Ancient Marbles: Philosophical Reflections on the Restoration of Sculpture

Abstract

The article discusses different approaches to the problems of restoration of marble sculpture in terms of the philosophical justifications taken towards the artworks. One of the aims of the paper is to contrast the approach taken towards the subject of restoration by Western philosophers and to compare that with the field of conservation. A few brief paragraphs frame the discussion of restoration. The nature of the fragment in its historical and aesthetic duality is then discussed, taking a brief incursion into the topic of supervenience. Michelangelo’s Pietà and its restoration, following from extensive damage caused in 1974 by a museum visitor, results in a series of disputations between writers who favour a purist restoration and those who prefer an aesthetic reintegration of the work. The work of several philosophers who have written about sculpture and restoration is reviewed. The Pietà case study is contrasted with the restoration of the Lansdowne Heracles in the Getty Museum. It is essential to also consider here marble sculpture in terms of works that have been re-restored, de-restored, and deceptively partially restored, taking as a seminal example of the latter, the Adam by Lombardo in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The conclusion attempts to bring together some of the issues raised in the paper, including a discussion of the extent to which information is displayed in the museum for the benefit of the observer, and the importance of the role of the conservator in all aspects of the de-restoration and re-restoration of marble sculpture.

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