A FIRE-DAMAGED painting by Claude Monet could be restored to its former
glory, thanks to a technology designed to simulate the ravages of low Earth
orbit on spacecraft.
The painting, one in the French impressionist鈥檚 celebrated Water-lilies
series, suffered severe smoke damage in a blaze at New York鈥檚 Museum of Modern
Art in 1958. In 1961, MOMA gave the soot-covered artwork to the Center for
Conservation at New York University鈥檚 Institute of Fine Arts, where it has been
used as a valuable teaching tool.
But conservators at the institute are talking to space chemists at NASA鈥檚
Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio鈥攁fter hearing of their success in
removing an overzealous art lover鈥檚 lipstick from an Andy Warhol painting. Their
trick? They vaporise contaminants by blasting them with oxygen.
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In low Earth orbit, solar radiation splits atmospheric oxygen molecules into
highly reactive oxygen atoms that bombard spacecraft and damage their surfaces.
Bruce Banks and Sharon Miller at NASA Glenn test the ability of new spacecraft
coatings to resist this chemical onslaught. They place the materials in a
low-pressure chamber that simulates the rarefied upper atmosphere, then they
make atomic oxygen by applying a 7-kilovolt electric field to a mixture of
oxygen and helium. The helium stops the atomic oxygen quickly recombining back
into O2.
NASA staff are encouraged to seek civilian spin-offs for space research, and
Banks and Miller reasoned that their highly reactive atomic oxygen would make a
perfect oxidiser for contaminants on paintings. So they designed a small device
that produces a short-lived beam of atomic oxygen and helium about 3 millimetres
wide. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like an airbrush,鈥� Miller says. In tests on paint chips taken from a
corner of the ruined Monet, the team found the atomic oxygen easily vaporised
soot and dark particles of charred binder鈥攖he component that gives paint
its stickiness鈥攂ut didn鈥檛 react with the coloured pigment. 鈥淢ost pigments
are metal oxides in their highest oxidation state, so they can鈥檛 be oxidised
further,鈥� says Miller.
Right now, the painting is almost entirely blackened, but the team managed to
transform the blackened paint chips to Monet鈥檚 dreamy blues and greens. Miller
reckons the whole painting could now be saved.
But when asked whether it planned to fully restore the work, the Center for
Conservation refused to comment. However, a source familiar with art
conservation issues told 快猫短视频 that the Center may decide the
painting is best left as a research piece. A ruined Monet, says the source, is a
useful asset to any conservation centre.