Amid the high-tech lasers and stainless steel optics tables of the University's free-electron laser lab, art conservator Adele de Cruz hovers over a 14th-century style Madonna painting. Its beauty is buried beneath resilient dirt, but not for long. For de Cruz, fusing centuries-old masterpieces with up-to-the-minute technology is all in a day's work.
She works methodically with a thin, hollow wave-guide that resembles a wand, using a single wavelength of light to dissipate layers of brown encrustation. Then she swabs away the residue, successfully bringing forth vibrant colors that have, until now, been hidden. She has already used her "magic wand" to uncover the work of Bargue, a Delacroix-contemporary who painted only 20 works in his lifetime.
"There's a very immediate reward," she said. "You come close to what the original intent of the artist was," she said.
A conservator based in New York City who devotes much of her time to restoring paintings from the Ottmar Foundation's massive collection, de Cruz began synthesizing art and technology in the early 1970s. "You must have the scientific, technical and art historical training to be able to work with valuables and priceless work of art," she said
She originally studied as an artist at both Marymount College and Columbia University before shifting her attention to conservation. While at Villa Schifanoia, an art conservation school in Florence, she began questioning conventional painting restoration techniques.
The established technique of using solvents to restore paintings' original splendor did not sit well with de Cruz, who said such chemicals were not entirely effective and could harm conservators' health.
"When I was still studying and came upon a very difficult painting, it was very clear to me at that time that there had to be a better way to carefully remove the varnish," she said.
De Cruz decided that laser light could be used for the purpose, an idea she presented to Myron Wolbarsht, a Duke professor of psychology and biomedical engineering who had helped advance the use of infrared lasers in eye surgery.
With the help of the Orlando-based Schwartz Electro-Optics, they eventually collaborated to make a solid-state infrared laser a staple of her restoration work.
In 1996, research associate and physicist Susanne Hauger of the Free Electron Lab began providing her scientific expertise and technical support to the project. "Everyone can see the utility of cleaning the pieces and restoring them to as close as possible to their original condition," she said. "It's nice to see physics applied to a field generally considered to be at the other end of the spectrum."
Today, the duo applies the technique to a wide array of paintings doing work that few have done before.
"All the paintings that we've worked with have been paintings that have been written off," she said. "The foundation is very supportive in what we're doing."
But not everyone has entirely accepted the technique. De Cruz and Hauger traveled to Paris last fall for a conference at the Louvre, "The Art and Chemistry of Color," and some attendees expressed skepticism.
"A lot of people there were very concerned about the whole idea of using laser, but we tried to show them how this does not damage the painting," said Hauger. She added that after the two presented their work, they received more support for their original findings.
Christopher Tahk, director of the training program for graduate and master's students at Buffalo State College, said that laser restoration has exciting potential. "The laser will slowly be adapted by conservationists," he said, "but it will not displace any of the other techniques."
Wolbarsht, having seen works completely cleaned with the technique, is even more optimistic about the continued collaboration between the two fields. "This essentially revolutionized the field of art conservation," he said. "I am really astonished with the results."
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