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Doubting Thomas, Mosaic in the Narthex, 11th CE Giclee Print 24 in. x 18 in. Buy at AllPosters.com Framed Mounted Restoring is the method of bringing a damaged or defaced work of art back into its original state. The condition of buildings, statues, paintings, jewellery and other works depends to some extent on the materials of which they are made. External damage, however small, may seriously affect or even destroy a work of art. For instance, if the eyes in a portrait are blurred so that the sitter's expression is lost, the whole work may be ruined. It may be possible to replace the missing parts from photographs or by comparison with copies, but the essential character of the painting will have gone.
Less serious damage, resulting from dirt, or later additions and alterations, can, however, be detected with modern methods (X-ray, ultra-violet rays) and be put right by chemical means. Preservation is related to restoring, but here, too, there are certain limits. Each work of art is subject to natural changes, the rate of decay merely depending on the material. In the case of bronze, the product of oxidization, the patina, actually increases the value, since it has a beauty of its own and is also taken by some people as proof of genuineness (mistakenly, since modern chemistry can achieve almost any surface effect in a matter of hours). The colours of a painting may after in the course of the years and some painters, taking advantage of such changes, allow for this in their work, thus actually causing it to change for the better over a comparatively long period. But the physical decay of a work of art can only be partially arrested; nothing will stop it completely.
ROOD
A cross or crucifix generally standing on the rood screen or attached to the vaulting of the entrance to the chancel of medieval churches. A famous example is the Romsey Rood. The rood screen separated the part of a medieval church reserved for the use of the clergy from that intended for the use of the public. Rood screens were often richly decorated with sculpture. A celebrated example is the one in the West choir of Naumburg Cathedral in the Saale, Germany, dating from about 1250. A late example is that of St Etienne du Mont, Paris.
ROSETTE
A stylized, circular flower, which has been known since earliest times. A particular form, the whorl rosette, gives the impression of rotation.
SARCOPHAGUS
A sarcophagus is a coffin -- frequently decorated with paintings or sculpture, etc. -of stone or clay or metal. In Ancient Egypt, the sarcophagus was often a replica of the house of the deceased; later, it was given the form of his body, with a realistic sculptured head. The Ancient Greeks usually buried their dead in simple coffins. After the 4th century B. C., these were occasionally decorated in elaborate relief (e. g. Alexander sarcophagus, q. v.) or with paintings (recent finds at Paestum). The sarcophagi of the Etruscans often had lids with a portrait statue of the deceased, while the sides showed reliefs with scenes from Hades or mythological representations. The type of sarcophagus in use amongst the Romans since the 2nd century A. D. is based on the Etruscan model. Here, too, the outside is decorated with scenes from everyday life and mythology, which perhaps have some symbolic reference to death and the dead. During the Late Romanesque period, sarcophagi were decorated with Christian symbols. The sarcophagi in Ravenna, mostly of the 5th and 6th centuries A. D., are in a class of their own and show strong Byzantine influence.
SEPIA, a brown pigment, made from the ink of the cuttle fish, is used mainly for pen and wash drawings. It must not be confused with lamp black, which is similar in colour and was often used by the Old Masters in its liquid form.
SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS
Sepulchral monuments have played an important part in every civilisation since the earliest days of history. They achieved their most monumental aspect, perhaps, amongst the Egyptians (necropolis, pyramids) and amongst the ancestorworshipping Chinese and Japanese. Architectural monuments -- it is debatable, whether the earliest funeral monuments can be classed as architecture, although, in the opinion of the great modern architect Adolf Loos, tombstone and monument are the only forms of architecture that can be classed as pure art -- were developed in Asia Minor from the 6th century B.C. onwards and grew into the mausoleum of Late Antiquity and into the memorial chapel (the tomb of Theoderic at Ravenna).
The Classic Greek tombs were generally on a more modest scale and confined to a funerary urn (lekythos), a statue or an upright stone slab (stele) -the predecessor of the modern tomb-stone -- decorated in relief. The Christian tombs of the Middle Ages were placed both inside and outside the church and consisted of a stone or bronze tablet, often placed on a box-like base, the tumba (hence tomb; Fr. tombeau). This, from the 11th century onwards, bore the fulllength portrait statue of the deceased. In English parish churches, we often find these tablets made of engraved brass. Later, a canopy and statues of mourners were often added to the tumba. Renaissance and Baroque tombs were often placed against walls and were made into elaborate monuments (e. g. Michelangelo's Medici tombs in Florence). English parish churches contain a great variety of tombs, as do the cathedrals. Interesting examples are the tomb of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey (erected 1511-18) by Pietro Torrigiani, Oliver Goldsmith's tomb by Nollekens, also in Westminster Abbey, and the tomb of Sir William Gore, by John Nost, in Tring parish church.
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