By: Jim Taylor

Restoring the original


The art world is starting to go through the same discussion that has wracked the religious world for several centuries.

        Consider Rembrandt’s famed painting, called the Night Watch. Rembrandt did not originally paint a night scene at all. The dark moody colours result from well-intentioned attempts to protect the painting by varnishing it.

        Similar things have happened to other great paintings. French inventor Pascal Cotte used his cameras to define the paint layers under the surface of the “Mona Lisa.” He found that in his first version of the world’s most famous painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s model had eyebrows and lashes; her face was wider and her smile more expressive.

Cotte then turned his cameras on da Vinci’s 1490 “Lady with Ermine.”

        He discovered that over-zealous “improvers” had repainted da Vinci’s original blue-grey background with solid black. The black “grossly disfigures the painting,” said Jacques Franck, art historian at UCLA.

Cotte’s infrared and ultraviolet camera scans also revealed more vivid colors in the Lady’s lavish red-and-blue dress, and warmer contours to her flesh.



Do you or don’t you?

So now the question becomes – should these paintings be restored to their original vision? Or should they be left as we have come to know them?

        Some art experts fear that Cotte’s discoveries could inspire ruinous attempts to remove later accretions from old masterpieces.

        One side will argue, “Art should be seen as the artist originally envisioned it!”

        The other side will reply, “This is the form we have come to love. It inspires us as it is. It has become part of our culture. We must not change it.”

        Exactly the same arguments have torn religious scholarship.

        As scriptures were copied, by hand, over the centuries, variations crept in. As they were translated from language to language, interpretations crept in. Just like retouching on paintings.

        Islam solved the translation problem by decreeing that the Qur’an is authoritative only in Arabic. But that doesn’t eliminate the risk of narrow interpretations.



Biblical evolution

  For the English-speaking world, the best known version of the Bible is the King James Version, translated by a committee in 1611.

        Over the last century, scholars have re-translated the Bible from texts that were not available to the King James committee. They’ve tried to bring the historic picture out from behind the accumulated varnish of centuries. By translating original Greek and Hebrew texts into the brighter colors of contemporary language, they have tried to restore the vigour and vitality of the original.

        The scholars of the Jesus Seminar have gone so far as to define which brush strokes came from Jesus himself, and which were added by later assistants.

        But many traditionalists insist it doesn’t matter what the originals said – the text as it has come down to us has inspired billions of Christians. To correct it, to enhance it, even with the best of intentions, could destroy people’s faith.

        The theological world remains split on this issue. I don’t expect the art world to achieve consensus any quicker.

*****************************************
Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
*****************************************