Will Mona Lisa Smile More When She's Clean? The Science of Art Conservation.

Tom Learner isn’t afraid of taking a scalpel to multi-million dollar Monets or Picassos. But he also knows his way around equipment that sounds pretty high tech: Scanning Electron Microscopes, Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assays, and Mass Spectrometers. He knows about Neo-Dada, he digs Degas, and he’s pretty handy when it comes to High Performance Liquid Chromatography. He loves science, but he’s doing it all in the name of art. Dr. Learner is a conservation scientist; as the Senior Scientist at the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) in Los Angeles, he gets to combine his love for both art and science in an amazing way. He says he still gets a feeling of awe when he's standing nose-to-nose with an original van Gogh. The GCI's scientific department has about 25 scientists who feel the same way, with expertise in chemistry, geology, materials science, physics, and engineering. Is there a draft in here? Image of "The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden," before and after restoration.Read More...

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