:bdh:
Some clarity on my point: We have a 500 year old system, with known problems, and known solutions. Sealing stretchers and rabbets is, until recently, so rare as to be an oddity. Nobody can point to actual evidence that unsealed is a problem or adds to other problems in a significant way.
This segued into a discussion of glazing and sealing canvas paintings, which is a system designed to use a removable varnish as the protection. Not glazing.
Now come those with 30-40 year old materials and processes, that aesthetically alter the work of art from it's creators intent, say it is for the best, and I should not question this? Frankly, this is a cultural outrage, akin to the removal of genitalia from statuary, and the religious defacement of humans.
To say nothing about the 30-40 years not being enough time to prove anything, against a 500 year system that works, as is?????
Personally, I would rather see the art as intended; museums should hire more guards, accept some risk, and enforce the rules. The Mona Lisa is unviewable, as despite the no flash rule, there are at any moment dozens of flashes going off glaring from the thick glazing. As far as I, or most of us are concerned, it's lost already.
Careful, I'll start ranting.
I think I'll go look for the kitteh thread.