Mistine Chapel Essay

sPreservation of the Sistine Chapel One of the most important monuments to human artistic inginuitiy and history is widely regarded to be the Sistine Chapel. Consecrated in 1483, a group of renaiscance painters consisting of Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perguino, Pinturicchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Roselli, created the numerous frescos that adorn its walls and ceiling. The paintings have held up magnificiently over time, however, the era in which they were created were no the best for supporting their preservation, and this very concept was not even considred at the time. The limits of technology prevented and real preservation efforts from happening, as there was no electricity or climate control. Humidity, heat, and cold brought on by Nature expanded and contracted the paints, and over the centuries, cracked and split the paints used by the artists. There were also leaks, as water had penetraited from the floors above the chapel’s ceiling and …show more content…
Unfortunately earlier restoration teams had made attempts at restoring the frescoes in the 1930s, and employed much more crude methods in an attempt to repair some damage. In places where paint and plaster was beginning to crack, peel, and threaten to fall from the ceiling, they utilized bronze pins, varnish, and glue, which was sticky and had quickly become opaque since the time it had been applied. This kind of damage was irreversible to the fescoes and could only be painted over carefully by skilled artists. Each renaissance artist had applied slightly different approaches to the frescoes they were responsible for and as a result the restoration team needed to approach each work differently. Modern restoration techniques called for the use of polyvinylacetate resins in place of bronze pins. Places where pigments were not well adhered to the surface were secured with the use of a diluted acrylic resin