Real-Life Decision Making
You are a conservation restoration technician employed by a national conservation
institute. The purpose of the institute is to promote the care and preservation
of the nation's cultural heritage, and to advance knowledge in the field
of conservation.
As a conservation restoration technician, one of your jobs is to treat
works of art that museums send to the institute. One day, you are given a
painting that is sadly in need of repair.
The tacking margins (the edges of the canvas where the painting is secured
to a wooden stretcher) are very weak. In addition, there is paint loss in
one large area of the painting, as well as numerous tiny areas where the paint
is lifting.
Your job is to repair the damage in a way that causes the least possible
alteration to the picture. This is a tough problem. The normal solution would
be to cover the canvas with a type of adhesive.
The adhesive forces the lifting areas of paint back into place. At the
same time, you could stick a new canvas to the back of the old canvas. This
would strengthen the painting, allowing it to be reattached to
the wooden stretcher.
But by altering the materials of the painting, you're making it difficult
for other technicians to treat the painting in the future. The goal of a conservationist
is to preserve historic objects while interfering with the piece as little
as possible.
Still, if you do nothing the painting will eventually be ruined anyway.
What do you do?