Restoring great art: A behind the scenes look

(Vatican Radio) Just off the hustle and bustle of Rome’s Via del Corso, the city’s usually thronging and lengthy shopping street is the calm but majestic presence of the Doria Pamphilj Gallery. Visitors can walk quietly around this sea of art and immerse themselves in beauty and history. The Gallery which is owned by the Pamphilj family houses one of the largest private art collections in Rome and is home to a new exhibition called, "Dialogues of Art - Caravaggio meets Vasari."
The initiative is focusing on the restoration of three very important works in the Pamphilj collection by two great masters of Italian painting, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and Giorgio Vasari.

But unlike a usual exhibition the project enables the public to see the restorers at work
“The idea was to phase the conservation, to phase the problem of conservation and restoration of works of art in a different and new way…”

One of the directors of the initiative is Marco Cardinali a founding member of the Verderame Association, which is overseeing the project.
He says restorers usually have to face an art work that has been transformed by a number of factors over time.
“With restoration it is the same thing, that is to say, you have to face the work of art in a particular state which is not the way it was meant to be. Usually it has been completely transformed by time, by man; usually it is our own operations that change the works of art. So you have to go backwards trying to free the work of all the artificial materials that were put on it.”

The process is a sight to behold, restorers such as Paolo Roma can been seen sitting in front of a transparent screen in full view of the public, painstakingly breathing new life into precious art works.

Vatican Radio was given the opportunity to go behind the scenes and into the work room to get up close to the restoration process which, while I was there, was focusing on Caravaggio's "Penitent Magdalene" and Vasari's "Deposition from the Cross". A copy of Caravaggio’s "St John the Baptist" is also being given a new lease of life over the next few months.
Paolo Roma explains more about the process involved in the restoration of Vasari's "Deposition from the Cross".
“We find ourselves in front of the "Deposition from the Cross" by Vasari painted on a large wood panel roughly 2m by 3m. We proceeded in a manner similar to that which we used on Caravaggio’s Magdalene with successive cleaning.”

Marco Cardinali hopes that this exhibition will help visitors look at works of art in a more emotional way.
“My ambition would be to let all people, young people, disabled people try to face a painting in a more emotional way. I do believe that a painting should be first of all an emotion…

The exhibition also features guided visits and a series of meetings and conferences with the paintings' restorers. And in June those who have following the conservation process of these masterpieces will be able to see them restored to their former glory.
Listen to Lydia O’Kane's report from the Galleria Doria Pamphilj