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The Social and Historic Construction of Professional Values in Conservation
Author(s): Miriam Clavir
Source: Studies in Conservation, Vol. 43, No. 1 (1998), pp. 1-8
Published by: on behalf of the Maney Publishing International Institute for Conservation of
Historic and Artistic Works
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THE SOCIAL AND HISTORIC CONSTRUCTION OF
PROFESSIONAL VALUES IN CONSERVATION
Miriam Clavir
Summary-This paper
discusses the social
history of
the
emergence of
conservation as a
profession
distinct
from
traditional restoration. It
proposes
that the
development of
conservation as a distinct
field
came about
through
the evolution
of
an
existing
area
of practice,
in a
changing conceptual
climate which
increasingly
acknowledged
the
necessity for,
and the
legitimacy of,
the
scientific
model. This
paper
considers the
changes
in
societal values that led conservators to hold their
present
ethical
principles,
values and
beliefs, focusing
on two
in
particular:
the
importance of preserving
the
integrity of
the
object,
and the
belief
that the best
way
to do
this is
through
the
application of
science.
Introduction
The ethics and
practices
of the field of conservation
are well documented in its literature.
Underlying
these
norms, however,
is the
question
of
why
con-
servators hold the
particular
values and beliefs
they
do. These values and beliefs are at times
quite
dis-
tinct from those of other museum
colleagues, and,
in
ethnographic conservation,
can be different from
what the
originating people
believe is
appropriate
care
regarding
an
object
from their
heritage. Many
principles
in
professional
conservation are also dis-
tinct from those of its
antecedent,
restoration.
The research
presented
here
attempts
to elucidate
several values held within the conservation
profes-
sion,
and factors which influenced the
emergence
of
conservation from restoration. Discussions which
directly explore changing
values in conservation
have
only recently begun
to be a
major
focus of
professional symposia
and their
publications [1-3].
This
paper
examines
why
conservation
developed
as
it did and when it did. The discussion focuses
pri-
marily
on the world of
museums, using mainly
Canadian and British
examples,
and on two core
beliefs in conservation which are not found exten-
sively
in restoration. The first belief is that there is
a fundamental
importance
accorded to
preserving
the
integrity
of
objects
and
especially
their
physical
integrity. Preserving
and
stabilizing
the
original
physical object
is a
primary
consideration for con-
servators,
and is taken into account in other consid-
erations such as those
pertaining to,
for
example,
aesthetic
attributes, or,
in the case of certain ethno-
graphic objects
in museum
collections, spiritual
attributes. The second belief is that a
systematic
sci-
entific
approach
is the best
way
to
preserve objects;
conservation is achieved
by arresting
deterioration
Received
July
1996
Received in revised
form April
1997
through understanding
its mechanisms and
applying
scientifically-investigated
treatment and
preventive
measures.
For the
purposes
of this
paper
the definition of
conservation is taken from the Canadian code of
ethics for conservators
[4].
It is:
'Conservation: All actions aimed at the safe-
guarding
of cultural
property
for the future.
The
purpose
of conservation is to
study,
record,
retain and restore the
culturally signifi-
cant
qualities
of the
object
with the least
possi-
ble intervention. Conservation includes the
following: examination, documentation, pre-
ventive
conservation, preservation,
restoration
and reconstruction.'
Restoration in this
paper
refers to that done before
the field of conservation came into
being:
that
is,
restoration done outside of the
parameters
of
pro-
fessional conservation.
Values:
integrity
If the
goal
of conservation can be said to be the
safeguarding
or
preservation
of material cultural
heritage,
the
objective
is to do this within an ethical
framework which ensures that the intrinsic nature
of the
object
is not altered. As Keene has
written,
'At the foundation of the conservation ethic lies the
precept
"thou shalt not
change
the nature of the
object"' [5].
The United
Kingdom
and New
Zealand codes have used the words 'true nature of
the
object' [6, 7]
and the Canadian Association for
Conservation of Cultural
Property (formerly
the
International Institute for Conservation-Canadian
Group)
and the American Institute for Conserva-
tion
(until 1995)
use the word
'integrity' [4, 8].
Integrity is, interestingly,
never
defined,
but most
Studies in Conservation 43
(1998)
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M. Clavir
codes of ethics
specify physical integrity,
aesthetic
integrity,
and historic
integrity.
In 1989 the
Canadian code went further and added
'conceptual
integrity', which,
while
again
not
explicitly defined,
is meant to include the
meta[beyond the]-physical
properties
of
objects,
such as cultural
significance
or
specific religious significance [9].
In art conserva-
tion,
the evaluation of 'artist's intent' is an ethical
issue of
primary importance [3].
In
archives,
the
term 'intrinsic value' has been in use for
many
years
to describe materials which are not retained
as
copies
but whose value lies in their retention in
their
original
form.
There have been
many reports
that excesses were
committed in some
early
restoration work
[10-13],
and this is an obvious factor
influencing
the
impor-
tance of
'integrity'
in conservation. The
following
is
one
example
of restoration
changing
the
integrity
of
a
work,
from a 1906 account of an official
enquiry
which had been held 50
years earlier,
into the work
of a restorer called Lance and the
painting
of
Philip
IV
hunting
wild boar
(La
Tela
Real) by Velazquez
(now
in the National
Gallery, London),
that was
then the
property
of Lord
Cowley:
'... it was sent to a dealer or restorer to be
relined.
Unfortunately,
in
ironing
the back of
the
picture
too
great
a
degree
of heat was
applied,
with the result that the
paint
was blis-
tered and the canvas in
places
laid bare ...
According
to
Lance,
when the
picture
was
(subsequently) placed
in his hands the whole of
the centre was
destroyed, although
there were
slight
indications here and there of
figures
...
There was one
piece
of canvas bare as
large
as
a sheet of
foolscap.
"And on that bare canvas
you painted
the
figures
we see now?" he was
asked.
"Exactly",
said Lance. "What
guide
had
you
in
repainting
those
groups?"
"Not
any".'
The
report
continues with the observation that
Lord
Cowley,
even after the
painting
was
returned,
'was never aware of the misfortune that had
befallen his
Velazquez' [14].
It is fair to
say
that the
excesses and falsifications in some restoration work
were
undoubtedly
a
major
factor which contributed
to the
preservation
of
physical integrity being
included in conservation's first code of
ethics,
the
Murray
Pease
Report [15].
There were other factors in the art world in the
years preceding
the
emergence
of conservation
which
placed
value on the
physical integrity
of a
work. The
following provide
brief illustrations.
There
was,
for
example,
a
concept expressed by
cer-
tain artists which was similar to the
concept
of
integrity.
Fernand
Leger,
for
instance,
wrote in
1924, 'Every object, picture, piece
of
architecture,
or ornamental
organization
has a value in
itself;
it
is
strictly
absolute and
independent
of
anything
it
may happen
to
represent' [16].
Another factor is the tradition of
connoisseurship
in the world of fine and decorative
arts,
which also
remained
strong
in the decades
immediately preced-
ing
1930.
(The
decade 1922-32 will be discussed
later as
representing
a
pivotal
era in the
develop-
ment of
professional conservation.)
Connoisseur-
ship emphasized
the
physical
as well as the
stylistic
elements of a
work,
for
example
the visual
qualities
of the
glaze
on a Chinese
ceramic,
and was re-
garded by
its
proponents
as a science.
The
importance
of
archaeological
research and
Classical
antiquities
in the
eighteenth
and nine-
teenth centuries
may
have also contributed to valu-
ing
the
integrity
of
objects [17, citing 18].
Finally, public
museums and their collections
were seen as the
principal repositories
of evidence
showing
the nature of natural and cultural
phenom-
ena. This evidence was embodied
by
the
objects
or
other
collections,
and was to be
kept
in
perpetuity
as the
primary
evidence which
might
no
longer
exist
in the future
[19, p. 3]. Preserving
the
original
evi-
dence means
preserving
what we call its
integrity.
Values: the
importance
of science in the
preservation
of collections
The value that conservation
places
on
preserving
physical integrity
and on science
represents
a
broadening of,
rather than a
change from,
restora-
tion values-that
is,
from
making
the aesthetic the
primary end-goal
for
intervention,
to
including
the
importance
of
maintaining
the
physical,
historic
and
conceptual integrity
of the
objects.
Conservators tend to believe that their ethics and
practice represent
the best
way
to
preserve objects,
since the evidence is
scientifically
proven.
Staniforth, however,
draws attention to the fact
that conservation beliefs and values are social as
well as scientific constructs. She states that deterio-
ration is 'those
changes
that we
regard [as]
undesir-
able'
[20].
This
paper
will now consider
why
science came
to dominate the
methodology
of the treatment of
objects,
and
why
these factors culminated in a
sig-
nificant shift towards scientific conservation in the
years
around 1930.
It has been well documented that individual emi-
nent scientists had been called in for several cen-
turies in
Europe
to find solutions to the
problems
of
the deterioration of collections
[17, 21, 22].
In
1930,
however,
a conference in Rome
organized by
the
International Museums Office of the
League
of
Nations became the first international
symposium
on
works of art which
primarily
discussed scientific
pre-
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(1998)
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Professional
values in conservation
ventive
conservation, particularly
environmental con-
trol. This conference is
reported
to have convinced
the
participants
of the
utility
of
laboratory
research
as an
auxiliary
to studies in the
history
of art and
museology [23].
The decade around 1930 therefore
saw science become
internationally acknowledged
as
a
preferred methodology
for
solving problems
in the
preservation
of historic cultural materials.
It should be noted that the Rome Conference
was
not, however,
the first international conference
on
preservation.
In the field of the
preservation
of
archives and
paper,
there was a conference as
early
as
1898,
and there are various
examples
of collabo-
rative committees
composed
of scientists and schol-
ars in this area at the turn of the
century [17].
There were
undoubtedly many
instances of individ-
ual scientists
being
consulted
by
those associated
with
museums,
historic
sites,
libraries and art
gal-
leries on various
preservation problems
at this time.
One
consultation,
for
example,
is
reported
in the
British Museums Journal of 1910
regarding
stone
deterioration
[24]. Perhaps
because the 1930 Rome
Conference was
organized through
the
League
of
Nations rather than
through
a museum or other
institution, perhaps
because the conference encom-
passed
a broad
range
of
materials, including
both
artistic and historic
heritage, perhaps
because devel-
opments
in
society,
as are
being
outlined in this
paper,
had
promoted significant changes
between
1898 and
1930,
or
perhaps
because the founders of
conservation either attended or worked for those
who attended that
conference,
the 1930 conference
is referred to more often in the conservation litera-
ture than the earlier
meetings.
Before the field of conservation came into
being,
there was
certainly
a
history
of scientists
working
on cultural
heritage.
Scientists
also,
as industrializa-
tion
progressed,
worked in related materials science
fields
including
artists' materials. The
period
after
the First World
War, however, represents
a
pivotal
era in the formation of the
professional discipline
of conservation: in
1930,
there was the Rome con-
ference,
while in 1931 a research
laboratory
was
officially incorporated
as a
department
of the
British Museum. In
1927,
the chemist R.J. Gettens
was invited to
join
the staff of the
Fogg
Art
Museum at
Harvard,
to be
joined,
in
1928, by
George Stout;
in 1932 Gettens and Stout
began
publishing
Technical Studies in the Field
of
the Fine
Arts. It was the
people
involved in these
events,
and
in related museum and art institutes in the twenties
and
thirties, many
of whom were scientists or tech-
nologists,
who were later
publicly
to call their field
conservation when
they formed,
in
1950,
the first
professional
conservation
organization,
the
International Institute for the Conservation of
Museum
Objects,
which
became,
in
1959,
the
International Institute for Conservation of Historic
and Artistic Works
(IIC) [25].
The
following
is a brief outline of some of the
major
influences involved in the shift from restora-
tion towards scientific
conservation,
and
why
the
1930s came to
represent
a
pivotal
era.
The
origin
of scientific values as the foundation
for conservation
The
eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries witnessed
the
development
of
public
museums from the earlier
'cabinets of curiosities' and
private
art collections.
Museum collections were built
up
and
logically orga-
nized to
contain,
document and
preserve
the evi-
dence of the nature of the universe. One
consequence
of
public
museums was that there were now
public
trustees who had a
legal obligation
to
preserve
the
museum's
holdings:
the condition of the
objects
came under their
fiduciary
concerns. In
addition,
in
public
museums the restorers' work also came under
scrutiny
from the trustees and the
public.
At the same
time,
the
over-arching philosophy
of
these centuries was based
increasingly
in a scientific
rather than a God-the-Creator outlook. It was
based in the belief that the nature of the universe
constitutes an
objective reality
which can be under-
stood
by
the
application
of scientific
knowledge
and
methods. In
addition,
an
optimistic
belief in science
as the
key
to
progress
for
humankind,
and an ensu-
ing
attribution of
'higher
moral
ground'
to knowl-
edge gained through science,
were often associated
with the
Enlightenment [19].
It is not
surprising, therefore,
that a
newly
emerging
field such as conservation based its
methodology
in science
during
an era in which sci-
ence was felt to be of
unquestionable
universal use
and value. This attitude is
exemplified by
the fol-
lowing quotations
taken from the Presidential
Addresses of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science in the decade 1921-31
[26].
1921: 'All
thinking
men are
agreed
that science
is at the basis of national
progress' (Sir
T.E.
Thorpe, p. 8)
1923: 'The extensive
territory
which has been
conquered by
science'
(Sir
Ernest
Rutherford,
p. 3).
1925: 'The
general
aim
[of science]
was
summed
up
in an almost consecrated formula:
"to subdue the forces of Nature to the service
of man"'
(Professor
Horace
Lamb, p. 1).
1926: 'It has been borne in on me more and
more that if civilization is to
go on,
it can
only
progress along
a road of which the foundations
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(1998)
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M. Clavir
have been laid
by
scientific
thought
and
research. More than
that,
I have come to real-
ize that the future solution of
practically
all of
the domestic and social difficulties with which
we have to
grapple nowadays
will
only
be
found
by
scientific methods'
(His Royal
Highness,
The Prince of
Wales, p. 2)
1928:
'Nothing
in the
progress
of
science,
and
more
particularly
of modern
science,
is so
impressive
as the
growing appreciation
of the
immensity
of what awaits
discovery' (Professor
Sir William
Bragg, p. 18)
1931: 'It
may fairly
be said that science is
per-
haps
the clearest revelation of God in our
Age'
(General,
the
Right
Honourable J.C.
Smuts, p.
13).
Returning
to the earlier discussion on the
integrity
of the
object,
it is not
surprising that,
for
ethnographic collections,
scientific
knowledge
about
objects
was held to be more crucial than
indigenous
belief
systems regarding
these same
objects.
Considering
the era's
expansionist
outlook on the
value of
science,
and its
assimilatory
and colonial
policies
and outlook towards
indigenous peoples,
scientific
knowledge
was held to reflect
reality,
and
other belief
systems
therefore did not.
As well as the context of a
growing
belief in
European society
in the
efficacy
of
science,
the con-
dition of museum objects themselves influenced the
turning
towards science to solve
object preservation
problems.
Two
primary
causes for the
degraded
condition of the
many objects
in collections had
become
increasingly apparent
in the
eighteenth
and
nineteenth centuries. The first was the
increasingly
polluted atmosphere
as the industrialization and
urbanization of
Europe progressed.
The second was
the
large
numbers of
archaeological objects
which
were
entering collections,
from
Egypt, Greece, Italy,
and
many
other areas: restorers' methods
proved
inadequate
to halt the deterioration of
many
of the
materials, especially
the
archaeological
metals. The
deterioration and nature of
archaeological
materials
invited
problem-solving by chemists;
in 1888 the
first museum
preservation laboratory
was estab-
lished in Berlin to
bring
a
systematic approach by
a
trained
chemist,
Dr Frederich
Rathgen,
to the care
of the
antiquities
collection
[17, 22].
It should not be
presumed, however,
that because
Rathgen
was the first chemist
employed perma-
nently by
a museum in the
preservation
of its col-
lections,
chemical methods had not been used
previously
on
antiquities by
museum
personnel.
The
following examples
are from an account
by
Brinch
Madsen of the
preservation
of
early
Danish archae-
ological specimens
in the National Museum in
Copenhagen,
which
began
in 1807 as 'The
Commission for the Preservation of Artefacts'. This
body engaged
Christian
Jurgensen
Thomsen in 1816
to
catalogue, repair
and restore the
objects
acquired.
Brinch Madsen
gives
accounts from
Thomsen's letters which discuss the
difficulty
of
preserving archaeological specimens,
and recom-
mend
techniques
in the field so that the
objects
do
not
disintegrate [27].
Although
these methods
proved successful, they
are evidence of a
significant
difference from
Rathgen's approach
70
years
later.
Rathgen
is said
to have
sought
'an
explanation
for their
[the
objects]
deterioration
through
an
understanding
of
the mechanism
by
which
archaeological materials,
such as
clay, stone,
and
metal,
corrode or
decay'
[22].
His
handbook,
Die
Konservierung
von
Altertumsfunden (The
Conservation of
Antiquities)
published
in
1898,
shows this
approach
in Part I,
which was devoted to the causes of deterioration of
archaeological objects
before and after excavation
[22].
Thomsen's
methods,
on the other
hand,
were
techniques
derived
empirically
from
working
with
the
objects,
much like a restorer's
techniques,
although
these were aimed at
preservation.
For
example,
Thomsen and his staff used barrier coats
as treatments rather than
beginning
the treatment
with an
analysis
of and attack on the inherent
causes of the
on-going
deterioration of the material.
In
1859,
Thomsen's
assistant, Herbst,
after
empiri-
cal
experimentation,
achieved a remarkable success
using
alum for the treatment of
waterlogged wood,
a method
which,
with
modifications,
became a stan-
dard treatment in the Danish National Museum for
the next hundred
years [27].
It was Frederich
Rathgen, however,
whose
systematic approach
of
understanding
the causes of deterioration became
the norm in
professional
conservation.
An additional arena for the
adoption
of scientific
methodology
in the
preservation
of cultural
heritage
came with the increased numbers of
antiquities
available to
private
and
public collections,
which
prompted
an interest in
detecting
fakes and in the
establishment of
provenance.
A
systematic,
scientific
methodology
to resolve these
questions
was seen as
appropriate.
New
technologies,
such as
radiography,
were
given
immediate
practical applications
in art as
well as in medicine and the natural sciences
[28].
The
particular
needs of curators in
public
muse-
ums were also a
driving
force behind the
necessity
to find solutions to
preservation problems.
For
example,
Charles Trick
Currelly,
the first
curator/director of the
Royal
Ontario Museum in
Toronto, Canada,
is
quoted
as
saying:
'I had
spent
a
good
deal of
money
in
Egypt
on
iron
objects
of the Roman
period,
and
many
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Professional
values in conservation
of them were
badly
rusted. I had
always
had a
hope
that in some
way
or other I would learn
to
get
rid of the rust ...
Very
few of the
museums had been
buying
rusted
iron,
and one
of the men at the British Museum advised me
never to touch
it,
that it would break
my
heart,
as after a few
years
one would have
nothing
but a
pile
of rust in the case. This
wasn't
pleasant,
as I had
spent altogether
too
much
money
on Roman iron'
[12]
There were further
important
connections
being
created between science and the art world. Mention
has
already
been made of the use of new
technology
such as
radiography,
and
pertinent developments by
the chemical
industry,
such as the
synthesis
of
new,
less
expensive,
and more
permanent pigments.
In
addition,
certain industrialists-and in
England
many
came from
chemistry-based manufacturing
interests-were connected to the world of art
through
their own
collecting,
and made
very gener-
ous
gifts
to
public
institutions and to arts
develop-
ment. For
example,
William Hesketh
Lever,
Viscount
Leverhulme,
whose business interests were
in
soap manufacturing,
donated several
buildings
for
art
galleries (the
London
Museum,
an art
gallery
at
Port
Sunlight),
and the Leverhulme Trust is a fund-
ing body
for the arts in Great Britain. Samuel
Courtauld's fortune was made in the textile
industry,
where chemical
manufacturing processes,
in his case
the
production
of
rayon,
and the chemical
dyeing
of
textiles,
were
very significant.
Courtauld was twice
Chairman of the National
Gallery
Board of
Trustees,
was a Trustee of the Tate
Gallery,
and endowed the
Courtauld Institute of Art. In
addition,
he and his
wife acted as benefactors to the Tate
Gallery,
enabling
them to
purchase
a number of French
Impressionist
and
Post-Impressionist paintings.
The
celebrated chemist
Ludwig
Mond
bequeathed
his
extensive collection of
paintings
to Great Britain.
Julius Mond directed the
major
British chemical
house ICI
(Imperial
Chemical
Industries),
and was
an art collector and connoisseur.
There were also
significant
links between science
and
art-making.
In
nineteenth-century
art the rela-
tions between colour science and art
theory
have
been studied
[29].
One
major
connection between
art and science at the end of the nineteenth
century
and the
beginning
of the twentieth has been
described as follows:
'Physicists investigated
the nature of colour
while
painters
such as Seurat
attempted
to cod-
ify
its emotional content. Around the turn of
the
century
the
new,
self-conscious use of sci-
ence in aid of art was one of the
many
ele-
ments that
promoted
the belief that art itself
should be new and different'
[30]
Indeed,
abstract
art,
the
major
art of the
early
twentieth
century,
was
radically
different from its
predecessors.
Some art movements such as
Constructivism showed the influence of science and
technology
in the
style
of
representation,
and with
certain
artists,
in the content of the
representations
themselves. For
example,
Fernand
Leger's
1919
painting
The
City,
has been described as
'Buoyant
with
optimism
and
pleasurable excitement,
it con-
jures up
a mechanized
utopia' [31].
In the first
quarter
of this
century, then,
there
existed in
many
interrelated
spheres
an
increasingly
nurturing
environment for the
emergence
of scien-
tific conservation. In this
context,
one
key
event
had a
catalytic
effect on the
development
of conser-
vation,
and that was the First World War.
The Great War accelerated the
general develop-
ment of new
technological
and material resources.
At the same
time,
it caused extensive
damage
to
cultural
property including
the collections of the
British Museum and the British National
Gallery.
Many
of these collections had been
placed
in tem-
porary
wartime
storage
and had deteriorated due to
poor
environmental conditions
[32, 33].
For exam-
ple, according
to
Kavanagh:
'... the best of the removable
antiquities
and
coins were
lodged
in ... a new section of
underground railway.
This was a line co-
inciding
with Holborn and Oxford Street ...
Forty
to
seventy
feet below the
surface,
it
was
certainly
safe from air
attack,
but there
was a
great
risk from
damp
... It was
pre-
pared
to receive the collections ...
by
the
installation of
floors,
a
lift,
ventilation
ap-
paratus,
electric
radiators, hygrometers
and
thermometers'
[32]
These measures
successfully protected
the British
Museum's collections from bomb
damage,
but at a
certain cost to the condition of the
objects
them-
selves.
Kavanagh
states that the Director of the
British Museum at the time, Sir Frederick
Kenyon,
admitted that there had been some minor
damage
to the
collections,
but she
quotes
Andrew
Oddy,
the
present Keeper
of Conservation at the British
Museum,
as
saying
that the
damage
was much
more extensive. He states that bronze disease and
on-going rusting
had broken out on
archaeological
metals,
salt efflorescence had occurred on
pottery
and
stone,
and
foxing
on
paper [32].
All of these
conditions could be attributed to inherent vice in
the
objects (from
the remains of the
archaeological
environment in the three-dimensional
objects) being
affected
by prolonged high humidity.
Kavanagh
also
reports
that the collections of the National
Gallery
suffered from
damp
conditions
during
tem-
porary
wartime
storage.
Studies in Conservation 43
(1998) 1-8 5
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M. Clavir
In
Britain,
the
damage
to the collections of the
British Museum led that institution to call in scien-
tists,
rather than
restorers,
to assist in the
preserva-
tion of its collections. The Museum did
this,
not
just
because of the
growth
of links between art and
science,
but because
they had,
on a
practical level,
the means to do it. The war had
prompted
the
gov-
ernment to establish and fund a centralized
Department
of Scientific and Industrial Research
available to national institutions.
The
significance
of the formation of the British
Museum's
Department
of Scientific Research can-
not be underestimated. It
began
the
development
of
Britain's
importance
in
conservation, becoming
as it
has the location for the International Institute for
Conservation, publisher
of this international
peer-
review
journal,
and establisher of the use of
English
as the
principal language
for
professional publica-
tion in conservation.
In
conclusion,
this
paper argues
that the ethics
and values of
professional
conservation
developed
out of the tradition of restoration as western soci-
ety's conceptual
environment
changed.
In describ-
ing
this
environment,
this
paper
has focused on
how its elements
provided
an
appropriate
climate
for the
emergence
of two fundamental beliefs in
conservation,
the belief in
preserving
the
integrity
of the
object
and the belief that the best
way
to do
this is
through
the
application
of science.
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KRUMBEIN, W.E., BRIMBLECOMBE, P.,
COSGROVE, D.E.,
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John
Wiley
&
Sons,
Chichester
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for
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systems:
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(1991)
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BOMFORD, D., 'Changing
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Paper 99,
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(1994)
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11
HARTIN, D.D.,
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a Seminar
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WAINWRIGHT,
National
Gallery
of
Canada,
Ottawa
(1990)
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12
RUGGLES, M.,
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history
of conservation in
Canada:
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to the
early 1970's',
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SAMUELS, E.,
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114-116.
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PEASE, M.,
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Murray
Pease
Report:
Standards of Practice and Professional
Relationships
for
Conservators', adopted by
IIC-AG,
June
8, 1963,
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LEGER, F.,
The Aesthetic
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the Machine
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Professional
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and
Change:
The
Science, Responsibility
and
Cost
of Sustaining
Cultural
Heritage,
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W.E.
KRUMBEIN,
P.
BRIMBLECOMBE,
D.E.
COSGROVE and S.
STANIFORTH,
John
Wiley
&
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Chichester
(1994)
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CORFIELD, M.,
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BLACK,
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Author
MIRIAM CLAVIR received an Honours BA in
anthropology
and
archaeology
from the
University
of
Toronto,
and a Master of Art Conservation in
1976 from
Queen's University, Kingston,
Canada.
She has worked in conservation at the
Royal
Ontario Museum and for Parks Canada in Ottawa
and
Quebec City,
and since 1980 has been the
Conservator at the
University
of British Columbia
(UBC)
Museum of
Anthropology
in Vancouver.
She teaches courses in
preventive
conservation and
lectures in museum
principles
and methods for the
UBC
Department
of
Anthropology.
She is
currently
completing
a doctorate at the
University
of
Leicester, Department
of Museum
Studies,
entitled
'Preserving
what is valued: an
analysis
of museum
conservation and First Nations
perspectives'.
Address: UBC Museum
of Anthropology,
6393 N. W.
Marine
Drive, Vancouver,
British
Columbia, Canada
V6T 1Z2.
Resume-Cette communication traite du role
socio-historique
de
l'apparition
de la conservation en tant
que
discipline professionnelle
distincte de la restauration traditionnelle. II
y
est
expose que
le
developpement
de la
conservation dans un domaine bien
defini
s est
effectue par
le biais de 'revolution d'un secteur d'activite
preex-
istant, grace
a un
changement
de
conception
du contexte de
celui-ci, qui
en
s'elargissant
a conduit necessaire-
ment et
legitimement
d se
rapprocher
du modele
scientifique.
Cet article etudie l'evolution des mentalites sur
cette
question qui
ont conduit les restaurateurs a etablir leurs
principes ethiques actuels,
ainsi
que
leur echelle
de valeurs et leurs
convictions,
principalement
en ce
qui
concerne deux d'entre elles:
l'importance
de la
preser-
vation de
l'integrite
de
l'objet,
et la certitude
que
le meilleur
moyen pour
cela est
l'application
d'une methode
scientifique.
Zusammenfassung-Im vorliegenden
Artikel werden die Grunde
far
die
gesellschaftliche Entwicklung
eines
eigenstdndigen Berufsbildes
zur
Konservierung
im
Gegensatz
zur traditionellen
Restaurierung
von Kunst- und
Kulturgut
diskutiert.
Auf
der Basis eines breiten
praktischen Erfahrungsschatzes
und unter sich dndernden
konzeptuellen Einfliissen akzeptiert
diese
Entwicklung
demnach die
Notwendigkeit
und
Berechtigung
eines wis-
senschaftlichen
Ansatzes. Der
Verfasser
sieht in verdnderten
gesellschaftlichen
WertmaJistdben die
Ursachen,
Studies in Conservation 43
(1998)
1-8 7
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M. Clavir
die zu den heute
giiltigen
ethischen
Prinzipien,
Werten und Ansichten des Restaurators
gefuhrt
haben.
Besonders betont wird dabei die
Erhaltung
der Unversehrtheit eines
Objektes
sowie die
Uberzeugung, dafi
dies
am besten durch die
Anwendung wissenschaftlicher
Arbeitsweisen erreicht werden konne.
Resumen-El
presente
articulo trata la historia social de la
emergencia
de la conservacion como una
profesion
diferenciada
de la tradicional
y
artesanal restauracion.
Propone que
el desarrollo de la
conservacidn como
campo
autonomo se
genero
a traves de la evoluci6n de un area de
practica ya
existente, en un clima
concep-
tual cambiente,
el
cual, progresivamente, agradecio
la necesidad
(y
la
legitimidad)
de un modelo
cientifico.
Este articulo considera los cambios en los valores
que
llevaron a los conservadores a mantener sus
principios,
creeencias
y posiciones actuales; enfocado
todo ello en dos
aspectos importantes:
la
importancia
de
preservar
la
integridad
del
objeto, y
la creencia de
que
la
mejor
manera de hacer esto es a traves de la
aplicacion
de la
ciencia.
Studies in Conservation 43
(1998)
1-8 8
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