A Heady Proposition - Part 2

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. After leaving the glue-up for a couple of days, I can now begin removing the clamps. And this is always a perilous moment, because when you remove the clamps, you find out if the glue-up was successful. If there's any cracking or splitting or springback, well, you know it wasn't, and you are now faced with the reality that you are going to have to undo all of your work and start all over. Luckily for me, none of that occurred. No cracking, no splitting, no springback. The fixed battens are well adhered to the panel, and the free-floating battens are moving as they should. Suffice it to say, I am very happy with this outcome. And I am happy that I am happy. Look, I have spent a ton of time working behind the scenes on this painting. Designing, fabricating, refining this cradle system. It's taken a lot of time and a lot of effort. And it's for something that nobody's ever going to see. The focus is going to be on the front of the painting. But that doesn't mean that all of this hard work behind the scenes can't be rewarding, and that the process can't be fulfilling in and of itself. Now, I know I have said time and time again that nobody should focus on the behind-the-scenes stuff to the detriment of the showcase stuff, you know, like on your website. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't dive into it if you want to. And Squarespace makes that possible, if you want it. Yes, Squarespace makes launching a website as easy as click, click, click. But don't be fooled by the simplicity of their platform. It is incredibly powerful. It gives you comprehensive control over every aspect of your website with an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop, simple, pleasing interface. So if you do want to customize every aspect of your website, you can. But don't worry, if it all seems too much and you just don't want to do that work, Squarespace has made it super simple. Like I said, click, click, done. So whether you want to dive in the process and revel in designing and building your own website, or if you just want to farm that out to Squarespace and focus on what it looks like, they've got you covered. So head over to squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash Baumgartner to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So even though the cradle is successfully bonded to the panel, I still have to finish it. I have to add the springs, the threaded stand-offs, I have to add the screws, and the bolts. And then I have to tidy it all up to make sure it actually works. So I'm going to drop these springs into the holes. And remember, they're resting on little washers that are secured into those free-floating battens so that as the springs compress and rotate, they don't gouge the wood and compromise it. I'm using small, very, very small brass screws to secure the threaded standoffs into the fixed battens. And using a very, very small screwdriver seems completely appropriate to put this very, very small screw into the very, very small hole. You see the trend? In any event, this is one case where going absolutely slowly and being really deliberate is critically important. If I split the wood, or if I strip one of these screws, I'm in extremely hot water, because I can't simply just fix it. I'd have to take off one of these battens, or all of them, and start anew. Now, I don't think that I'm going to strip anything or split any of the wood. I've taken precautions, but still, being careful is the name of the game. And that's why I'm using this absurdly tiny screwdriver, which, at this point, I'm starting to realize might actually not be the best tool for the job. Yeah, I'm pretty certain that this tiny little screwdriver is not helping my cause. So I've switched to a larger screwdriver, which I should have done in the first place, but I was just a little nervous, so I started off slow. And I am now debating whether I should switch to a power tool. But I won't, because that would be a bridge too far, and would probably end up in me doing something foolish or making a mistake. So keeping with the regular screwdriver is the appropriate way to go. Now I'm moving methodically, just putting one of these standoffs in after another. There's no particular order that they need to go in, because there's no tension yet on them. That'll come next, once I've ensured that they're all secured down to the battens. And adding the tension is really the critical feature of this cradle system. And I think it's going to work. I mean, I hope it works. The bolts get tightened with an Allen key, and I'm just going to go ahead and slowly add some tension to them, until I feel like it's enough. And you can see the spring compressing, but not sliding out of place. That's by design. Now I know that there is tension on this batten that's going to resist the wood's natural inclination to move. And I mentioned I'm just going to go hand-tightening these. I'm not yet at the point where I need super-precision, I just need to get them all relatively tight. But then I will go with a more refined tool, because guesswork here isn't going to cut it. I want to make sure that there is even tension across the entire panel. So I'm switching to a torque wrench. And I'm going to torque these down so that they're all even, making sure that the tension is distributed across the entire system. I don't want one area tighter than the other. And having a torque wrench ensures this. And now with all of the back done, I can finally start focusing on the front of the painting. You know, the thing that everybody's going to be seeing. Now if you recall back to episode 1, where I clamped the panel and glued it together, there was some squeeze-out from the hide glue. And I talked about not being all that concerned with it, because I can remove it with some warm water. And that's precisely what I'm going to do now. A swab with a little bit of warm water on the surface will soften up that hide glue and let me remove it. And it's critical that I remove that, because if I don't, the cleaning detergents and the solvents won't penetrate through that glue, and there will be an area that remains dirty. In addition, that glue could compromise the retouching or the varnishing. So it's essential that I remove it. Now this painting isn't profoundly dirty, but it does have a layer of accumulated surface grime that in my testing revealed that it was difficult for the solvents to penetrate through. They just wouldn't cut through this layer of grime to the varnish. And if I just continued using stronger and stronger and more aggressive solvents, well at some point I would end up damaging the painting. But I know this. So I'm going to be removing the surface grime before I remove the varnish. And this two-stage cleaning process is really critical, because it ensures that I not only get all the surface grime off, but that I can remove the varnish safely. And even though this painting isn't filthy filthy, you can see that it is still pretty dirty. That's surface grime. Oils, dust, dirt, soot, lots of dead skin cells. I know, it's gross, but that really is the main composition of dust and dirt within your home. It's you. All of this stuff does add a layer to the painting, and even simply removing it reveals just how much there is. While working section by section isn't as critical when removing the surface grime as it is with varnish, it's still a good practice. I mean, there really isn't anything to be gained by trying to do this in one fell swoop. Not to mention, it's a really small painting, so... I mean, how much time can I really save? A minute? Two minutes? Five minutes? And what's the risk? So, as I remove this, I always like to, I know it seems gross, but smell it to see if I can gather what the composition is. You can smell the difference between fireplace soot, and tobacco smoke, and kitchen oils. In this case, it just smells like dusty, musty attic. Which is probably where this painting was. In a dusty, musty attic. Now, it's interesting here that I could simply remove the surface grime and leave the varnish as is. You see, this detergent doesn't attack or affect the varnish in any way, shape, or form. And I have had clients who have requested that I just clean off the surface but leave the old varnish. I generally disagree with that approach, and I try to encourage them to let me make some tests so they can see what the painting will truly look like. But ultimately, I work for my clients. And if they tell me they don't want the old varnish removed, just the surface grime, I have to respect that. Though I disagree, these are their paintings. And ultimately, keeping that in mind is of paramount importance. I can advise them, I can encourage them, but I still have to respect their final wishes. Luckily, this client wanted everything old removed. Surface grime, varnish, old retouching. And I'm happy to oblige. So, on to removing the varnish. Now, this is not the original varnish. I know this because I can see the old retouching on the painting, and this painting has been conserved multiple times. It was painted somewhere around 1451, after all. So, it's natural to expect that it's gone through several rounds of conservation. Now, removing this varnish is relatively straightforward. This is a very old, very stable painting, my tests revealed as such. And it's a pleasure to work on these old master paintings, because I know it sounds corny, but they don't build them like they used to. These artists were masters not only of the image, but of construction as well. They learned from other masters, they refined their technique, and there is a reason that these paintings last 500 years. So, working on them is a real treat, because not only do you know that they're really well built, but they're going to cooperate a little bit more. You're not going to find a color that's incredibly fugitive, or a paint layer that's profoundly unstable. By and large, they are predictable and stable, which is a conservator's dream. I mentioned that this painting wasn't profoundly dirty, but it still has a layer of discolored varnish on it. And I'm always amazed at simply removing old varnish starts to reveal subtleties that were otherwise obscured. We can start to see the rosy cheeks a little bit more. We can start to see the green shadows in the underpainting, under the eyes. We just get a better idea of what the artist was actually going for. And yes, some people say that there is a romanticism or a beauty in the so-called patina that rests upon a painting, but that's just discolored varnish. And the artists didn't know that this stuff was going to deteriorate over time. Nobody wanted their paintings to look discolored and yellow. They wanted them to look full of life. I mean, even if it's the head of a dead guy. So once the varnish is all removed, I can start to fill in the missing areas of paint. There were some chips and nicks, and of course, some paint loss where the painting had split. And I'm using a flexible filler here, and I'm just going to lay it down and press it into the areas where the paint has been lost. Now, this painting has no impasto whatsoever. It is completely smooth, which is great because it means I don't have to mimic or recreate that impasto. It's one less step, one less difficult thing I have to do. So here, I just need to force this putty into all of the voids and then smooth it out. And this is necessary because, well, if you leave a divot, you're going to see a divot. So this fills those areas and ensures that I have a nice stable surface onto which I can retouch. And because this is relatively small, and also because this is on a wood panel and the wood is undulating, there's no way that I'm going to get this completely smooth and completely invisible. So I'm going now with my fingers just to rub it off. Sometimes I do this, generally only on wood panels. I can feel the transition better and I can smooth it out a little bit easier than I can with a swab. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to use a swab later, but as you can see, in a matter of, what, 10-15 seconds, I've removed most of the fill-in material and it's pretty smooth. The use of fill-in mediums in painting conservation is as old as painting conservation itself. And if you ask four conservators, you will get five opinions as to which medium is best. Every conservator has their own particular way of doing this, and their own suite of materials that they feel works for their working process. And none of these are better or worse, they're just different. And a conservator may even have a suite of fill-in materials for different paintings. That is, on a wood panel versus oil on canvas versus acrylic on canvas. It's really a matter of choosing the medium that is going to provide the best results. And some of the mediums are wax-based, some are synthetic resins, some are chalk-based like the one I'm using. It's all up to the conservator to experiment, play around, see what's going to work best. I generally don't prefer wax-based fill-ins. I feel that they are a little too soft, they deform, and also sometimes the varnish causes them to dissolve. In addition, some of the synthetic fillers, they require solvents that are a bit too harsh for some of the paintings on which I work. And so using a chalk-based, water-based fill-in, I feel it gives me the best results for the most paintings. So even though I removed much of the fill-in medium with my fingers, I'm gonna come back with a swab and a little bit of water, and just remove some of the residues. It's important that I get these off because they will contaminate the varnish layers, or the resin layers, that I will apply before doing the retouching. So a little bit of swab, quickly rolling over the surface, just making sure I pick up all that residue, and I have a clean painting that is ready for the next step, the application of the isolation layer. I don't apply an isolation layer to every painting. Sometimes it is required because the paint medium is vulnerable. Sometimes it will assist in the retouching because the colors are very dark. And sometimes the addition of a high molecular weight synthetic resin helps even out the surface. And that's what I'm doing in this case. Where my varnish is thin like water, this is a little bit more like maple syrup or corn syrup. It goes on a little bit thicker, and it kind of self-levels. And it helps even out some of these undulations in the wood, or areas where the wood has separated a bit but can't be glued down flat. Yes, it is a nice bonus that it helps saturate the colors so that I can see my retouching, and also protects the painting with another layer of resin, just in case. But the primary reason is to even out the surface. And on to retouching. I have to say I'm fairly excited about doing this retouching. Not only because it is relatively minor, unlike some of the projects I've worked on recently, which take weeks of retouching, this one will be fairly straightforward. But also because this is the kind of retouching that's fun. There is a relatively minor crack and split right through the face. So even though the damage isn't catastrophic, it's pretty visually catastrophic. So putting it back together is really fun. It's not going to be terribly difficult, but it's going to be incredibly rewarding. And so for that reason, I'm actually looking forward to doing this retouching, as opposed to, I don't know, dreading it or putting it off for something else. So I've reactivated some of the paints on my palette, and then I'm going to start retouching. I've chosen to use a brand new brush because this is a painting that has lots of very small areas of damage, and I need a very sharp point. Sometimes it's helpful to have a brush that is a little beat up on the tip, because it can help diffuse the retouching if you have to do a large area, so to speak, or you need to blend in some of your retouching together. Then a super sharp point may not be the best tool. But in this case, where there is a pretty crisp, clearly defined crack and gap, I don't want a big brush. I want the tiniest, sharpest point I can get, so that I can ensure that I'm only adding paint where paint is missing. Now, I know many of you watching at home are crying foul and saying, but Julian, I can see where the edge of your retouching covers the edge of the original painting. And yes, that happens. I'm trying very hard here to only apply paint where paint is missing. But this is an incredibly tiny area. And even though my brush is incredibly tiny, it is inevitable that some of the retouching paint will overlap the original paint. The goal is to make that as minimal as possible. And anybody who tells you that they can retouch without ever covering up the edge of the original paint, well, they're lying to you. Simple as that. The goal is to not interfere with the artist's original paint as best as possible. And yes, some of the original does get covered up. But this is all reversible. And so, if the next conservator, the next owner, the next dealer, the next auction house feels that this work isn't up to their standards or doesn't like the way it was done, fine, so be it. They are more than welcome to remove it. And give it a go on their own. That doesn't bother me at all. That is one of the reasons why we use fully reversible materials. Not only because we don't want it to be permanent, but because somebody else might disagree with our approach. And now onto the main course. Oh, bad choice of words, Julian. But you get the point. This is the part of retouching that's fun. I know that may seem odd, but it is. Getting a painting that's beautifully executed with some limited damage right to the crux of the painting, in this case, right through the face, well, that's fun. That's why we become conservators. To rise to the challenge of making the damage disappear. Of restoring the piece back to what the artist wanted. Of giving it a new life. Of making it possible for the viewer to experience the painting as the artist intended. I guess we are the assist to the artist. And so for that reason, this type of damage is really exciting. But I have said plenty, and you want to see this damage go away. So I'm going to step back, throw on some music, and let you enjoy Saint John the Baptist's head, well, partially coming back together. But don't worry, I'll be back after the retouching for the varnishing and the final reveal. And with that, all of the retouching is complete, and Saint John's head is, well, it's still severed. But his face, at least, has come together. And now I can apply the final varnish. Now this is a really small painting, so it is going to take a really small amount of time. And I'm going to brush the varnish on. There's no sense in doing this with a brush, In addition, I want a glossier varnish, so I don't need to worry about brushing it out or spraying it from a distance to get that crystalline effect that I like on so many paintings. In fact, this brush is so big that it really only takes a couple of passes, and I'm pretty much done. I will go back and forth a couple of times just to make sure that there's even distribution of the varnish, and to make sure that I haven't left any little fuzzies on the painting, as sometimes it happens. So once I have applied it and smoothed it out, that's it. When the painting came in, the structural cradle had failed, the panel had split, there was old restoration, and it was dirty. But now it's a beautiful painting of a rather maudlin scene. And I mentioned that this was just the bottom part of a painting, and I was able to locate the upper section. And through a little digital restoration, this is what the painting might have looked like in 1450 when Peter Gertner painted it. And maybe one day I'll get to put it back together. I hope you've enjoyed this video. If you have questions or would like to learn more about this or any of my other projects, head over to Patreon, where members get ad-free videos and get to ask questions that are answered in follow-up epilogue videos.