This is an unfinished essay but I thought it could generate some discussion along the lines of the Bad Art thread.

There are a myriad of issues attached to the topic of art restoration. For the present investigation my focus will be on the relationship between art restoration and the value placed on a work of art as justification for restoration. I will clarify the qualifications of art restoration by offering a working definition. My intuition is that art restoration can add or remove value to a work of art, but there is an epistemic challenge undermining the full interest of art-value to justify art restoration.

Working definition of Art Restoration:

Restoration is the process of modifying a work of art to return the work to a perceived previous state.

The working definition of restoration must delimit precisely those acts that can rightfully be called restorative from other creative acts such as art generation and preservation. Whereas art generation aims to produce new works of art, restoration aims to renew already existing works of art. In the essay “What Justifies Restoration”, S.J. Wilsmore argues that restoration is inherently an interpretive enterprise. Insofar as restoration is interpretive, the practice admits to the possibility of art generation rather than restoration. That is, if the restorer misinterprets or exaggerates interpretation, the work of art can be dramatically altered and even unrecognizable. However, it should be noted that the restorer intention is not alteration but restoration. If the aim is restoration, the restorer is attempting to return the work of art to a previous state. Interpretation is introduced as a necessary means to assess what was valuable and present in the previous state of the work of art.

Unlike restoration, preservation is not interested in changing the state of a work of art but rather in maintaining the current state. Preservation is interpretative and creative because it necessarily judges the value of the work of art in the present state in order to preserve that state. In short, preservation requires the preserver to identify the features of the work of art worth preserving and attempts to alter or enhance conditions to that end. For instance, if a work of art is being damaged by the touch of admirers, then the preserver might judge that the tactile response to the work is less important than the visual stimulation and prohibit touch. In this regard, the art preserver might misinterpret the work of art for the sake of preservation and eliminate a feature deemed or intended to be more valuable. Additionally, the preserver can initiate novel means for the sake of preservation whereby the work of art is altered in at least an indirect way (e.g., placing a painting in an environmentally controlled case). While the work of art itself is not altered in the latter case, the means by which a viewer can interact and enjoy the work is fundamentally altered. In such a case, the preserver has judged the means by which the viewer experiences the work to be less important than the actual work itself.

Whereas preservation does not admit to altering the current state of a work of art, restoration does admit to alteration. In particular, restoration aims at returning a work of art to a previous state. To justify restoration, the work of art must have more value in the previous state to which the restorer aims to return than the present state of the work of art. Natural decay of the work of art is often thought to contribute to the loss of value as well but restoration can also remove more deliberate means of alteration such as graffiti or other restoration attempts. The immediate challenge for the art restorer is epistemic in nature. The value of the previous state is the interpretive role of the restorer and a more robust understanding of the value of a work of art is helpful in this project. If the restorer has an underestimation of the current value or overestimation of the previous value the goal of restoration can be undermined by the conflicting values. Philosophically there is a significant problem in assessing whether the restorer can ever really know the past or present value of a work of art.

The hindrances of assessing the value of a work of art include, but are not limited to, understanding the process of production, understanding the intention of the artist, and understanding the aesthetic context of the work of art. Furthermore, the particular themes and motifs of the work of art might undermine a true assessment of value. In particular, the Vanitas tradition of still-life might represent a tradition that gains value through decay by the work itself becoming a demonstration of the theme. The gained value by a Vanitas painting through decay may be offset by the inherent value of the work of art as a production by a skilled artisan. The restorer must make a judgement whether the work has greater value by virtue of the theme or by virtue of production.

I admit the possibility that restoration does not endeavour to restore value but rather to simply restore and thereby preserve the superficial aspects of a work of art. The restoration process is done to make a simulacrum of the original, and not to restore value in the restored work but to represent the value the work once held (i.e., as a de-valued representation of a valued object). To oppose this understanding of restoration is the continued study and veneration of restored works. Attitudes towards restored works of art is not that the object has become de-valued through restoration but rather that value has been restored.