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The New Indian ExpressMONDAY, December 6, 2010
ona Lisa has the highest insurancevalue or a painting in
history. In1962, it was assessed at $100million. I ination is taken
intoaccount, this would have raised to$700 million
The most expensive Indianpainting is SH RazasSaurashtra. An
acrylicon canvaspainted in1983. It was sold thisyear for over 16
crore
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Mcover story
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Due to a lack of
adequate courses and
attractive career
prospects, there
arent many takers for
art restoration in India
Lakshmyc h e n n a i
Oscar Wilde is known to havesaid All art is immortal.No oence to
Wilde but thethought o anything lastingorever seems to be a
myth,
especially where great work o art areconcerned. You dont have to
take thewriters word or it. Just ask the phe-nomenally talented
group o restorerswho spend all their time working onneglected and
damaged art pieces.
The walls o temples and other his-torically important places
have orever
love messages and marriage proposals
undoing the damage
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Knights of
the artsengraved on them. People dont rea-lise the value o our
heritage, ruesSreelatha Rao, assistant superintend-ing chemist,
Archaeological Surveyo India (ASI), Chennai.
Dilapidated conditionsRao has worked extensively in Lep-akshi
temple in Anantpur district,Andhra Pradesh, and also on the
tem-ples in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. Themurals in Lepakshi were in a
terriblestate. We didnt even know there wasa painting until we
began cleaningthe surace. Most temples in Thanja-vur also shared
the same ate.
A veteran in the eld with over two-decades o experience, Rao has
alsoworked on stone arteacts, oil paint-
ings, photographs, heritage buildingsetc. Today, there are many
people whospecialise in restoring paper paintingsor oil on canvas.
But when I started, artconservation and restoration were vir-tually
unheard o, she says.
Is there a dierence between thetwo? Art conservation and
restorationare similar and dierent, explains KPMadhu Rani, Indian
National Trust orArt and Cultural Heritage (INTACH),Bangalore.
Conservators examine artpieces, assess and establish causes odamage
and suggest means to preventurther deterioration. Restorers re-move
residue like soot, moss and var-nish rom sculptures or paintings.
Wemay try to bring the arteact back towhat we think it looked like.
But it canbe undone at a later stage.
AfterBefore
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the Smithsonian Institution are someo the places that oer
scholarships.There are a ew institutes in Nether-lands and Italy
that oer courses inmural conservation.
Those who venture into this pro-ession rarely make money
initially.VR Aparajitha, owner o Art Care,a conservation studio in
Chennai,knows it all too well. Ater complet-ing my masters at the
NationalMuseum Institute (2003),
restorers like me who hire interns. Hesays art conservation has
immense poten-tial in India but there arent many takers.There are
more than 1,500 restorers inthe UK but hardly 10 in India.
Menon is currently restoring around 80paintings rom the Asiatic
Society. Dueto a lack o interns, it took me almost veyears to
complete just 22 paintings. Its atedious and laborious job.
Depending onthe damage, restoration can take a monthto over a year.
Even the cost can vary romas low as 500 to as high as 1 lakh.
Menon also encourages students to doat least one international
internship. Itenriches and broadens your understand-ing o what art
restoration means. TheCourtauld Institute o Art, UK, or the
US-based Getty Conservation Institute and
The New Indian ExpressMONDAY, December 6, 2010
cover storyhen Auguste Rodin exhibited his frstimportant work,
The Bronze Period,in 1878 it was so realistic that peoplethought he
had placed a live modelinside the cast
WJackson PollocksNumber 5, 1948, isrumoured to be the
mostexpensive painting eversold - apparently it wasbought for
over$140 million
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get in touchMail your contributions and
feedback to:[email protected]
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Due to a lack of interns, ittook me almost five years tocomplete
just 22 paintings.Its a tedious and laborious
job. Depending on thedamage, restoration can takea month to over
a year. Even
the cost can vary from aslow as `500 to as highas `1
lakhSreekumar Menon
Where to studyYou can do PG courses in art restora-tion at the
National Museum, NewDelhi, University of Mysore, University
ofAllahabad and Kurukshetra University,Haryana. Students with a
degree in BFAor with a science background or a basicdegree with
specialisation in any of thedisciplines like ancient and
medievalhistory, archaeology, world history andother relevant
subjects can apply. TheDelhi Institute of Heritage Research
andManagement, the Lucknow-based NRLCand institutes run by INTACH
offer manyshort-term courses in art conservation.
Rani has restored the botanical paint-ings rom Lal Bagh,
Bangalore, tradi-tional paintings o Mysore and Thanja-
vur and prints o Raja Ravi Varma.
Lack o qualifed expertsIn India, oten conservation and
resto-ration are done by the same person dueto a lack o experts.
With our rich cul-tural history, its a pity we dont haveenough
qualied people working on itspreservation, says J
Chandrasekaran,restorer with REACH (Rural Educationand Conservation
o Heritage Founda-tion), Chennai.
He says experts should understandthe science behind the usage o
materi-als like camphor, neem oil, castor oil andlamp soot on
murals and the blends olime, sandstone and jaggery in
buildingmaterials. We should know why limeis better than cement.
For instance, theKailasanatha temple in Kanchipuram
was built with sandstone, over whicha layer o lime blend was
painted. Themurals were painted with basic coloursthat were created
with biodegradablematerials. I I want to preserve thestructure and
restore the paintings,I need volumes o the same material.Where
would I get it? he asks.
He adds that a course in conserva-tion is very important. ASI
has manycourses. National Museum Institute,New Delhi, oers PG
degrees. EvenREACH oers ew programmes. Inter-est levels to pursue
these courses havegone up but in terms o sheer number,its not
enough.
A course in conservationPerhaps the only institute in Asia tooer
a masters and also a doctoral in
conservation is the National MuseumInstitute, New Delhi. We take
only 15students in a batch. Anyone rom sci-ence and ne arts can
apply, says MVelayudhan Nair, HoD, conservationdepartment. Students
learn by work-ing with original art pieces and do a loto practical
work. So a teachers directsupervision is very important. Teach-ers
should have experience and alsorst-hand knowledge o the subject.
Toget people like that is also dicult.
Ater completing the masters pro-gramme, students can train at
theNational Research Laboratory or Con-servation o cultural
property (NRLC)or six months. Ater an unpaid train-ing period, you
also have to do a paidsix-month internship. Its only then youbecome
a restorer or conservator.
Adds Chandrasekar, Most qualiedexperts are old people. There are
morethan three-lakh heritage structures inIndia. The seniors cannot
do them all.What happens when theyre gone? Stu-dents should do as
many internships aspossible beore going on their own.
Long internshipsSreekumar Menon concurs and addsthat the only
way to become a conserva-tor or a restorer is through
internships.Ater a masters degree in art restora-tion, you have to
do a lot o internshipsor the rst couple o years, says therestorer
and ounder o Art Conserva-tion Studios, Noida. You can train
atmuseums or at places like INTACH,REACH etc. There are many
private
New Delhi, I did a six-month intern-ship with INTACH, New Delhi,
saysthe 30-year-old photograph conserva-
tor. I was paid a very small stipend atINTACH but I worked on
everything
oil on canvas, water colours, prints,monochrome sculptures,
wooden ar-teacts, Chinese scrolls etc. Ater that,I trained under a
supervisor romApril to September at Ladakh where Iworked on the
Buddhist murals.
She got a major llip in 2007 whenthe main oce o the State Bank o
In-dia, Chennai, gave her a contract to re-store foor tiles. The
tiles were laid in1898. It was a mess and has been one othe
toughest works or me. I began toearn some real money only ater
ouryears o training and internships. By2007-end, I opened my
studio.
Lack o jobs and bad payDespite an intense course curriculum
and gruelling internships, there arentmany openings or
restorers. As aconservation scientist, you can diag-nose the damage
and suggest methodsto clean it up. The actual cleaning
andpreserving has to be done by experts.But where are the jobs?
avers Nair.Even in the government museum inChennai, theres a
chemist who alsoacts as a conservator. Now, the situ-ation is such
that were like generaldoctors who need to know everything.I you
want the eld to become niche,you need specialists.
Even those like Rani, who havespecialised in artwork on paper,
arenot paid well. What pay? she quips.Ive been in this proession or
over adecade and my pay is still bad. Its anamazing experience,
however, to traveland interact with experts.
As an intern, you can expect tostart with `5-8,000 or an
assignment.The amount may dier dependingon where youre interning
and alsothe nature o the assignment. Withexperience, diversication
and spe-cialisation, proessionals usually earn`8-20,000 per
month.
Start new coursesChandrasekaran suggests instituteslike IIT and
IISc should introduce mas-ters level courses in heritage
conser-vation to improve job prospects. Thiswill encourage UG
students with a sci-ence background to take it up. Thosewhove
completed UG in civil engi-neering and BArch can take this
pro-gramme. Universities must encourageresearch on traditional
methods usedin creating art.
Colleges can also conduct aware-ness programmes about
conservation.Make it mandatory or college stu-dents to clean art
pieces in temples andmuseums. For those whove completedClass 10,
introduce a diploma course intraditional architecture. The
govern-ment can encourage literature studentsto do a certicate
course in cleaningmurals. Chemistry students can join asassistants
in museums, become cura-tors, antiquities preserver etc. n
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