The Resistor Part 1

This video is brought to you by Squarespace. From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business. For his beliefs, he was chased through the streets, hunted down, strung up on a tree, and riddled with arrows meant to kill him. But he did not perish. He survived that onslaught. He resisted and became a martyr and a symbol of the power of resistance. This painting of Saint Sebastian in its own way is also a symbol of resistance. Resistance to an onslaught of handling, materials, poor conservation work that individually could be harmful but conspired to an almost certain doom. Yet, this painting has survived. But it is worse for wear. Along the right side, we can see a massive seam and tons of overpaint which begs the question, why is it there and what lies beneath? Some of the paint is so puckered and flaking that we wonder if anything is left. There is a heavily cracked surface, gouges, tears, and dents, and some of the paint is actively lifting off the surface of the canvas. And throughout the entire painting, there are thousands of little black dots, fly specks, that conspire to distort and distract. The painting has been lined to a new canvas, and that work is also failing. And all of these things are individual arrows shot at the painting in an attempt to destroy it. But this painting, just like Saint Sebastian, did not perish. This painting was executed by a master and deserves better than this. This painting has survived and deserves to thrive. This painting is the Resistor. So you know that Saint Sebastian is the patron saint of soldiers, of martyrs, of sufferers, of archers, believe it or not, of cyclists, and about a dozen more. But I think today in modernity, there's really only one patron saint that you need to know. And that's the patron saint of websites. You know, Saint Squarespace. 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Because of the poor condition of the surface of paint, all of that flaking and instability, and because the painting is lined to another canvas, before I do any work, I'm going to take some actions to stabilize and protect this painting. Yes, it is covered with a very, very thick layer of old varnish, which can provide its own protection, but that's not enough. This painting will be subject to quite a bit of handling and work to reverse all of this old conservation. And because of that, I'm going to face the painting. A technique whereby Japanese paper, washi kozo, is adhered to the surface of the painting with a fish gelatin glue. Now, this glue will penetrate through this washi kozo to the surface of the paint and bond this paper down. I'm going to start by applying some of the adhesive in the center of the paper, and then working towards the outer corners in a union jack pattern. This is done to help mitigate the air bubbles and movement that will inevitably happen when this soft paper is exposed to moisture. When it swells, it expands, and that can create air bubbles. And by working from the center out, I can push those air bubbles out so that they don't remain trapped in the field of the paper, which would indicate an area where there is no bond between the paper and the surface of the painting, which is precisely what I don't want in this treatment. It takes several hours for the glue to dry, and as it does, the washi kozo becomes opaque. And we can say goodbye to Saint Sebastian, for it's going to be quite some time before we see him again. With the facing dry, I can now begin the first steps in the structural treatments of this painting, and that is to remove the painting from the stretcher support. I'm going to begin by pulling out the tacks that I can see. Many of them are rusted, but upon first glance, I notice that they are not tacks. In fact, many of these are nails, and they are well bonded in, partially because they are rusted, and that rust has conspired to make it much more difficult to take the nails out, but also because these are ring shank nails. They have little ridges on the shaft of the nail, which make removing them difficult. The presence of these ring shank nails leads me to believe that perhaps whomever worked on this painting in the past wasn't a conservator, because even though I was able to remove them, it took a force that was unnecessary, and one of the core tenets of conservation is to do no harm, that is not to use materials that will make the next conservator's life harder. So this has me wondering what other surprises I might find as I begin to work on this painting, and it has me kind of concerned. With the nails removed, I can begin separating the painting from the stretcher support, but before I attempt to lift this stretcher off of the painting, I'm going to make a pass around all of the edges to make sure that it is free and clear, and that there aren't any tacks still remaining. And I did miss one of them, you can see right there. It's not uncommon to miss one or two, and that's why I make this pass. What I didn't expect to find was a second set of tacks or nails through the lining canvas to the stretcher underneath the original canvas. It appears that when they did this lining, they prepared the lining canvas, stretched it to the support, tacked it, then adhered the painting to that lining canvas, and then tacked that. So there is a whole nother set of nails that I have to remove that are underneath the original canvas, which is just flat out ridiculous. And the first of what I am now sure is going to be many surprises to come. Eventually, I do get all of these nails and tacks removed, I free the painting from the support, and I can remove the support, which will be discarded because it is not original, it is undersized, and inadequate for this painting. Now my attention can be turned to removing this lining. And right off the bat, we can see that it is not very well bonded. Whatever adhesive was used has failed, or there just simply wasn't enough of it, or maybe both, and the bond has just completely given up. I can peel this canvas back with my hands, and it's not all that difficult. Which is good for me, because I have to remove this work, but it is not good for the painting. It's an indication that this work either wasn't very good, or that the materials weren't very good. Or, probably in this case, a little bit of both. But that's neither here nor there. My attention is not on the historical quality of the work, it is to remove it. And so I will go along, peeling back this canvas from the original. And one thing that I notice is the difference in weaves. And this lining canvas is of a much heavier weight and weave than the original canvas. And I was always taught and learned that lining canvases should be of a finer weave, so that they can contour to the original painting's texture, not the other way around. We want the canvas to mold to the painting, not the painting to the lining canvas. And by using a canvas that has a heavier or more open weave, if there is ample heat and pressure, well then the original painting could distort. And that's nothing that we want. Though the lining canvas has been removed, some of the glue still remains on the original, and that needs to come off as well. So I will turn to an old favorite, a gelled water. This is water mixed with a synthetic clay, that when combined turns the water into a gel, a jelly, or a paste, depending on consistency. I will paint it onto the back of the canvas in a small section, and let it sit. Sometimes it takes 2 minutes, 5, 10, 30, it's all relative to the glue that I'm trying to remove. But because this is an animal based glue, this is rabbit skin glue, it will absorb that water, the glue will swell and become soft and allow me to scrape it off using a dulled scalpel. The key to success of this procedure is enough time to let the glue swell so that it's very soft. A dull scalpel so that when it glides over the surface it doesn't catch or cut the canvas. And lots and lots of practice. This is one of those techniques where muscle memory takes over. The way that I hold the blade, how I tilt it ever so slightly using my fingers, and how I have moved the motion of the blade away from my hand and wrist and up to my elbow and shoulder and down through my legs, is critically important. It allows me to repeat this process, this motion, over and over at a relatively high speed with accuracy and precision. Something that's taken me years to perfect. But by transferring this technique to muscle memory and moving it away from my conscious mind, I can be sure that it's repeatable over and over again and that the results are the same every single time. Which is precisely what I want. Specifically when handling a scalpel on the back of a painting. Now this glue is kind of gross and it's sticky and it gets everywhere and so as I go along I'm going to try to let it dry a little bit before I sweep it off because I don't want to kind of smudge it back into the canvas. But you can see it does come off and the original canvas looks pretty good. There are some issues that need to be dealt with but it is not a wholesale loss. So back to scraping. And I shudder to think of how many hours, days, years of my life have been spent scraping. But there is no way to industrialize this process and you can't just use a larger tool and move faster. It's one of those things like retouching that just takes however long it takes and one has to be patient and accepting of that. Finally, after the glue has all been removed, I can turn my attention to this seam. Like any seam, there is a lot of extra canvas that's been folded over and compressed and that's what's causing the bulge on the front. Now I'm going to have to line this painting to a new canvas because, well, everything. And I need to get rid of this extra canvas that's been folded over otherwise it will again create a bump. So I'm taking a sharp scalpel blade this time and I'm just slicing off the extra, trying not to damage any of the original and try not to cut through any of the stitching that holds it together. The seam is fine in this case as long as I can get it flat and so I'm working my scalpel really carefully to make sure that it gets flat while keeping as many of those stitches as possible. Before moving on to the next step, I want to clean up because this is kind of a mess. Get rid of all this rabbit skin glue and also go over and just check that there are no little bits of glue or slubs remaining in the canvas. Now a slub may be a little knot in the canvas or repair or right here just a little defect. And I need to get rid of these because when I transfer the painting to the hot table and I do the next set of procedures, these little bumps will transfer to the face of the painting under pressure and that would be, well, that would be bad. But with all of those little imperfections removed, I can now bring the painting to the other half of the studio and start thinking about relaxing this canvas and getting some of the waves and ripples out because that's precisely what I want to do in this step. I'm laying the down on a piece of cotton blotter paper which is just an acid-free cotton paper with no brighteners, no additives, nothing in it that would harm anything that it comes in contact with. Now in between the painting and the blotter paper is a piece of nylon and it is micro-perforated which allows the air and moisture to pass through but it does not stick to anything like any of the remnants of the rabbit skin glue on the back. This is critically important because even though I have tried to remove all of the glue, some still remains and without this piece of nylon it would get stuck to the blotter paper and that would be extra work and kind of a mess. So heat goes on, vacuum pump goes on, all of the air is extracted out of this envelope, pressure is exerted down on the painting in an even manner and then I can start working the painting, specifically on the seam. I want to get it as flat as possible. Now that I have removed the extra canvas I can do that and if the canvas is flat then I can ensure that the face of the painting won't have a bulge or distortion that gets caught in the light and that's one of the benefits of removing this old lining and doing this work on a large hot table. I can really work the surface of this painting and make sure it's as flat as can be. After the painting has been allowed to cool I can remove it from the mylar envelope and start peeling it off of that nylon release layer. Imagine if I hadn't used that green layer, all of the paper would have been stuck to the back of the painting. You can see how much glue penetrated through that nylon to the blotter paper. After placing the painting under weights for a few days and allowing it to acclimatize to the studio's relative humidity, I can remove it and transfer it over to yet another table for the next of the structural treatments. While the first hot table treatment did wonders to remove the planar distortions, this painting still needs more. It needs a lining. Because of that large seam running down the right side, I'm not confident that any local reinforcement will be enough. I don't want to take the risk that at some point in the future it fails and then this canvas, this painting, is at jeopardy. I am going to have to reline the painting even though we removed the old lining, but we're going to be using modern synthetic conservation grade adhesives. Once this adhesive is heated up and thinned out to the consistency I desire for this treatment, I'll use a roller to apply it across the entire back of the canvas. And I'm using a roller here as opposed to a brush because I want an evenly applied layer. While the adhesive is drying, I can turn my attention to the new stretcher support I had fabricated for this painting. The stretcher that the painting was attached to when it came into the studio was not original and it was undersized. It was flimsy and not going to provide adequate support to the painting, particularly once the painting is lined and it is a heavier object. So I had a new one fabricated to my specifications. Once it's assembled, I can use it as a template to cut the piece of canvas that I will use for the lining. I could certainly measure, but this is so much easier. With the canvas cut, I can start to prepare it. And that begins by cutting a sheet of the same synthetic adhesive in film form and laying it down on the canvas and adhering it in place with the iron. I'm working from the center out because I want to remove all of the wrinkles. And once I've got it well bonded, I can take off the top layer. I can place the canvas back down and tack it in the corners just to make sure that there isn't any shifting when I transfer it over to the back half of the studio and prepare the hot table for the lining. The first thing that I'm going to do is cut a piece of heavyweight cotton rag paper, then cover it with a piece of siliconized release film, and then lay the painting down on that. And I'm going to do this lining face down. This painting has almost no impasto. The paint layer is very, very smooth and there's no built-up texture. But the back still has that seam. And even though I removed much of the excess canvas, there's still a ridge and a bump and some textural differences. And if I line the painting face up, all of those textural differences will be transferred to the front of the painting. But if I line it face down, I can eliminate that as a possibility. But of course, lining a painting face down directly on a perfectly smooth, hot piece of aluminum is risky. And so the cotton paper acts not only as a buffer from the heat, but also as a little bit of a pad so that the painting isn't resting on the perfectly smooth aluminum. And once I've removed the air and added the vacuum pressure, you can see how that ridge transfers backwards. The lining process requires the hot table to get up to temperature and then for the painting to soak in that heat for a little while to make sure the bond is really good. Then the heat's turned off with the pressure still down on the painting and it's allowed to cool. Once that's completed, then I can remove the painting from this film and it is well bonded to this new piece of canvas. The next thing I have to do is take off all of that facing. Just like warm fish gelatin was used to glue the washi kozo to the face of this painting, warm water will be used to remove it. And it's as simple as painting on the warm water and allowing it to sit, to penetrate through that washi kozo, to soften it up, and then to activate the glue layer. And sometimes it takes 10-15 seconds. And sometimes, like in this case, because this painting has been through multiple hot table treatments, it's going to take a little bit longer. It may take almost a minute or so to really get that glue soft and releasing so that I can peel up this paper. Now ideally, I would be able to just grab it at one corner and rip it right off in one fell swoop. But unfortunately, that's not always how it works. This is an indication of just how well bonded this washi kozo is to this painting and how much support and protection it was supplying. I'll use my palette knife to slowly work back one of the corners. And then once I've got some purchase, I can start to peel it back in larger sheets. Some of the fibers do remain on the painting, and I'm not terribly concerned about that. Because if you remember, this painting is still dirty and has an old varnish on it that will need to be removed. And when that's removed, all of this excess fiber will also come with. One of the great things about doing this is that the washi kozo and fish gelatin removes almost all of the surface grime that's on this painting. And it effectively eliminates the need to add another step of removing that surface grime before removing the varnish. It's a really great two-for-one that doesn't exist pretty much anywhere else in conservation, except here. And anything that makes our work a little bit easier, we are all for it. And as we peel back this washi kozo, we can see that there hasn't been any paint loss in those areas that were unstable, and the painting has been very well protected. Everything that we had hoped for has come to fruition. It is at this point, with all of the structural work complete, that the really exciting part of conservation begins. And that's the cleaning. This is where I will start to see what truly lies beneath all of this discolored varnish and overpaint. What the painting should look like. What the artist intended us to see when we looked at this painting. Now, I have made several tests throughout the painting, figured out the approach that I think is going to work for this painting, and now I can start to put that into action. Using a solvent mixture and a hand-rolled swab to control how much solvent is exposed and to allow me to see what I'm doing, I am starting to apply that solvent to the surface of the painting and lifting up that old varnish. Once the varnish comes in contact with that solvent, it softens, it swells, and then the swab can be used to lift it off of the surface. And you can see that it is quite dirty. I've started off in this lower section where there is a little bit of red and a little bit of white, mostly just to see what's coming up, kind of as a beta test. And thus far, I am very, very satisfied. Getting the varnish off is always an exciting process. We get to see all those great colors and we get to see what lies ahead. And just with this little area cleaned, you can see that those whites are bright, those pinks are lively, and it just feels like a different painting. Moving on to some of the torso and the skin, I am very, very excited because I know that St. Sebastian is not supposed to be yellow and dirty, but I'm noticing that there are all of those little fly specks and they're not coming up with the varnish, which means that they are under the varnish, which means that whomever did this past work didn't actually clean the painting of these fly specks and just simply varnished atop them. I had hoped that they would be on top of the varnish, but this is not the case, and this is kind of the worst case scenario. I will try to remove these fly specks, but I'm nervous that they are here to stay, and that's going to pose a real problem going forward. While we primarily use our sense of sight during cleaning of paintings, we can also use others like the sense of smell or sound. And I want you to listen here to the difference in sound that's made when the swab is running over the texture of the painting without varnish and the texture of the varnish. Notice how when it was running over the painting without the varnish, it was louder and coarser, and when I transitioned over to the varnish area, it was smoother and softer. Well, that's one way that we can know we've removed all of the varnish in addition to using our eyes. And stay tuned next time where I really get into the cleaning of this and our eyes do not deceive us.