The art of art restoration    

When I first saw ‘The Triumph of Death’ (1562-63), by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the painting throbbed: this land was sick, smothered in smoke; the fires on the horizon had been burning for ever, turning earth into dirt, air into haze. All was dull, lethargic, ill.

When I saw the painting again some years later, the smoke had cleared. Patches of green pushed up from the canvas; the peasantry’s clothes were suddenly bright; the sun appeared to exist. In its new clarity, some of the painting’s jaded horror had been replaced by a sort of comedy. The work had been restored, but something had been lost.

That ‘something’ is much easier to identify in the National Gallery’s recent – and much criticised – restoration of Piero Della Francesca’s ‘Nativity’ (early 1480s) (see below). You have to feel for the restorers, since two of the shepherds were in such poor condition they had to be almost completely repainted.