fritchie
07-19-2003, 09:13 PM
It's time to bring back our traditional figurative icon, Michelangelo’s David, for another comment. Seems he turns 500 next August, and it’s time for a centennial bath. The New York Times, in its new colloquial mode, had a front-page article two weeks ago reviewing one of the art-hysterical controversies du-jure. David is to be cleaned for his 500th birthday, and the art-hysterical world is up in arms as to whether he will be bathed or dry-cleaned.
The original proposal, by a group of scientists, is to soak him in poultices to dissolve a dusting of copper sulfate, a powdered form of Plaster of Paris, but outsiders in the process say a dry brushing is preferred. The scientific committee says brushing is mechanical and will cause more harm, besides not removing the potentially cancerous dust.
One of the newly-revealed “secrets” in the affair is that he was given a bath about 1811 and then coated with wax. (He still was outside, over 300 years in the Florentine wind and rain.)
Thirty years later, in the 1840's, authorities decided (probably) that the wax was attracting much too much dust and discoloration, and he was given a stronger scrubbing, with hydrochloric acid this time (dilute, I assume) to remove the wax. He remained in the wind and rain another thirty years, until he finally was brought indoors in the 1870's.
Historical context is that Italy was a group of small provinces and city-states until unification into a modern nation-state in the 1870's, about the same time as Germany, which had a similar history.
So much for the sanctity of art, even the best, and community care. Events often overrule the best of possibilities and of intentions.
The original proposal, by a group of scientists, is to soak him in poultices to dissolve a dusting of copper sulfate, a powdered form of Plaster of Paris, but outsiders in the process say a dry brushing is preferred. The scientific committee says brushing is mechanical and will cause more harm, besides not removing the potentially cancerous dust.
One of the newly-revealed “secrets” in the affair is that he was given a bath about 1811 and then coated with wax. (He still was outside, over 300 years in the Florentine wind and rain.)
Thirty years later, in the 1840's, authorities decided (probably) that the wax was attracting much too much dust and discoloration, and he was given a stronger scrubbing, with hydrochloric acid this time (dilute, I assume) to remove the wax. He remained in the wind and rain another thirty years, until he finally was brought indoors in the 1870's.
Historical context is that Italy was a group of small provinces and city-states until unification into a modern nation-state in the 1870's, about the same time as Germany, which had a similar history.
So much for the sanctity of art, even the best, and community care. Events often overrule the best of possibilities and of intentions.