The New Indian Express

MONDAY, December 6, 2010 edex

ona Lisa has the highest insurance

cover story
The most expensive Indian value for a painting in history. In
painting is SH Raza’s
Saurashtra. An acrylic M 1962, it was assessed at $100
million. If inflation is taken into
account, this would have raised to
on canvas painted in $700 million
1983. It was sold this
year for over `16 crore

Before After

p1
p2
p3
p4
p5
p6
p7
p8
p9
p10
p11
p12

Knights of
p13 undoing the damage
p14 Due to a lack of
p15 adequate courses and

the arts
attractive career
p16 prospects, there
p17 aren’t many takers for
art restoration in India
p18
engraved on them. People don’t rea- ings, photographs, heritage buildings
p19
Lakshmy lise the value of our heritage,” rues
Sreelatha Rao, assistant superintend-
etc. “Today, there are many people who
specialise in restoring paper paintings
p20 chennai
ing chemist, Archaeological Survey
of India (ASI), Chennai.
or oil on canvas. But when I started, art
conservation and restoration were vir-

O
p21 scar Wilde is known to have
said ‘All art is immortal’.
No offence to Wilde but the
p22 thought of anything lasting
forever seems to be a myth,
especially where great work of art are
p23 concerned. You don’t have to take the
writer’s word for it. Just ask the phe-
nomenally talented group of restorers
p24 who spend all their time working on
neglected and damaged art pieces.
“The walls of temples and other his-
torically important places have ‘forever
love’ messages and marriage proposals
Dilapidated conditions
Rao has worked extensively in Lep-
akshi temple in Anantpur district,
Andhra Pradesh, and also on the tem-
ples in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. “The
murals in Lepakshi were in a terrible
state. We didn’t even know there was
a painting until we began cleaning
the surface. Most temples in Thanja-
vur also shared the same fate.”
A veteran in the field with over two-
decades of experience, Rao has also
worked on stone artefacts, oil paint-
tually unheard of,” she says.
Is there a difference between the
two? “Art conservation and restoration
are similar and different,” explains KP
Madhu Rani, Indian National Trust for
Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH),
Bangalore. “Conservators examine art
pieces, assess and establish causes of
damage and suggest means to prevent
further deterioration. Restorers re-
move residue like soot, moss and var-
nish from sculptures or paintings. We
may try to bring the artefact back to
what we think it looked like. But it can
be undone at a later stage.”

cover story
Rani has restored the botanical paint-
ings from Lal Bagh, Bangalore, tradi-
tional paintings of Mysore and Thanja-
vur and prints of Raja Ravi Varma.
Lack of qualified experts
In India, often conservation and resto-
ration are done by the same person due
to a lack of experts. “With our rich cul-
tural history, it’s a pity we don’t have
enough qualified people working on its
preservation,” says J Chandrasekaran,
restorer with REACH (Rural Education
and Conservation of Heritage Founda-
tion), Chennai.
He says experts should understand
the science behind the usage of materi-
als like camphor, neem oil, castor oil and
lamp soot on murals and the blends of
lime, sandstone and jaggery in building
materials. “We should know why lime
is better than cement. For instance, the
Kailasanatha temple in Kanchipuram
was built with sandstone, over which
a layer of lime blend was painted. The
murals were painted with basic colours
that were created with biodegradable
materials. If I want to preserve the
structure and restore the paintings,
I need volumes of the same material.
Where would I get it?” he asks.
He adds that a course in conserva-
tion is very important. “ASI has many
courses. National Museum Institute,
New Delhi, offers PG degrees. Even
REACH offers few programmes. Inter-
est levels to pursue these courses have
gone up but in terms of sheer number,
it’s not enough.”
A course in conservation
Perhaps the only institute in Asia to
offer a master’s and also a doctoral in
conservation is the National Museum
Institute, New Delhi. “We take only 15
students in a batch. Anyone from sci-
ence and fine arts can apply,” says M
Velayudhan Nair, HoD, conservation
department. “Students learn by work-
ing with original art pieces and do a lot
of practical work. So a teacher’s direct
supervision is very important. Teach-
ers should have experience and also
first-hand knowledge of the subject. To
get people like that is also difficult.”
After completing the master’s pro-
gramme, students can train at the
National Research Laboratory for Con-
servation of cultural property (NRLC)
for six months. After an unpaid train-
ing period, you also have to do a paid
six-month internship. It’s only then you
become a restorer or conservator.
Adds Chandrasekar, “Most qualified
experts are old people. There are more
than three-lakh heritage structures in
India. The seniors cannot do them all.
What happens when they’re gone? Stu-
dents should do as many internships as
possible before going on their own.”
Long internships
Sreekumar Menon concurs and adds
that the only way to become a conserva-
tor or a restorer is through internships.
“After a master’s degree in art restora-
tion, you have to do a lot of internships
for the first couple of years,” says the
restorer and founder of Art Conserva-
tion Studios, Noida. “You can train at
museums or at places like INTACH,
REACH etc. There are many private
Jackson Pollock’s
Number 5, 1948, is
rumoured to be the most
expensive painting ever
sold - apparently it was
bought for over
$140 million
restorers like me who hire interns.” He
says art conservation has immense poten-
tial in India but there aren’t many takers.
“There are more than 1,500 restorers in
the UK but hardly 10 in India.”
Menon is currently restoring around 80
paintings from the Asiatic Society. “Due
to a lack of interns, it took me almost five
years to complete just 22 paintings. It’s a
tedious and laborious job. Depending on
the damage, restoration can take a month
to over a year. Even the cost can vary from
as low as `500 to as high as `1 lakh.”
Menon also encourages students to do
at least one international internship. “It
enriches and broadens your understand-
ing of what art restoration means. The
Courtauld Institute of Art, UK, or the US-
based Getty Conservation Institute and
Due to a lack of interns, it
took me almost five years to
complete just 22 paintings.
It’s a tedious and laborious
job. Depending on the
damage, restoration can take
a month to over a year. Even
the cost can vary from as
low as `500 to as high
as `1 lakh
Sreekumar Menon
Where to study
You can do PG courses in art restora-
tion at the National Museum, New
Delhi, University of Mysore, University of
Allahabad and Kurukshetra University,
Haryana. Students with a degree in BFA
or with a science background or a basic
degree with specialisation in any of the
disciplines like ancient and medieval
history, archaeology, world history and
other relevant subjects can apply. The
Delhi Institute of Heritage Research and
Management, the Lucknow-based NRLC
and institutes run by INTACH offer many
short-term courses in art conservation.
the Smithsonian Institution are some
of the places that offer scholarships.
There are a few institutes in Nether-
lands and Italy that offer courses in
mural conservation.”
Those who venture into this pro-
fession rarely make money initially.
VR Aparajitha, owner of Art Care,
a conservation studio in Chennai,
knows it all too well. “After complet-
ing my master’s at the National
Museum Institute (2003),
The New Indian Express
MONDAY, December 6, 2010 edex
hen Auguste Rodin exhibited his first
important work, The Bronze Period,
W in 1878 it was so realistic that people
thought he had placed a live model
inside the cast
New Delhi, I did a six-month intern-
ship with INTACH, New Delhi,” says
the 30-year-old photograph conserva-
tor. “I was paid a very small stipend at
INTACH but I worked on everything
— oil on canvas, water colours, prints,
monochrome sculptures, wooden ar-
tefacts, Chinese scrolls etc. After that,
I trained under a supervisor from
April to September at Ladakh where I
worked on the Buddhist murals.”
She got a major fillip in 2007 when
the main office of the State Bank of In-
dia, Chennai, gave her a contract to re-
store floor tiles. “The tiles were laid in
1898. It was a mess and has been one of
the toughest works for me. I began to
p1
earn some real money only after four
years of training and internships. By p2
2007-end, I opened my studio.”
Lack of jobs and bad pay p3
Despite an intense course curriculum
and gruelling internships, there aren’t p4
many openings for restorers. “As a
conservation scientist, you can diag-
nose the damage and suggest methods
p5
to clean it up. The actual cleaning and
preserving has to be done by experts.
But where are the jobs?” avers Nair.
p6
“Even in the government museum in
Chennai, there’s a chemist who also p7
acts as a conservator. Now, the situ-
ation is such that we’re like general
doctors who need to know everything. p8
If you want the field to become niche,
you need specialists.”
Even those like Rani, who have p9
specialised in artwork on paper, are
not paid well. “What pay?” she quips.
p10
“I’ve been in this profession for over a
decade and my pay is still bad. It’s an
amazing experience, however, to travel
and interact with experts.”
p11
As an intern, you can expect to
start with `5-8,000 for an assignment. p12
The amount may differ depending
on where you’re interning and also
the nature of the assignment. With p13
experience, diversification and spe-
cialisation, professionals usually earn
`8-20,000 per month. p14
p15
Start new courses
Chandrasekaran suggests institutes
like IIT and IISc should introduce mas- p16
ter’s level courses in heritage conser-
vation to improve job prospects. “This
will encourage UG students with a sci- p17
ence background to take it up. Those
who’ve completed UG in civil engi-
neering and BArch can take this pro- p18
gramme. Universities must encourage
research on traditional methods used
in creating art.” p19
Colleges can also conduct aware-
ness programmes about conservation.
“Make it mandatory for college stu-
p20
dents to clean art pieces in temples and
museums. For those who’ve completed
Class 10, introduce a diploma course in
p21
traditional architecture. The govern-
ment can encourage literature students
to do a certificate course in cleaning
p22
murals. Chemistry students can join as
assistants in museums, become cura- p23
tors, antiquities preserver etc.” n
—lakshmy@expressbuzz.com
p24
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