Painting Restoration

This course offers a first, immersive introduction to the world of painting restoration, approached as a way of learning how paintings are made, damaged, and understood over time. Designed for beginners, the course welcomes students from studio art, art history, and related fields who are curious about the material life of paintings.

Students learn to observe paintings closely—reading surfaces for signs of age, environment, and human intervention. Through guided studio work, students examine real damaged paintings and explore how time, humidity, light, and handling affect paint, canvas, and panel supports. Restoration is introduced not as "repair," but as a careful, ethical dialogue with the artwork.

Working step by step, students learn foundational restoration procedures including surface cleaning, consolidation, filling losses, stabilizing paint layers, and basic support treatments. Inpainting techniques are introduced using both traditional tratteggio and illusionistic approaches, always grounded in contemporary conservation ethics.

Throughout the course, students are introduced to the ethical frameworks that guide modern conservators and discuss the responsibilities involved in intervening in historic works. Case studies from Italy and the United States help students understand different restoration philosophies and methodologies.

The course is enriched by guided visits to significant works of art in Florence and beyond that are currently under restoration or have been recently restored—allowing students to see conservation decisions at a monumental scale and to connect studio practice with real-world cultural heritage.

This advanced course builds on the foundations established in The Surface & the Image, offering a deeper exploration of historical painting restoration with an expanded focus on diagnostics, materials, and decision-making.

Students continue hands-on restoration work while being introduced to the scientific principles that inform conservation practice, including basic chemistry, material analysis, and diagnostic testing. Emphasis is placed on understanding why specific restoration methods are chosen and how environmental damage, aging materials, and previous restorations affect treatment options.

Under close supervision, students participate in the restoration of damaged antique artworks, engaging in controlled processes such as cleaning, filling, retouching, and varnishing. Equal importance is given to documentation, teaching students professional methods of recording condition, treatment decisions, and outcomes.

This course reinforces restoration as both a technical and intellectual practice—one that requires patience, judgment, and respect for historical integrity. Students are encouraged to reflect on limits, reversibility, and the role of the restorer within a broader cultural and historical context.