Conservator and a Work of Art. On the Outstanding Cult Rank

Abstract

Works of art gathered in a church play their role being surrounded with the sphere of celebration; with the space of sacrum. This fact should not be left out from the conservator’s thinking when his decisions are made, even when they concern only technical maters. All the material components of the work: both the ones that result from the artist’s conscious action and the later artefacts of various kinds added in the course of history should be subjected to meticulous studies defining not only their esthetical and historical, but also sacred context that should be taken into consideration while determining the assumptions and programme of conservation. Hence it is obvious that in esthetical questions that always are connected with conservation, in the case of a work whose place is supposed to be the space of sacrum, one cannot limit his thinking to the terms of only a routine renovation of a monument of the past. Such an attitude provokes a just – albeit often abused – accusation against conservators that they want to turn churches into museums. Accusations of this kind usually result from lack of a common plane of understanding, a plane that can only be formed through a true recognition of a sacred work of art as a material layer of the Church’s Tradition, equal to the written work in its dignity and significance.

The issues connected with the sacred character of a work of art first of all concern the problems that are in close connection with its artistically formed contents. They are often the only, and always the most important objects of perception, to a considerable degree motivating the spectator’s religious experience. The result of conservation usually affects this situation. Hence it is important that the influence should prove favourable in its relation with the spectator and consistent with the work’s theological message. A proper formulation of the conservation programme for works projected in this way is often difficult for a conservator without consulting a person who is an expert in the matters if faith, that is a theologian.

The second part of the article is an analysis of conservation of some works of art of an outstanding cult rank.