The history of a masterpiece includes the history of its scars. This was amply demonstrated by the work of two of the main people in charge of the Department of Restoration and Conservation of the National Gallery Londonthe most important art gallery in the United Kingdom, who worked around the clock for months in the development of one of the most important paintings in the collection: The judgment of Parisby Rubens, which had to be ready for the official celebration of the museum’s 200th anniversary, on May 10.
Larry Keith, head of the department, and Britta New, one of the National Gallery’s principal conservators, allowed The weekly country access to the workshop where they worked on this masterpiece of Flemish Baroque painting, the last of the paintings that the artist dedicated to one of the mythological episodes that has been captured most times in the history of art. It is estimated that he completed it in the mid-1630s.
“It’s a rubens especially interesting, because it has an intense history regarding its conservation. The painter himself made changes to the work or to the wooden panel, which he increased with several slats to expand its size. There are even changes in the composition. And later, about 50 years after it was painted and the artist died, the painting belonged to a French collector and underwent further changes at the hands of a restorer,” explains Britta New while pointing out the different details of the painting that are missing. to the gaze of the lay spectator. “It was altered again by a French painter when it was part of the catalog of the Duke of Richelieu, around the 1670s. Those changes gave a drastic turn to the story the painting told.”
![New, in full task.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/COG6BNLRJJGNHNIRTH3GSQJXXE.jpg?auth=18fcd6fe9a3cb5fac35b1480863bc187548d336dbbb4d7d918656ff122a1de51&width=414)
Understanding what this painting shows, what it hides and what it suggests is an exercise in detective work and a cure for humility. It is fascinating to discover the clues and traces on the wood that show the changes that the work underwent. Some, at the hands of one’s own Rubens. Others, at the hands of third parties. The National Gallery team used cutting-edge techniques, such as infrared reflectography, to trace beneath the layers of paint and varnish the artist’s initial intentions or the corrections forced by subsequent owners of the work.
And it is also a cure for humility, because it helps to understand that in the history of art there are no definitive and untouchable works. The paintings pass from hand to hand. The authors adjust to the taste of the time. Many of the replicas of his paintings are made by the apprentices and artisans who work in his workshops. The teacher, sometimes, simply gives his approval.
“Each existing work in museums such as the National Gallery, the Prado or the Louvre accumulates a history that has to do with its own conservation and restoration. It accumulates innate changes in its own materials, and it has passed through different collectors,” explains Larry Keith, who adds: “From a chemical point of view, even if you wanted to do something about it, it would not be advisable to try it. But the fact is that the sense of how, why and where all these changes occurred is also important in itself. And this painting is an atypical case, in the sense that it is strange that such changes were made so soon. But they are an integral part of their own history.”
The judgment of Paris, by Pedro Pablo Rubens, on which the National Gallery’s team of restorers worked, is one of two paintings on the same subject, and by the same author, that the prestigious British museum owns. The Prado also has its own version. Paris, the prince of Troy raised as a humble shepherd, must choose the most beautiful of the goddesses Minerva, Juno and Venus. He gives the latter the golden apple—the “apple of discord”—and the episode will end up triggering the famous Trojan War.
In painting, they are called pentimenti (regrets) to the corrections that the artist makes to his own work, and he makes no effort to conceal it. They are clues of exquisite value to understand the author’s intentions, his way of working and his decision process. The work at hand is no exception. Between Venus and Juno, for the alert eye of the viewer, the trace of a putto —one of those angels or putti so abundant in classical painting— stretching out his clothes. The painter finally decided to eliminate him, but his figure can be seen as that of a ghost. Another putto, in the lower left corner of the composition, ends up transformed by Rubens into Cupid. His gaze, which was initially directed at the viewer, concentrates, after the painter’s correction, on arranging some of the clothes thrown to the ground by the naked goddesses.
![Palette of paints in the Restoration and Conservation workshop of the National Gallery.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/4C6VGIPTEJBXHD4KV4NHFU3FB4.jpg?auth=189ac7a2ba5e474bc06ca4f7d557e6068f03edf60292b2401a0ab8aff94ecace&width=414)
But the mystery deepens. The Dresden Painting Gallery keeps a first sketch of this work, barely 50 × 60 centimeters, in which Paris is a vulgar shepherd sitting on the rock, stretching out his right leg and gawking at the women. He wears a straw hat, and behind him, Mercurio gestures for the three to begin undressing. Paris keeps the apple in his lap, not having yet decided who to give it to. The National Gallery painting has radically changed that composition. The observation techniques used for the restoration reveal the shadow in the air of the shepherd’s outstretched leg, which now rests more formally on the ground. Mercury no longer gives obscene orders to the goddesses and the position of his arm has been corrected. Venus has been the chosen one. The lasciviousness of the Dresden sketch becomes the classical historical rigor and beauty that the mythological scene requires. “For many years, the issue misled a lot of people. It was not conceived that these changes were the work of anyone other than Rubens himself. It was relatively recently when it was concluded that they came from the hand of another artist,” explains New.
In 1675, the Antwerp art dealer Diego Duarte sold the work to the Frenchman Jean Picart. A year later, it ended up in the private collection of the Duke of Richelieu, which treasured the Flemish art so coveted at that time. But Richelieu found himself involved in one of the most visceral artistic disputes in history, the one between rubenists and poussinists (followers of the painter Nicolas Poussin). It was actually the confrontation between color and drawing. The followers of Poussin, the most revered painter in France until the arrival of Impressionism, considered color something accessory to drawing. The lines were a faithful reflection of reality, and that mentality meant historical rigor and respect for the literality of the story told. For Rubens’ supporters, color, which flamenco handled with unmatched mastery, was the most faithful way to capture reality.
The controversy caused Richelieu to be pointed out as an ignorant and capricious collector. The result was the commissioning of a painter, whose identity is still unknown, to edit/correct the painting. “It’s a rubens, but it is something more. It’s an accumulation of history, which you don’t want to eliminate. We wouldn’t want any of these changes to disappear. In addition, the pigments used 50 years later, although the mixtures are different, are basically the same. It’s the same type of material. You can’t separate them, although a layer of varnish separates them,” defends restorer New.
![First sketch of Rubens' work, today in the Dresden Painting Gallery.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/O56HVXGGZ5GAPH4HVL5BMBMFEU.jpg?auth=0bf49648f43d03382bda245d99a05e2c0d5109e29a97b7b52a5dea81605cfc1d&width=414)
The technology used for the restoration of works such as The judgment of Paris It is extremely expensive, and the National Gallery in London has had the help of the Art Conservation Project, the fund that the Bank of America allocates to the protection and distribution of great works and collections. “We firmly believe in the power of art to create community and promote understanding between people. Our goal is to help preserve this art for future generations,” explains Andrea Sullivan, head of the project.
Preserving Rubens is preserving the stroke and mastery of whom Delacroix came to define as “the Homer of painting.” “It is a masterpiece that has been part of the gallery’s collection since 1844, almost during the 200 years of the museum’s history. It is one of the most admired works, and the way it reflects human skin is one of Rubens’s fundamental characteristics. The painting represents his mature age, and has been admired by many painters,” explains Keith enthusiastically.
![“We always tend to be as conservative as possible. And wherever we can, we carry out actions that are reversible,” says Larry Keith, head of the National Gallery's Restoration and Conservation Department.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/ITTENZFG35BRNNI7S7DTJHKAQU.jpg?auth=547b765f31185ce5b58a27583a51cd9f16d1128bb53a61aa7b6a0f630865d13a&width=414)
-The skin?
“Look at the different skin tones. Purple, green and pink tones. The movement, the color temperature… one can see perfectly everything that Delacroix saw in Rubens,” he points out. “The speed of the line, the revealing way of its ease. You see the trace of the brush and understand that it is a fluid technique. “Rubens is not afraid to show his technique or his stroke,” defends the restorer.
Some masterpieces of painting have suffered damage from an erroneous restoration technique, even if it was executed with the best of intentions. It is a task that has a high artistic component, and also an immense degree of interpretation. And of course, different schools. But there is a common factor among professionals who are increasingly cooperating with each other: it is prudence. “We always tend to be as conservative as possible. And whenever we can, we carry out actions that are reversible,” explains Keith. “The more experience you acquire in this type of work, and as you understand the history of taste, the history of collecting or restoration, you realize that there is an eye to the time. What seems universally correct to us today may not be correct in 50 years, with regard to aspects such as making the elements more or less visible. pentimenti or choosing the right frame for the canvas,” he details.
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