Episode 29 - Unwanted Material
Jun 13, 2026 · 35 min · 12 segments
What is meant by "cleaning" a painting? What materials can be removed from a painting and how is that done?
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Jean DommermuthHost
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Jun 13, 2026 · 35 min · 12 segments
What is meant by "cleaning" a painting? What materials can be removed from a painting and how is that done?
Jean DommermuthHostNo entities detected.
So in this episode, I want to talk a bit about the conservation treatment step known as cleaning, a topic I've mentioned before, and that I'll come back to again because it's a big, complex issue.
In episode 11 about the Chimabui crucifix, I said that, first of all, I really don't like the word cleaning when it comes to paintings, but that's the word everyone uses.
Ambiguous because in paintings conservation, it can mean two very different things, both of which I'm going to talk about in this episode.
What's true about both type of cleaning is that they're really about the removal of unwanted material.
And then the word cleaning is loaded because it has positive connotations, implying, as I've said before, health, wealth, morality, and modernity.
The opposite of clean is dirty, right? Which is bad, right? So cleaning must be good, right? But one issue with cleaning works of art and I've said this before back in episode 19, is that once you remove that material, it's gone, and you can't undo that, which technically goes against an idea or an ideal that's often been stated as a goal in modern conservation practice, the idea of reversibility.
that anything a conservator does to a work of art should be undoable at some point in the future without doing any harm to the original materials.
So we now often speak instead about retreatability, that we aren't setting up a situation where a future conservator has no options.
So in this episode, I want to talk a bit about the conservation treatment step known as cleaning, a topic I've mentioned before, and that I'll come back to again because it's a big, complex issue.
In episode 11 about the Chimabui crucifix, I said that, first of all, I really don't like the word cleaning when it comes to paintings, but that's the word everyone uses.
Ambiguous because in paintings conservation, it can mean two very different things, both of which I'm going to talk about in this episode.
What's true about both type of cleaning is that they're really about the removal of unwanted material.
And then the word cleaning is loaded because it has positive connotations, implying, as I've said before, health, wealth, morality, and modernity.
The opposite of clean is dirty, right? Which is bad, right? So cleaning must be good, right? But one issue with cleaning works of art and I've said this before back in episode 19, is that once you remove that material, it's gone, and you can't undo that, which technically goes against an idea or an ideal that's often been stated as a goal in modern conservation practice, the idea of reversibility.
that anything a conservator does to a work of art should be undoable at some point in the future without doing any harm to the original materials.
So we now often speak instead about retreatability, that we aren't setting up a situation where a future conservator has no options.
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