Most classic arts use materials that can degrade over time. Some of the best known works of art are painted with egg yolks, flower petals, and stones. As these works age, their organic components wear and age along with the environment around them. Often, these paintings, sculptures, and other master art works have lain exposed to the elements. Not all gallery space is equipped with the needed safeguards to protect fragile or damaged exhibits.

Art and science aren’t that different when it comes to ensuring results based on adherence to a method. Like the scientist, the artist has an idea, or theory, and wants to construct an experiment to see if the idea is possible, or if it needs to be augmented to succeed, or be proven.

One of the most trusted aspects of scientific discipline is the adherence to a particular methodology.  In order to prove anything with science, the experiments must be repeatable. When science encounters a problem, it uses repeatable testing methods to prove a theory, or disprove a result. This insistence on repeatability and method applies to restoring old master art works very well. The time-tested art restoration procedures used to repair and preserve these irreplaceable art works are more like a scientific method themselves.

The window for getting the best use from art restoration is small. Once degradation compromises the best parts of the work being considered for restorative work, the gears switch to preservation of the work. In either case, the best procedures are methodic. While differences in materials must guide each individual repair, the methods for executing these procedures are very similar. Some damage is routine and somewhat easy to correct. Other kinds of damage, like mold, tears, and cracks, require another set of diagnostic and corrective tools.

Whatever the case, artisans tasked with repairing and preserving classic, and modern, art have a complex job to do. Few early artistic masters left detailed instructions about how their works were completed. The art restorers of today have to be like forensic detectives, discovering and relearning the techniques of some artists that have been dead for centuries. When the fruits of their efforts are seen, it’s evident the gap between art and science is shorted in some places.  But for the love of art the pursuit of science so often at odds with artistic expression, is a marriage of necessity to preserve and retain the great master works for future generations.