The Painter, Performance, and Magic: Conserving Augustus Dunbier

support for this video comes from skillshare which offers thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people on topics including illustration design photography video freelancing and more not too long ago i was a guest at an online magic show this was planned as in person but circumstances had changed and now it was to be an online experience it was an event for which my enthusiasm was less than stellar for what possible fun could be had staring at a screen with all the visceral affectations curtailed and the experience reduced to passive viewing as the show began i was the paradigm of post-modernity skeptical guarded and all together unimpressed the magician performed some easy to decipher sleight-of-hand gags a few card tricks that were unimpressive to anyone over the age of 10 and generally tried to distract the audience with witty banter but then just as his grip on our attention was waning as if by design the winds shifted a series of tricks rapid fire and performed with a precision absent in the earlier ones caught my attention my cynicism and aloof coolness were disarmed and my curiosity peaked the magician plowed ahead into a cascade of ever more complex and captivating performances that had me leaning in and furrowing my brow and as the evening passed my eyes widened and my jaw dropped i was caught in his web and unable to free myself logic and intellect were of no use and i could only watch mouth the gape at the performance as the hairs on my neck stood at a tension by the end of the night words had left me and all i could do was rub my forehead and amaze at what had transpired in a word it was magic as children we're primed and receptive to magic the innocence and vulnerability we possess has not yet become a liability and allows us to experience pure joy yet as we age and naivete gives way to supposed wisdom our ability to relax our ego our guard wanes it is a necessary protection we develop in a life full of adversity and complexity every once in a while however something transpires that pierces this armor and releases the butterflies i first saw john singer sergeant's portrait of lady agnew of lochnaw as a young student studying painting i was floored it was as if the molten core of my emotional self was laid bare and she was looking straight into it or rather it was sergeant himself that was peering through my artifice by way of his painting i had never had a visceral experience looking at a painting and desperately wanted to bottle that lightning for years i chased that feeling and when lucky perhaps a bit tired and with my defenses relaxed it would strike jasper johns robert motherwell cecilia beau kanu mitsuo and countless others punched me in my gut in a word it was magic i have spent much of my life surrounded by art and now by way of my trade as a keeper of the canvas i spend my days in the oft dirty trenches of the art world i have often heard that the work i do is magic yet i have always demured as it is merely technical craft there are no spellbound potions in my studio no slights of hand or ethereal actions that transform artworks with ease rather all of the materials with which i work are common the techniques i apply to conserve artworks are simple and mechanical without romance at best this is precise craft as this monologue wandered around the ether i wondered what exactly magic was and how i've come to know and experience it no bubbling cauldron facilitated the magic show i witnessed no ancient books of hieroglyphs were consulted it was merely a man with his materials a deck of cards a few coins and the application of his precisely honed movements his craft sergeant had no special paints and rumplestiltskin wove not his canvas he was merely a man with an easel brush and a steady hand working deliberately carving light out of paint and so it dawned on me that neither the magician nor sergeant were special in any way that any other human throughout time wasn't their materials were banal and unremarkable and their craft while careful and precise was nothing more than deliberate movements through space and yet the combination of these elements mixed with just the right attention and presented to a receptive viewer are in fact magic and they are magic not because they are special but precisely because they are not for how can the combination of materials and actions that affect one on an emotionally visceral level be called anything but magic and while i hardly view conservation as any sort of alchemy it is merely the application of materials and actions that it can affect transcendence in viewers maybe if we squint our eyes just a bit and relax our guard i suppose is in fact magical and to experience that feeling of magic yourself is amazing yet to affect that feeling in someone else is awesome and you may not paint like john singer sergeant that's quite a tall ask and you are also probably not a painting conservator but that doesn't mean that magic is out of reach for you can head over to skillshare and check out the magical experience learn how to perform sleight of hand magic with tim domsky and you can learn how to capture lightning in a bottle of your own for skillshare is filled with people just like you who are curious creative and ready to release their own butterflies it's a place where you can expand your horizons scratch an itch you maybe didn't know you had so when you're ready to start creating magic instead of just watching it head over to skillshare where the first 1000 people to use the link will get a free trial of skillshare premium membership so you can go ahead and start making other people's hairs on the back of their necks stand up [Music] do [Music] do do [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Baumgartner Restoration

Views: 766,529

Rating: 4.9194541 out of 5

Keywords: Baumgartner, Julian, restoration, ASMR, paintings, cleaning, scraping, repair, Art, fine art, conservation, painting restoration, old art, painting, painting conservation, oil painting, new again, restore

Id: yQ3C4e2zFgo

Length: 18min 7sec (1087 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2020