Publication on polychrome sculpture

The Getty Conservation Institute is pleased to announce the
publication of "Polychrome Sculpture: Meaning, Form, Conservation,"
by Johannes Taubert, edited with a new introduction by Michele D.
Marincola.

"Polychrome Sculpture: Meaning, Form, Conservation" was first
published in 1978 in German as "Farbige Skulpturen: Bedeutung,
Fassung, Restaurierung," and has come to be widely regarded as the
authoritative text on the making and meaning of European medieval
and Baroque painted wood sculpture.  Johannes Taubert (1922-1975), a
prominent art historian, conservator and early proponent of
interdisciplinary research, played a pioneering role in combining
the rigorous scientific analysis of materials with a fuller
understanding of form and function, an approach that has led to the
development of technical art history as practiced today.

Many of the essays in this volume apply such scientific techniques
as microscopic analysis to an art-historical understanding of
Romanesque and late Gothic wood sculpture, revealing that, far from
serving a merely decorative function, the painted surface of these
works was intricately connected to their meaning.  The paint layers
on sculptures, for example, which the author spent years documenting
through close examination and analysis, were intended to impart a
heightened sense of reality to the life-sized sculpture, thereby
enhancing the viewer's experience of worship.  Taubert believed it
was crucial for conservators to understand this context before
undertaking any treatments.

Michele Marincola is Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of
Conservation at the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine
Arts, New York University, and conservator at The Cloisters,
Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The book is available for purchase for $59.95 USD.

    <URL:http://shop.getty.edu/products/polychrome-sculpture-meaning-form-conservation-978-1606064337>

Anna Duer
Research Associate
The Getty Conservation Institute
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 700
Los Angeles CA 90049-1684
310-440-6710


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