From Empirical Practice to Interdisciplinary Task: The Evolution of the Cultural Heritage Conservation

ROMINA GATTI; ANA MARÍA MORALES; DAMASIA GALLEGOS; MARIANA BINI; DOLORES GONZALEZ PONDAL; FERNANDO MARTE

Los Angeles

Encuentro; AIC 50th Annual Meeting Reflecting on the Past, Imagining the Future; 2022

American Institute for Conservation

Art works conservation is a discipline that is practiced, as we know it today, about one hundred and fifty years ago. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the figure of the conservator-restorer emerged in Europe with a role that was distinguished and completely separated from the painter. In this way, he reached a professional specialization hitherto unknown.Nevertheless, it is important to know throughout the conservation history, there have been a series of events that, at present, we would consider inadmissible. In the not-so-distant past, there have been conservation criteria with a strong romantic bent that respected historicity over aesthetics and exalted the sublime and picturesque value of a ruin. On the other hand, in other periods, the discipline has focused on returning the lost splendour of a piece.