Cultural Heritage and Restorer in the Changing World. 8th International Restorer Seminar 1993, Sárospatak

I should like to present some ideas of a rather comprehensive field but in frame of the given topics. In our ever-changing world the only law exists for me: one must work. When everybody does his own work and tries to perform the maximum, the state in good working order could be realized. This is why I want to illustrate the essence I say by three works of mine. These completed works fit this conference for two reasons. On the one hand, these deal with the sUbject defined by the conference and allow to present some actual thoughts on the restorer's tasks, on the other. Subsequently to twenty years experiences in museums I was employed at the National Monument Supervision as a restorer and now I'm over ten years work here. In this period I learnt something new about our vocation and I want to deal with this novelty. The former Ebglish translation of my lecture did not correspond to the Hungarian title. A misunderstanding for which I am thankful to the translator because this initiated a sequence of thoughts in me. The correct translation is found now in the title, i.e. "Monuments as support of the object", instead of "Monuments as home of the Object". This misunderstanding derives from the fact that the Hungarian term "hordoz6" is not the exact translation of the English term "support", it means in metaphr2se something like "alatta-tart6", i.e. a thing that su p'ports something from below, maybe the term "a lap" would be more correct.

I want to deal with the support. The work of art as a visual sign, as a "production teChnology" possesses a model, a structure:- support, - isolation, - grounding, - coat of paint. These are the material layers of the work of art. The art of the restorer (and I do not differentiate between archeological and artistic restorers, this would be the topic of a separate lecture) is to serve the work of art. To serve, this means to understand. In order to understand the attitude of the Object, its material layers have to be explored. Supports of a work of art are only a few, from the light paper up to the heavy stone. In the practice of museums these supports determine the restorer's work. The task of different restorers is specialized in harmony with these, i.e. painters, metal, wood or stone restorers.