Drawing for Art Conservation: A Possible Evolution of Its Language

Abstract

For several years, the field of art restoration and conservation has been engaging with new digital tools, applying them both in diagnostic contexts – for the study of materials or mechanisms of deterioration – and for measuring components and surveying artistic surfaces using scanners and digital cameras. In this context, drawing plays an analytical and documentary role, capable of synthesising and communicating a wide range of data. This paper explores and proposes a new approach to the drawing of artworks for their conservation and to support restoration work. Questioning the traditional graphic approach – traditionally developed either by tracing over a photographic image or by visually simplifying the principal forms – the study explores the application and pushing of parametric drawing tools. Starting from a technical and practical investigation of the applications and functioning of parametric drawing within the field of industrial design, the research redefines the compositional elements of artworks – from the most traditional types to selected examples of contemporary ones – in order to propose a possible parameterisation of their constituent elements. This experimentation leads to a reflection on the new role of drawing in art conservation. By employing representations developed with parametric tools, metric-morphological simplifications are devised to develop information models, moving away from the idea of a strong realistic representation. This leads to the exploration of a new significance of drawing for movable and small-scale artistic heritage: parameterisation procedures open up the possibility of using computational models, capable of redefining the drawing tools as a new digital language.