Pictorial Reintegration in Textile Conservation:Two case studies of infill design for textile display

摘要

Ancient textiles hold remarkable iconography and imagery that offer exceptional windows into the lives,ideas and passions of global cultures through time.Through color,craft,and cultivated form we can learn much from the imagery and technology employed in the clothing,ritual objects and abodes of our ancestors.In the conservation of ancient textiles,Joyce Ertel Hulbert is a specialist in pictorial reintegration,a conservation treatment used for textiles containing important imagery and iconographic content that have sustained significant material loss and deterioration.The missing areas are known in conservation literature as "lacunae"; Melucco Vaccaro paraphrases from Cesare Brandi"s Teoria del Restauro: "He observes that a lacunae introduces an interruption into the figurative pattern that is not only local,...but disturbs the entire field of vision.It causes an inversion of perception"where the lacunae come forward."If the lacunae are filled correctly it will achieve another inversion in which the lacunae recedes into the background"1Thus,the primary premise of these archival treatments is that due to the significant loss of image and material,the textile has lost the capacity to be seen effectively,modern viewers focusing,rather,on the disrupted continuity and missing the overall impact of the ancient textile.Through pictorial reintegration,Hulbert develops a representation of the missing iconography,then creates an archival environment that houses both the fully conserved textile and the independent infill image layer.Seen together,what can be called a gestalt effect results,reintegrating the pictorial drama as well as the structural integrity of the ancient textile.As Vaccaro correctly predicts,the damaged areas of the textile indeed recede into the background,while at the same time the original textile is highlighted and preserved to its best advantage.To illustrate,Hulbert will discuss the parameters and steps of treatment for two textiles from ancient Peru that feature exceptional technique and surface design-a Chavin culture textile featuring mineral pigments painted image on cotton,(fig.2) and a Nazca-Huari culture camelid fiber tunic,tie-dyed and sectional woven and constructed (fig.1).