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Ioan Istudor, A Lifetime Dedicated to Conservation Science1498
interview by Anca Nicolaescu and Teodora Poiata
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Professor Ioan Istudor, 79, may
well be considered the first conservation scientist that worked in the
field of conservation-restoration in Romania.
In June 2007 e_conservation magazine interviewed this scientist who
dedicated his professional life to the study of works of art. On his
professional evolution, he marked important milestones on the history
of conservation practice in his country and is still today highly
regarded for his knowledge and experience. He is not only a personality
in the conservation world but also an extremely kind and warm person. He is updated with the latest
conservation developments and still practices his profession with the
same pleasure and devotion as in the early ‘60s when he started.
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| Prof. Ioan Istudor, June 2007
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How did you get involved in conservation?
My first approach to conservation
was the result of a pure incident which came in accordance with my
interest for monuments and for cultural heritage. In the end of 1961 I
heard that the Historic Monuments Direction (DMI) within The Ministry
of Culture was searching a chemist because they were planning to
establish a “research and analyses laboratory for historic monuments”.
In fact, at that time there was no specialised laboratory to manage the
problems related to conservation.
Whenever something was needed, they were cooperating with different
other institutes, but very few things were made even this way. So… the
first laboratory of conservation was set up in the basement of a
building in Maria Rosetti Street, me being the first chemist that
managed this problem systematically. In 1962 I quit my job from the
alimentary industry and I started to work for DMI.
Which was your first task on the field?
Two months after I was employed, on April 1st, 1962, DMI decided to
extract the mural paintings from Princely Church in Târgovişte. Due to
the necessity of consolidating the towers it was decided to detach the
frescoes around the windows. The construction engineer at the time,
Dinu Moraru, being abroad for documentation regarding this issue,
proposed to use the strappo method. So we needed glue for detaching. I
started then to think about how to create this glue especially for this
type of intervention, about what properties it should have for
detaching the painting by strappo. Later this adhesive that I made was
even brevetted. We started to detach the strips of painting in such
hard conditions that the glue was hardening on the brushes because of
the cold. After the strappo, some marks remained on the walls, such as
the underdrawing and part of the pigments, and on his visit to the
worksite, the Culture Minister of that time remarked that even so it
still had artistic qualities and he ordered to detach another layer. We
ended up detaching everything by stacco, together with the plaster.
What happened to these fragments after they were detached?
A part of them were placed back on their original location after the
consolidation of the building. Most of them were first brought to
Bucharest where they were cleaned on the reverse and then transferred
to canvas so they could be glued back on the walls of the church. Two
fragments of 6 meters each were brought to Bucharest and kept in Radu
Vodă’s Church. The colour layer was never retouched as far as I know.
Our experience and all the results were published in “Sesiunea Ştiinţifică a Direcţiei Monumentelor Istorice”, a periodic bulletin of
DMI from 1963.
Which is your opinion concerning the detachment of mural paintings?
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SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Born on November 14th, 1928 in Bucharest, Ioan Istudor graduated from the Faculty of Industrial Chemistry at the Polytechnic Institute in Bucharest in 1951, as student of professor C. D. Nenitescu. He has been continuously working in the conservation field since 1962 as scientist. From 1975 to 2002 he taught applied chemistry in the Conservation-Restoration, Museology and Monumental Art departments of the National Art University in Bucharest. Since 1996 he is working for the private conservation company Cerecs Art S.R.L., for which he provides consultancy and performs scientific research. During almost half-century of continuous research, he performed analyses for more than 300 sites, including the most representative Romanian monuments, and established the main research laboratories for conservation in Romania: in 1962 - the first national conservation laboratory of the Direction of Historic Monuments; in 1963 the laboratory of the National Art Museum of Romania and in 1983 the laboratory of the National Art University in Bucharest.From 1978 to 1990 he was a member of the National Committee for the Conservation of Mural Paintings in Romania.
He was certified as Expert by the Romanian Ministry of Culture in the research of the following conservation domains: archi-tecture, stone, sculpture, wood, mural and panel painting.He was repetitively awarded (1987, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007) with several Excellency and Merit Diplomas for his entire professional activity and he was attributed the National Order, Knight Rank for his merits. Since 1990 he is a member in the committees for the Conservation of Artistic Components and Historic Monu- ments, Minister of Culture and an honorific member of the Association of Religious Painters from the Romanian Patriarchy. He is a prolific author, having published a large number of papers in various national and international reference publications since 1963. He was a consultant for the translation into Romanian of several reference books, such as the Romanian edition of “The Conservation of Mural Paintings” by Paolo and Laura Mora in 1986. In 2006 he published a treaty of his academic experience over the years in a book entitled “Noţiuni de Chimia Picturii” (Notions on the Chemistry of Paintings) (Romanian edition).
He was also granted for the patent of his discoveries: “The procedure of obtaining a transparent calcium casein dispersion”,
“Solutions for extracting and transferring mural paintings by strappo” and “A candle that doesn’t produce smoke for use in
churches”.
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My personal opinion is that they should only be performed in extreme
cases when there is simply no other solution and never by strappo.
Stacco is a more complicated method but it’s worth because by strappo a
major part of the colour is lost. Also, after transferring, it will
never regain the original mural aspect.
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Part of Prof. Istudor’s
impressive collection
of art materials.
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South facade, Church
of Voroneţ Monastery,
Romania.
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You solved the “mystery” of the blue pigment used in the Church of the Voroneţ Monastery. Tell us the story.
It was my first real
approach as scientist to conservation… In 1963, during the
archaeological works at Voroneţ, a court arment was discovered and they
called specialised people to take some decisions. As part of the
commission, we were seeing the south facade, with the outstanding
colours about which so many stories were told. Some were stating it was
painted with Lapis lazuli, others were saying that the artist wanted to
depict the telluric essence of the tree from the “Tree of Jesse”. Nobody could explain their resistance compared to other exterior mural
paintings from Romania, as the colour was so well preserved. Even with the naked eye I found obvious that it had to be a simple
colour alteration. On the advice of Sorin Ulea, the art historian, I
investigated this in detail. After the chemical identification analyses
I found out that it was azurite transformed into malachite due to the
humidity action.
I explained all the “mystery” in 1965 when I published
the article “Un fenomen de denaturare a culorilor în pictura murală de
la Voroneţ”.But
the legend about the mysterious bluehad already started, so it
continued, and still today some claim that it is Lapis lazuli and
others, even worse, that the “secret” of the pigment was never
discovered.
Is it wrong to let the legend continue?
The legend is very
charming as long as it does not contradict the truth, but to state
after so many years that we still do not have the answer to this
“mystery” means all our scientific work was a waste.
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How did communism influence your profession?
In 1962 I started the
installation of the basic equipment in DMI’s laboratory. There, I
carried out the analysis required for most of the monuments in
restoration. In 1977 the communists demolished the Enei Church which
they said was damaged irreversibly during the earthquake of that year.
DMI objected to this action so the communists suppressed the entire
institution under this pretext. Then, all the responsibilities passed
to the Ministry of Culture. The laboratory was assigned as independent but it was working together with a decoration enterprise.
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Prof. Istudor in the research laboratory from DMI, 1973.
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After some years I spoke with Vasile Draguţ, the director of the Art University in Bucharest, and he decided to set up another laboratory in the University. We moved all the equipment and from 1980 until 1991, when the Conservation-Restoration department was established, I worked and made the analyses on demand. I was also teaching chemistry at the Mural Painting and Museology departments. In 1991, when the Conservation Department started, I continued to teach and manage the laboratory research in the same time until 2002 when I retired from the academic activity.
What is your opinion about the Conservation Department that was established in the ‘90s?
It was very necessary and it shows continuous development since it started. It needs better equipment, of course. Nowadays in Romania, instead of establishing so many little laboratories, each with their own equipment, it would be better if they would combine their efforts and make a competitive one, up to the international standards.
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How do you find the conservation practice of those times compared to the one of today?
Back in 1973 there was a
very good team. Prof. Vasile Draguţ, as member of ICOMOS, brought here
Paolo and Laura Mora together with Paul Philippot and many others such
as Garry Thomson, which was working at the Scientific Department of The
National Gallery in London. They came to establish contacts and to
cooperate with conservators from our country, to promote new approaches
and methodologies, and to change experience about materials. They set
up the pilot worksite for the conservation of the paintings from the
Church of Humor Monastery. They started in the tomb’s chamber and there
is a funny story that I remember about this experience. While
performing the cleaning tests, they tried several methods, first by dry
means, then by wet means and none with satisfactory results. They tried several types
of cleaning rubbers and Mora even phoned to Rome and ordered more
special rubbers to be sent immediately. In a week the rubbers were
delivered, but still the results were not good enough. While struggling
to find a solution, a student which was in a corner of the scaffold
took out from his pocket a little ordinary rubber and tried it on a
side. And it worked! Mora asked “what kind of
rubber is that, from where did you took it?” and the student said he
bought it from the local factory. He immediately sent people and bought all the rubbers that they had in the village.
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Prof. Istudor with Laura Mora
(upper) and Paolo Mora (lower) working in the conservation
project from Humor, Romania,
1973.
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Romanian strong deposits of dirt on the frescoes could only be removed using a Romanian hard, rigid rubber! Also, they were extremely interested in the white pigment from our mural paintings, which they thought it is Bianco di San Giovanni but it is not. Our white is pure lime with no other additives or preparation procedures.
Which is your favourite research area in conservation?
Mostly I like to study the evolution of pigments. It is hard to speak about evolution of pigments when we refer to pigments such as ochre or red as they are used since Antiquity. They can not help much in dating an artwork. However, the blue pigment for example, can give extremely interesting evidences. Its evolution is spectacular. In Romanian mural paintings, its evolution started with the use of Lapis lazuli although I did have the chance to find also Egyptian Blue. Then Lapis lazuli stopped being used, being replaced by azurite and smalt. In some monuments I discovered that azurite contains particles of smalt: inside the church in a bigger percent and in the exterior in a smaller percent because smalt has a weaker adherence to the lime compared to the azurite. But which was the role of smalt pigment in azurite? The only explanation I could find was the falsification of pigment! It looks like falsification was a common habit, since I found this in monuments belonging to very different time periods. Smalt was cheaper, easier to obtain and has a higher specific weight. Later I read the work of Paolo Benzi, “La pellicolo pittoria nella pittura murale in Italia: materiali e tecnice esecutive dall’ Alto Medievo al XIX seccole” which also mentions this issue. Then, the artificial azurite, the natural ultramarine, the artificial one and the Prussian blue appeared. Still, it is very hard to establish the provenance of each blue, if for example the Lapis lazuli is coming from Afghanistan or from Ural or from another region. It requires statistical analyses made on several samples originating from different regions to which we must identify the microelements which characterise the respective mineral, that are present in the sample besides the pure pigment.
What can you say about the mural painting technique used by the old masters?
The working technique is very important for conservation. For example, a problem that arose was why in the exterior mural paintings from Romania the azurite was preserved so well while in Occident it didn’t. This is only a matter of the technique. It is not depending on the pigment. Many times I found that a protein compound was added to the binder (lime) of the pigments. Sometimes casein was added in the lime while they were preparing the surface. In the superior layers of mortar I identified the presence of animal proteins which could only come from milk or casein added in the lime. They didn’t add it in big percentages or it could induce the detachment of the colour, but sufficient enough for enhancing the resistance of the mortar. The results are available in the article published together with Ion Balş: “Contribuţii la cunoasterea materialelor folosite în pictura murală a exterioară a bisericilor din secolul al XVI-lea din Bucovina şi la unele probleme de tehnică”, în Revista Muzeelor, V, no. 6, 1968.
You were the first in Romania to prepare the casein dispersion that was used in the consolidation of the colour layer. Can you tell us how did you achieve it?
As I was working in the alimentary industry before getting involved in conservation, I already had an experience in this area. I started by preparing the casein in different proportions, by different methods. Later I started to use only casein in powder. I am still preparing it today on request, but only from certain labels as it should be pure and with high solubility. Today casein dispersion is still used as a fixative, but it is not appreciated anymore because it is a natural organic product and people are afraid it can cause other problems, even though it never happened. Then… the casein, as a product derived from cheese, simply does not have a very good reputation.
His sense of humour and his modern vision over conservation practices, as well an acute critical sense over today’s controversies, are some of the characteristics that still motivate him to work for the conservation of the cultural heritage.
Interview made by Anca Nicolaescu and
Teodora Poiată in June 2007
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