolović.
„All of this is done so that we know exactly what happened to the painting and what we can expect. Therefore, through these photo investigations and samples, we find out what materials the painting is made of and can assess which materials are needed for conservation and cleaning,” she explained.
Conservation aims to halt further deterioration of the artwork and can “extend its life” by as much as 50 to 70 years.
In the case of the painting she is currently restoring, Žužana says that conservation was necessary right away because it was “deformed, torn, and first needed to be consolidated.”
“It is coated with a conservation compound, which penetrates through the support and reattaches all the parts that want to detach from the support. Only then can we proceed to cleaning,” she explained.
“Cleaning is a very important phase in the ‘restoration’ of an artwork, aimed at removing all layers, including dust and dirt that have accumulated over time, as well as any overpaint applied subsequently, from the original painting.”
In this process, the restorer uses various chemical agents, mild acids, and alkalis, which she purchases separately because, as she emphasises, ‘not just anything can be used, and each painting requires something different.’ Therefore, she always conducts a test cleaning to determine which chemical will most easily and quickly remove overpaint without harming the original.
„Those subsequent overpaint layers were very difficult to remove because the original layer itself is very thin. It was painted very thinly, so the chemicals used to clean the overpaint quickly damaged it. Therefore, I had to combine chemical and mechanical cleaning,” explains Žužana, emphasising that cleaning can sometimes be very challenging.
„There were also paintings, for example, at the exhibition about Falconer, that could only be mechanically cleaned with a small scalpel. I couldn’t use any chemicals because the overpaint was as hard as concrete, and removing that layer without damaging the original could only be done bit by bit with a small scalpel,” cited this ‘doctor’ of art restoration.
Although the roots of restoration trace back to ancient Greece and Rome, where repairs were made to ceramic vessels and sculptures, organised restoration practices for artworks are considered to have begun in the 18th and 19th centuries.
During this period, the first institutions and schools dedicated to restoration were established, and techniques for cleaning paintings, removing varnishes, and retouching damages were developed. Significant progress occurred in the 20th century with the advent of new technologies such as X-rays, infrared reflectography, and other diagnostic methods, which aided restorers in better understanding the condition of artworks and planning restorations. Emphasis was placed on ethical and conservation aspects to preserve the authenticity and integrity of the original works. Today, restoration is a discipline that combines technical knowledge, scientific research, and artistic understanding to safeguard cultural heritage worldwide.
Besides chemical agents, cotton wool, and scalpels, Žužana also uses other “tools” during the cleaning of artworks, such as those used by dentists, from whom she admits she often requests old or unused tools, which, when sharpened, are of great help to her.
Sometimes she has to use a gas mask or, more frequently now, a ventilation system like an aspirator to protect herself from the fumes of chemicals that can be hazardous to health.
“The specificity of the materials she works with is best exemplified by an unusual sticky caramel-coloured mixture she used, reaching for it to isolate patched rips in the painting with chalk putty.
However, perhaps the most unexpected item we found in the “studio” of our restorer is an iron. As she explains, she uses the iron to smooth out creased, rolled, or deformed paintings, and if they are of the dimensions of something like the “Holy Trinity,” then she uses a vacuum table.
„This table simultaneously flattens and heats, creating a vacuum, thereby conserving the entire surface at once. When manually ironing, it can only flatten section by section,” says our interviewee, who manually ironed the work of the Baroque painter Senser from 1751, a piece measuring an impressive six metres long and three metres high, the largest painting she has restored to date in terms of dimensions.
“That was during the time of the coronavirus. I was very diligent and managed to restore it. The painting had been rolled up for more than 80 years and originally stood in the seminary in Pécs, where a high school is located today. Thanks to my previous exhibitions, I was able to acquire it, and it probably would never have been restored because they wouldn’t have been able to raise enough money to pay an independent restorer. This way, it was a gift from our museum,” says Žužana.
After the painting is straightened, the preparation begins for the phase that is most visible to the observer, which is the aesthetic reconstruction. At that point, the painting tools finally come into use, including easels, brushes, and paints, as well as so-called blind and working frames.
However, the most important thing is that all the materials Žužana applies to the painting during the restoration of the artwork must be reversible.
„In other words, my work can be removed from the painting with a common solvent, leaving the original intact. This is what reversible means, so the painting can be restored again in the future. All of this is recorded in documentation made in two or three copies. One copy is given to the owner, another stays with me, and the third, if the artwork is protected, goes to the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments,” our interviewee explains, noting that the duration of the restoration is directly dependent on the damage the painting has sustained and can require from several days to several months of work.”
„ And the owner of the piece always decides what they want, whether it’s a complete aesthetic reconstruction or simply stopping the deterioration to reach the original state. In my experience, aesthetic reconstruction is almost always done because it’s not appropriate to return an altarpiece to use if, for example, a saint’s head is missing. This is, admittedly, a rough example, but the goal is for the observer not to see what is wrong with the painting, but to have an impression of the artwork in its beauty,” the restorer concludes.
Thanks to Dr. Žužana Korhec Pap, around 200 artworks enjoy their beauty today, which she has restored over nearly three decades in this profession. After graduating from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest in 1995 from the Department of Restoration, and the following year from the Department of Art Education, she began working at the City Museum of Subotica in 1997, where, in addition to paintings, she also restores artworks on paper and decorative frames.
And not only that. She is one of the few painter-restorers who extensively researches Hungarian Baroque painters, through which she has managed to preserve from oblivion authors such as Sebastian Stettner, Matthias Hanisch, Franz Falconer, Matija Žeravić, Viennese Baroque masters in Vojvodina, and the Schafer painting family, transforming their restored works into international exhibitions.
„Ever since high school, I knew I wanted to do something related to art. Mr. Borosh, with whom I took drawing lessons to prepare for the entrance exam, told me that I had a good hand and good eyes, which I had known since I was little, but I also knew that I lacked that passion and creative drive. Additionally, from a young age, I was very attached to the past, and at the age of 12 or 13, I started asking my grandmother and other relatives for old things, collecting them and setting them aside. It was only when I first saw the work of a restorer, just before the entrance exam, that it dawned on me that this was what I wanted to do. Restoration combines three things – art, natural sciences, and social sciences, so it stands on three pillars, and I found myself precisely in that,” our interviewee concludes.
„A major lesson for me was the first piece I restored after college. It was an altarpiece from a church in Bačka Topola. I arranged everything with the parish priest and asked if they had a way to transport it to Subotica. Since they said the transport was secured, I didn’t think to double-check. However, when the painting arrived, it was tied to an open trailer and wasn’t protected at all. The canvas was already in poor condition because it had been exposed to a lot of rain or water, and during transport, it tore completely, like a sail on a ship. That’s how I learned never to leave transportation to others again, but to always organise and supervise it myself. In the end, I managed to restore the painting, but instead of it being a little work, it was a lot of work, and some parts were completely lost along the way,” says Dr. Žužana Korhec Pap.
Author: Julijana Patarčić
