artconservation

Art conservation is the professional practice of preserving artworks and cultural objects for long-term survival, balancing stabilization with respect for integrity and authenticity. The field covers paintings, works on paper, textiles, sculpture, photographs, and time-based media. It combines preventive conservation (environment, storage, handling) with interventive conservation (stabilization and restoration), under thorough documentation.

Core principles include minimal intervention, reversibility where feasible, material compatibility, and ethical considerations of provenance, authorship, and public accessibility.

Typical activities are condition assessment, environmental monitoring, cleaning, consolidation of delicates, varnish removal, structural repair, and framing or housing decisions. Treatments rely on non-invasive analyses (X-ray, infrared, spectroscopy) to guide decisions.

Conservation requires specialized training. Across subfields such as painting, paper, textiles, photographs, and digital media, professionals pursue graduate programs and adhere to codes from bodies like the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) or the International Institute for Conservation (IIC).

Challenges include funding, debates over intervention versus preservation, climate change, digitization, and disaster preparedness, with collaboration among curators, scientists, and conservators to maintain access and meaning.