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8/8/2019 Art Restorers Dec 6 2010
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The New Indian ExpressMONDAY, December 6, 2010
ona Lisa has the highest insurancevalue or a painting in history. In1962, it was assessed at $100million. I ination is taken intoaccount, this would have raised to$700 million
The most expensive Indianpainting is SH RazasSaurashtra. An acrylicon canvaspainted in1983. It was sold thisyear for over 16 crore
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Due to a lack of
adequate courses and
attractive career
prospects, there
arent many takers for
art restoration in India
Lakshmyc h e n n a i
Oscar Wilde is known to havesaid All art is immortal.No oence to Wilde but thethought o anything lastingorever seems to be a myth,
especially where great work o art areconcerned. You dont have to take thewriters word or it. Just ask the phe-nomenally talented group o restorerswho spend all their time working onneglected and damaged art pieces.
The walls o temples and other his-torically important places have orever
love messages and marriage proposals
undoing the damage
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Knights of
the artsengraved on them. People dont rea-lise the value o our heritage, ruesSreelatha Rao, assistant superintend-ing chemist, Archaeological Surveyo India (ASI), Chennai.
Dilapidated conditionsRao has worked extensively in Lep-akshi temple in Anantpur district,Andhra Pradesh, and also on the tem-ples in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. Themurals in Lepakshi were in a terriblestate. We didnt even know there wasa painting until we began cleaningthe surace. Most temples in Thanja-vur also shared the same ate.
A veteran in the eld with over two-decades o experience, Rao has alsoworked on stone arteacts, oil paint-
ings, photographs, heritage buildingsetc. Today, there are many people whospecialise in restoring paper paintingsor oil on canvas. But when I started, artconservation and restoration were vir-tually unheard o, she says.
Is there a dierence between thetwo? Art conservation and restorationare similar and dierent, explains KPMadhu Rani, Indian National Trust orArt and Cultural Heritage (INTACH),Bangalore. Conservators examine artpieces, assess and establish causes odamage and suggest means to preventurther deterioration. Restorers re-move residue like soot, moss and var-nish rom sculptures or paintings. Wemay try to bring the arteact back towhat we think it looked like. But it canbe undone at a later stage.
AfterBefore
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the Smithsonian Institution are someo the places that oer scholarships.There are a ew institutes in Nether-lands and Italy that oer courses inmural conservation.
Those who venture into this pro-ession rarely make money initially.VR Aparajitha, owner o Art Care,a conservation studio in Chennai,knows it all too well. Ater complet-ing my masters at the NationalMuseum Institute (2003),
restorers like me who hire interns. Hesays art conservation has immense poten-tial in India but there arent many takers.There are more than 1,500 restorers inthe UK but hardly 10 in India.
Menon is currently restoring around 80paintings rom the Asiatic Society. Dueto a lack o interns, it took me almost veyears to complete just 22 paintings. Its atedious and laborious job. Depending onthe damage, restoration can take a monthto over a year. Even the cost can vary romas low as 500 to as high as 1 lakh.
Menon also encourages students to doat least one international internship. Itenriches and broadens your understand-ing o what art restoration means. TheCourtauld Institute o Art, UK, or the US-based Getty Conservation Institute and
The New Indian ExpressMONDAY, December 6, 2010
cover storyhen Auguste Rodin exhibited his frstimportant work, The Bronze Period,in 1878 it was so realistic that peoplethought he had placed a live modelinside the cast
WJackson PollocksNumber 5, 1948, isrumoured to be the mostexpensive painting eversold - apparently it wasbought for over$140 million
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get in touchMail your contributions and
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Due to a lack of interns, ittook me almost five years tocomplete just 22 paintings.Its a tedious and laborious
job. Depending on thedamage, restoration can takea month to over a year. Even
the cost can vary from aslow as `500 to as highas `1 lakhSreekumar Menon
Where to studyYou can do PG courses in art restora-tion at the National Museum, NewDelhi, University of Mysore, University ofAllahabad and Kurukshetra University,Haryana. Students with a degree in BFAor with a science background or a basicdegree with specialisation in any of thedisciplines like ancient and medievalhistory, archaeology, world history andother relevant subjects can apply. TheDelhi Institute of Heritage Research andManagement, the Lucknow-based NRLCand institutes run by INTACH offer manyshort-term courses in art conservation.
Rani has restored the botanical paint-ings rom Lal Bagh, Bangalore, tradi-tional paintings o Mysore and Thanja-
vur and prints o Raja Ravi Varma.
Lack o qualifed expertsIn India, oten conservation and resto-ration are done by the same person dueto a lack o experts. With our rich cul-tural history, its a pity we dont haveenough qualied people working on itspreservation, says J Chandrasekaran,restorer with REACH (Rural Educationand Conservation o Heritage Founda-tion), Chennai.
He says experts should understandthe science behind the usage o materi-als like camphor, neem oil, castor oil andlamp soot on murals and the blends olime, sandstone and jaggery in buildingmaterials. We should know why limeis better than cement. For instance, theKailasanatha temple in Kanchipuram
was built with sandstone, over whicha layer o lime blend was painted. Themurals were painted with basic coloursthat were created with biodegradablematerials. I I want to preserve thestructure and restore the paintings,I need volumes o the same material.Where would I get it? he asks.
He adds that a course in conserva-tion is very important. ASI has manycourses. National Museum Institute,New Delhi, oers PG degrees. EvenREACH oers ew programmes. Inter-est levels to pursue these courses havegone up but in terms o sheer number,its not enough.
A course in conservationPerhaps the only institute in Asia tooer a masters and also a doctoral in
conservation is the National MuseumInstitute, New Delhi. We take only 15students in a batch. Anyone rom sci-ence and ne arts can apply, says MVelayudhan Nair, HoD, conservationdepartment. Students learn by work-ing with original art pieces and do a loto practical work. So a teachers directsupervision is very important. Teach-ers should have experience and alsorst-hand knowledge o the subject. Toget people like that is also dicult.
Ater completing the masters pro-gramme, students can train at theNational Research Laboratory or Con-servation o cultural property (NRLC)or six months. Ater an unpaid train-ing period, you also have to do a paidsix-month internship. Its only then youbecome a restorer or conservator.
Adds Chandrasekar, Most qualiedexperts are old people. There are morethan three-lakh heritage structures inIndia. The seniors cannot do them all.What happens when theyre gone? Stu-dents should do as many internships aspossible beore going on their own.
Long internshipsSreekumar Menon concurs and addsthat the only way to become a conserva-tor or a restorer is through internships.Ater a masters degree in art restora-tion, you have to do a lot o internshipsor the rst couple o years, says therestorer and ounder o Art Conserva-tion Studios, Noida. You can train atmuseums or at places like INTACH,REACH etc. There are many private
New Delhi, I did a six-month intern-ship with INTACH, New Delhi, saysthe 30-year-old photograph conserva-
tor. I was paid a very small stipend atINTACH but I worked on everything
oil on canvas, water colours, prints,monochrome sculptures, wooden ar-teacts, Chinese scrolls etc. Ater that,I trained under a supervisor romApril to September at Ladakh where Iworked on the Buddhist murals.
She got a major llip in 2007 whenthe main oce o the State Bank o In-dia, Chennai, gave her a contract to re-store foor tiles. The tiles were laid in1898. It was a mess and has been one othe toughest works or me. I began toearn some real money only ater ouryears o training and internships. By2007-end, I opened my studio.
Lack o jobs and bad payDespite an intense course curriculum
and gruelling internships, there arentmany openings or restorers. As aconservation scientist, you can diag-nose the damage and suggest methodsto clean it up. The actual cleaning andpreserving has to be done by experts.But where are the jobs? avers Nair.Even in the government museum inChennai, theres a chemist who alsoacts as a conservator. Now, the situ-ation is such that were like generaldoctors who need to know everything.I you want the eld to become niche,you need specialists.
Even those like Rani, who havespecialised in artwork on paper, arenot paid well. What pay? she quips.Ive been in this proession or over adecade and my pay is still bad. Its anamazing experience, however, to traveland interact with experts.
As an intern, you can expect tostart with `5-8,000 or an assignment.The amount may dier dependingon where youre interning and alsothe nature o the assignment. Withexperience, diversication and spe-cialisation, proessionals usually earn`8-20,000 per month.
Start new coursesChandrasekaran suggests instituteslike IIT and IISc should introduce mas-ters level courses in heritage conser-vation to improve job prospects. Thiswill encourage UG students with a sci-ence background to take it up. Thosewhove completed UG in civil engi-neering and BArch can take this pro-gramme. Universities must encourageresearch on traditional methods usedin creating art.
Colleges can also conduct aware-ness programmes about conservation.Make it mandatory or college stu-dents to clean art pieces in temples andmuseums. For those whove completedClass 10, introduce a diploma course intraditional architecture. The govern-ment can encourage literature studentsto do a certicate course in cleaningmurals. Chemistry students can join asassistants in museums, become cura-tors, antiquities preserver etc. n