Welcome back to our conservation diary 2005!

As in the years before we want to invite you to read our diary. Get a glance on our work and life during our conservation workshop on the island.
During our workshop on the island of Lopud from Sept. 11th - to Sept. 25th 2005 we will post daily reports of our activities here.

September 21 and 22 were actually very busy days. Everybody was preparing the several altar-parts, for lifting them to the right position on the southern wall in the chapel.

Retouching

Retouches on the upper parts of the altar (architrave and gables) still had to be finished. The corner on the right gable part (see the discussion last week) was finished as well. In fact half of the adjusted wooden sticks were taken off again.

Now the gab-filling sticks are forming a very small staircase on the frontside. Because of that the shadows are very equal and somehow only symbolize the end of an architectural line.

With a small, simple form of corkfilling the fringe was filled and afterwards retouched.

Also the architectural line of one of the pedestals had to be closed with wooden sticks.

We knew that only Friday we could do some further retouches after the whole retabel was fixed to the wall. A large number of holes in the wall needed to be filled with lime-morter prior to the resurrection of the retable. 

Construction

Adjusting the ladder on the scaffolding

Charles (teacher C/R Wood, Antwerp) is controlling the construction work on this day. Together with Hans (teacher C/R Paintings, Cologne) and all the

other "Woodies" (students C/R Wood of the differnet nations) they carried out their work on thursday to finish their goal: lifting all the heavy wooden elements without accidents for people and objects in position. We had to discuss our way of moving all the different wooden parts of the altar to get them in the right position.

Prior the work-space had to be cleaned and so we did. In 2004 there was a vertical beam implemented in the pedestals to carry the weight of the pillars and the architrave.

To lift the pillars on the predella the scaffoling had to be to be moved seven centimeters backwards from the wall. Afterwards we could raise the capitals underneath the first level of the scaffolding without any damage.

Finally everything was ready for mounting the architrave. To lift the architrave we discussed to construct a wooden box around it. This was overruled and we thought it was easier to attach a "dmf"- board to the backside of the architrave. Then the ropes were ajusted. Two ropes for lifting the architrave to its final destination the other two ropes to keep the architrave away from  the stairs and  the scaffolding.

In the middle of the scaffolding we set up a staircase for person number five to secure the architrave on its' trip up to the wall. To lift the architrave over the scaffolding and to bring it up to the first level was the most difficult situation. The three strong man on the first level were not strong enough to hold the architrave. Therefore for the architrave it was not a soft landing on the fist level, but in fact nobody and no wood was hurt.

The second step was to lift the architrave on the capitels of the pillars. For that four men were needed. Measurements were taken. Both pillars were leaning to the wall and needed  repositioning with small wooden blocks and wedges. The left pillar was pushed in a real vertical line. The original construction carried no information about the fixation of the pillars to the wall. After resurrecting the whole retable we decided to adjusti the pillars to the wall with iron hooks and wooden blocks to bring them to the right level. 

The architrave had to be moved back and forth several times with slight adjunstmetns until its' final position on the pillars. Eventually it was fixed to the newly attached "inox bars" and secured with an earthquake protection system (planned by Charles).

Finally we lifted the two the broken gables to their position on the architrave and also attached them to the architrave. 

Lifting the pillar on the mensa and subsequently on the predella

As a last step we removed the ladder in the middle of the scaffolding and turn off all the daylight-lambs. In that moment we could see all the retouchings in their usual 'church' light.

What did we see???

There was the opinion that as an overall state too many bright areas of blue paint are visble. Another conclusion was that the horizontal center part of the architrave needed more retouching. Some students mentioned that the black dots due to nails corrosion disturbe the entire look and feel of the altar.

Floor

The architrave is brought in place for lifting

The marble tiles were cleaned to a certain extend. The use of an ultra sonic needle was perfect for removing small spots of mortar. It is a pity we could not finish the cleaning because the needle broke at one point. Most tiles are brought back to their original state: they are lying in connection to each other in a dioganal pattern and in a more ore less logical color-scheme.

The brightnes of the different colors can only  be reached by cleaning them perfectly from all the small mortar spots.

The mortar-refilling of the border of the tombstone was in sound condition.

Altar-painting

Work on the painting continous upright for regeneration of the varnish.

In this whole story the painting didn't play a role. But their was a lot of work on it.

It was vertically attached to the scaffoling of the altar in the northern chapel. Regeneration of the surface and the last steps of the consolidation of the paintlayer were carried out.

Talks with the community and with visitors

As we already mentioned before we feel that we could do more to inform visitors of the church about our conservation work. We asked the director of Hotel Lafodia if we could do an informative talk about the conservation in several languages (we all together speacks French, German, English, Croation and Flamish).

This evening we shall do a presentation in the hotel. The people from the Lopud-island are invited as well. We proposed  for next year to give more information about all the conservationwork thathas been done through the years.

We also had professional visitors. Bozjena Popic from "Monument Care of Dubrovnik" came to pay her yearly visit. We also made an proposal to her for the work that needs to be done next year. Conservators from the "Villa Stay" in Dubrovnik came to the church to see the construction work on "our" altar. At the moment there is also a comparable altar-piece at the Villa Stay that undergoes treatment. 

Also today students from the art academy (department of conservation) in Zaghreb came to visit us. They are treating a small wooden altar in Dubrovnik. It is very nice to have discussions about our different work and concepts. So we learned from each other and see the differences on the spot. At last, Lara (teacher C/R Polychromy Split) came to replace Jure. C/R teacher Drawing Lou from Antwerp came to work with us and he discovered lots about conservation in practice.

The architrave being lifted step by step.

Tremendous clouds building up over the main land.

Today we were up for a rather late start in the church due to severe weather conditions.

On sunday we rented a mini-bus to drive us to a number of churches and monasteries.

As we learned last year there are quite a number of retables in the area that bare som resamblance to our altar-piece in Maria Sunj.

We drove to Orebic and Korcula to visit these specified pieces.

Returning last night we were already warned of thunderstorms to hit the coast and the area. As forcasted the weather changed dramtically last night and in the morning.

The church of "Our LAdy of Karmel" in Orebic

We had no chance but had to stay in the hotel until the sky finally cleared a little.

This delay put as back in our self-proposed  timeframe but we still think we will manage to set up the altar-piece and mount it to the wall as a final fixation. The scaffolding therefore should be dismantle after this years workshop.

Clearer but slightly cloudy skies gave us the chance to take final detail- and total images of the predella and the architrave in front of the church.

Tomorrow we will head for Dubrovnik to pay our annual visit at the "Villa Stay" and the state office for cultural heritage in Dubrovnik. Afterwards the students are released to explore the sights and the museum of the city.

Oliver(Teacher Cologne)

Leaving Korcula on a boat. The weather is already about to change.

Final photographs of the architrave outside the church

The wood-stick addition during glueing of
the singel wood-sticks

A bit of history Today we are still working and discussing about the gable: as said in the discussion we had in 2003 ( Thursday September 18th 2003) , we wanted to recreate only the architectural outlines. Therefore Andrea (student from Cologne) and Charles (teacher from Antwerp) started to fill in the gab of the corner of the right gable with additions in wood-sticks. Although we had decided the opposite it was made so that it could be sculptured afterwards.

Therefore the woodstick-additions were following the outlines of the sculpted volumes. In that year Andrea also tried to soften the fringes of the deteriorated wood. She applied some fillings with cork on the deteriorated wooden parts and some smaller parts of sculpting on the woodsticks.

Andrea also smoothed the corners of the sticks so the surface was flat and followed the outline of the sculpted leaves.

The missing parts in the predella were treated differently. The wood was very deteriorated and therefore forms very visible horizontal lines. The wood stick addition is following these horizontal lines and therefore fill aestheticaly wonderfull in the missing parts.

The opposite is in the highest corner of the gable: the outline of the woodsticks is not total horizontal due to the other horizontal lines in the architecture. And because also the volume is the big and too high it became a very solid part although it is following the outlines of the volume.

In 2004 we were took up the gable to the scaffolding to see how the architectural outline looked high up onto the white wall. Were we satisfight with the architectural outline.. No we weren,t.

In front the complete outline was visible, but if you vieuwed the corner of the gable a little bit from an angle there was a very pointed corner visible. Linda (student Antwerp) tried that year with plasticine to make a proposel for a (sculptered) gabfilling for the other part of the gable corner. We left this proposel and dicided to discus the matter in 2005.

Now, on Saturday, Betty took away lots of woodsticks and with a very small plane she reshaped the remaining sticks horizontal. Now it is visible that the stick are too big and de becoming steps too hughs. We dicided to glue some very small stick in between, than discuss to whole matter again. Step 2 can be reshaping the sticks ´´staircase´´ into a smooth form. Step 3 can be completely taking out the wooden sticks. . We thake a deep breath and a breacke fore one day

Andrea Funck, a student from cologne, working on
the wood-stick application carried out in 2003

Of coure there are also practical situations where we see Lopud is not a school situation. As we all know it is not allowed to eat and drink in the studio. But it is clearly visible in the church that the rule is difficult to keep.

Also music is such a thing. The church and the graveyard are both in use for the rest of the year. We have to realize for ourselfs that therefore we do not want to hear popmusic on Maria Sunj.

This year also there are more and more tourist visiting Lopud and also the Maria Sunj church. We can now earn money to guided the tourists around the wordk we are doing.

Instead of that we decides to make small informationboard to inform the tourists about our work. In practice there is nobody who can do it. We are all to busy to reach our goal this year; finishing the altar completely.

Carolien (Teacher from Antwerp)

A huge controversy about the concept of minimum intervention and the exceptions within the concept came up today.

A group of students and teachers started a
discussion today about the wood-stick addition
and the concept of mimimal intervention

The controversy arose in particular on the left broken gabel. The left gable of the altar was fitted with a wood-stick addition in 2003 to reshape the architectural outer lines. Does this addition fit in our concept with minimal intervetnion? Is it necesseray for the readability of the altar and the architectural lines?

Followed by discussions about the pros and cons of such an addition it was agreed upon to make this addition and see how it looks like.

In 2003 the student group already stated their worries about the heaviness and the shape of the addition. Also the question about our concept of minimal intervention and how such anaddition fits into the concept already came up. So in 2003 we took both gables on the scaffolding to see what it looks like. A decission about leaving it or taking it out still was postboned.

This year with the retouching almost finished and teh goal to reassamble the altarpiece and to dismantle the scaffolding a decission had to be called for. A group of students and teachers assembled in front of the gable with the wood-stick additon and began a discussion:

Rolf: We have to follow our idea we once agreed upon. The gable was never put in place on the architrave and therefor we never will know what it will look like eventually. We have a concept of minimal intervention. Bottom line is with this concept: if it is not necessary it is not necessary. So we don't need the addition and therfore we should take it out!

Charles: Your point is that the gable was never put in place on the architrave. It is not consequent for a minimal intervention concept. It is only added for aesthetic reason?

The gabel with the added wood-stick addition

Rolf: It fits not in our concept. The idea had a didactic way. We wanted to show what the outlines are. The idea could be good, I don't know. We never gave it a chance. It was never ontop of the architrave. I also think it is to heavey- I think so too, so at the moment we can only remove it to follow our minimal intervention concept.

Charles: So we should first put it up on the real construction - see if it is still disturbing and then take it out - if we don't like it. So that is strange that you say that because it is still not minimal intervention.

Rolf: I had the same discussion about the predella. It is always minimal intervention - so we have to follow this adventure all the way.

Betty: So there is only one possiblity left for you - take it out.

Rolf: Yes - but I'm also a pragmatic person. Now that it is added - so leave it in!

Oliver : But there is one thing missing in your idea: if we leave it in it is not yet finished and the line on the other side of the edge needs to be added too.

Rolf: Yes it is not finished. There might be a sharp line or shadow.

Charles: It was always in the idea of adventure to try it. We will not damage the layer of gold in the original if we take it out.

Caroline: Can we take it out with the tools we have on the island?

Charles: Yes we do with a cloth and a hot iron.

Caroline: My idea was: if you look to the architecture it is better to take it half way out because then you have the deteriorated complete line. If we take it out completely we will half a hole there. The gables are seen with a wall behind it. So you immediatley see the gap also in the deteriorated outline. Therefor it was decided to try and fill it in. In other parts of the altar the gaps are seen with the altar construction around it. So the gaps are less disturbing.

Charles: For the problem with the side of the gable we have to remember that a student from Belgium made a mould from clay forming the ornaments. We should look what the gable looks like with the mould. If we then still insist this is not what we want then we will take it out.

One student gets up and fetches the mould form. It is placed on the border-line of the wood-stick addition

Wodd-stick addition and mould brought into place for comparison

Caroline: Remember it is the highest part of the altarpiece and therfor it is very prominent.

Charles: There is never a yes and no to a concept, a black and white! You can only try and follow the line of the concept with adventures to try and test certain thins - see if they work and fit the concept. To which point do we accept a compromise that is the question we have to ask ourselves!

Rolf: That is not my problem. For me the problem is that sometimes we don't go all the way with our concept but stop to early in our self-proposed concept!

Charles: Now with the mould in place we can see that we should keep on following the form of the outer lines completley. And once we are finished with the gable it would be consequent to follow with the other architectural elements. Now this is completley against our concept.

Detail: mould and wood-stick addition

Oliver: So you are saying we should take it out. That this is one more argument for taking it away.

Charles: Exactly. But it is still important to try things along the side of the concept to see if they work.

Lieselote: Maybe we just take the front parts of the addition out because it is to sharp pointed.

Betty: So this is the half way solution. So we don't have the whole in the gable but we have a line.

Monika: It is a little like with the predella. The concept of the wood-stick addings in the upper line of the deteriorated outline of the predella. There we also added wood sticks but thinned them in a form to follow a deteriorated outline. So this is within our concept.

Charles: So this could be our new concept in detail for the gable: Missing parts should not be replaced whereas gaps in continous elements will be closed.

Camille, Isabelle, Catherine, Nele from Belgium

Since Monday we (Camille, Catherine, Nele, Isabelle, Lieselote) are working on the architrave and the broken fronton.

The retouching started last year and has to be continued and finished. The architectural pieces are painted in blue of different tones and the ornaments arealso gilded.

Last year the retouching started on the outer edges and this year we have to follow up with the middle part.

The difficulty is to make the entire piece looking homogenic.

Tratteggio is the best way to retouch the parts of the architrav that lack polychromy.

We use pigments with Paraloid B72 mixed with Diacetonalcohol/Ethanol.

Today retouching will almost come to an end so tomorrow we shall start with the predella. It's a lot of work and we hope to finish in time because on Wednesday, next week, we are planning to rebuilt the entire altarpiece.

Yesterday we visited Saint Nicolas church. It was very interesting to compare our concept of conservation (minimal intervention) with the one that has been used over there (partly reconstruction and reguilding).

The rest of the time we filled with swimming climbing and enjoying the nice weather and company!!

Sunny greetings from the island!!

Southern greetings from the painting group of the Lopud project 2005 Hanna, Julia, Jure, Petra and Petra!

Since Monday the five of us are working on the canvas painting of "The Annunciation".

What happened in the last three days on the painting?
After dismanteling the painting from the center of the retable, the first step was to unmount the canvas from its stretcher and to mount the canvas again on it. This was necessary because of some new canvas deformations and because of the extreme corrosion of the nail heads of the former two years old mounting. All nails - 100 and more- have to be exchanged during this treatment. In particular with Jure´s man power it was possible to stretch out all deformation, a really hard work.

At the moment three of us are busy with the final fixation of flaking paint and small paint particles. The others are cleaning the surface. During this procedure we remove surface dirt, residues of the former sturgeon paint consolidation -and the old varnish to some degree. We use warm water and microfibre tissues, also called "gloss wonder" for this purpose.

That's it for today!
Your painting team 

Rusty nails because of due-point action

Loose strip lining edges

Re-fixation of the canvas edges using a hot spetula

Hello, hello, hello.

This is Monika, Betty and Rolf from cologne (woodies of course). We'd like to tell you what happened the first three days on the island of Lopud.

Let us introduce the main actors of this year's workshop: 25 Students and Teachers from Antwerp, Split, Cologne and for the first time from Brussels. After arriving on Sunday in sunny weather we were welcomed by the people of Lopud, who kindly arranged accommodation for us in their private residences.

Rolf , Betty and Monika from Colgne

We started on Monday with an introduction on the altarpiece and the general situation in the church. Afterwards we arranged our work-space and dismantled the altarpiece. Following this we formed task groups for the different kinds of treatments, which are: - retouching of the architectural parts of the altarpiece,
- cleaning of the stone floor from cement and colour,
- filling voids at the predella and continuing with the treatment on the painting.

Filling group working on the predella

Our job in the filling group is to continue with the filling system, which were tested by Monika during last year's workshop. For the different requirements of the severe insect damaged predella several putties were developed. An injectable mixture is used for underfilling of undermined surfaces, a mixture with cork granulate for deep voids and a mixture with fine fillers for a smooth finishing layer. According to the demands of the object the injectable putties were developed further in the diploma thesis of Monika.

The work is in good progress and we hope to finish the treatment of the predella at the end of the week.

Detail of the filling mass being applied to a corner ornamental leaf of the predella