Konserwacja dzieł sztuki w Polsce

• Authors: Zalewski Władysław

Title variants

EN

THE CONSERVATION OF WORKS OF ART IN POLAND

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The author is assistant professor in Monuments Conservation Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, head of the section of wall painting preservation. He evaluates the development of conservation activities, their structure and organization of conservation training in the period from 1945 on. The period is divided into three distinctive stages. A characteristic feature of the first period lasting to the end of the fifties was the undertaking of enormous work resulting from war destruction. A leading role was played then by conservators educated in the pre-war period, assisted by young graduates from three higher schools of conservation. It was at that time that the most outstanding works of ancient art were brought for conservation. It was also then that the first teams in monuments conservation workshops emerged. The author describes the sixties as a period of a particularly intensive development of the discipline — both in the field of training young conservators, in setting-up and equipping new workshops, in significant progress in conservation techniques and means. Also at that time the leading role in higher schools and other workshops was overtaken by a young generation of professionalists formed in the fifties. A marked progress could be noticed then in technological studies. Conservation practice got linked very closely with exact sciences; contacts with foreign centres got also increased. The seventies are the period of stabilization. There was a marked increase in the number of research and didactic workers in higher schools. At the same time there arose new problems associated with conservation. Large work on the renewal of historic old town complexes brought about a new demand for investigators of plasters, painting layers and opened broad venues for conservation work in renewed buildings. Apart from that, there also took place a noticeable expansion of Polish conservators abroad; quite a lot of them left the country, both in teams associated within monuments conservation workshops and in private teams or even individually. More and more young people are applying to higher schools, as the profession of the conservator of works of art has become very attractive. There can be seen a clear disproportion between Polish requirements for qualified personnel and possibilities of higher schools. The attempts to train conservation technicians have not given, in the author’s view, satisfactory results. Too great number of technicians is engaged in all serious conservation works. The third period is characterized by a gradual disappearance of the sense of professional link amongst conservators. This, i.a., is the result of a disappearance of traditional conferences and other forms of meetings that were so popular in the past years. When analyzing the nature of modern conservation measures the author makes various comments. They concern both the form and scope of the documentation accompanying conservation procedures. The author emphasizes accurately a somewhat marginal nature of conservation of works of art, which stays behind work in the field of architecture and town planning. Not without a reason the author points out a high level of work on objects of art, much higher than the one found in work on immovable monuments (of course, the author has in mind the work carried out in Poland). The author is also right in emphasizing the development and achievement of a high level of conservation training as a permanent attainment of the Polish organization of the protection of cultural property. According to the author, the most important task for the nearest few years is to maintain that high level.

Keywords

PL

konserwacja dzieł sztuki w Polsce; ratowanie zabytków w Polsce; rozwój konserwatorstwa w Polsce; stan polskiego konserwatorstwa

• Publisher: Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa
• Journal: Ochrona Zabytków
• Year: 1982
• Issue: 3-4
• Pages: 159-163

Dates

published

1982

Contributors

author

Zalewski Władysław

• doc. dr, Wydział Konserwacji Dzieł Sztuki Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Krakowie