The author is assistant professor in Monuments Conservation
Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, head of
the section of wall painting preservation. He evaluates the
development of conservation activities, their structure and
organization of conservation training in the period from
1945 on. The period is divided into three distinctive stages.
A characteristic feature of the first period lasting to the end
of the fifties was the undertaking of enormous work resulting
from war destruction. A leading role was played then by
conservators educated in the pre-war period, assisted by young
graduates from three higher schools of conservation. It was
at that time that the most outstanding works of ancient art
were brought for conservation. It was also then that the first
teams in monuments conservation workshops emerged.
The author describes the sixties as a period of a particularly
intensive development of the discipline — both in the field
of training young conservators, in setting-up and equipping
new workshops, in significant progress in conservation techniques
and means. Also at that time the leading role in higher
schools and other workshops was overtaken by a young generation
of professionalists formed in the fifties. A marked
progress could be noticed then in technological studies. Conservation
practice got linked very closely with exact sciences;
contacts with foreign centres got also increased.
The seventies are the period of stabilization. There was
a marked increase in the number of research and didactic
workers in higher schools. At the same time there arose new
problems associated with conservation. Large work on the
renewal of historic old town complexes brought about a new
demand for investigators of plasters, painting layers and
opened broad venues for conservation work in renewed buildings.
Apart from that, there also took place a noticeable
expansion of Polish conservators abroad; quite a lot of them
left the country, both in teams associated within monuments
conservation workshops and in private teams or even
individually.
More and more young people are applying to higher schools,
as the profession of the conservator of works of art has become
very attractive. There can be seen a clear disproportion
between Polish requirements for qualified personnel and
possibilities of higher schools. The attempts to train conservation
technicians have not given, in the author’s view,
satisfactory results. Too great number of technicians is engaged
in all serious conservation works.
The third period is characterized by a gradual disappearance
of the sense of professional link amongst conservators. This,
i.a., is the result of a disappearance of traditional conferences
and other forms of meetings that were so popular in the past
years.
When analyzing the nature of modern conservation measures
the author makes various comments. They concern both the
form and scope of the documentation accompanying conservation
procedures. The author emphasizes accurately a somewhat
marginal nature of conservation of works of art, which
stays behind work in the field of architecture and town planning.
Not without a reason the author points out a high level
of work on objects of art, much higher than the one found
in work on immovable monuments (of course, the author has
in mind the work carried out in Poland).
The author is also right in emphasizing the development and
achievement of a high level of conservation training as a permanent
attainment of the Polish organization of the protection
of cultural property. According to the author, the most important
task for the nearest few years is to maintain that
high level.
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