The ‘Times’ notices Our Lady of Vilnius.
In today’s edition, Emily Brady briefly updates New York Times readers on the situation of Our Lady of Vilnius. Readers of dotCommonweal won’t learn much from the piece, although it does contain one surprise: Joseph Zwilling, director of communications for the Archdiocese of New York explains the decision to paint over the apse fresco. “The church’s fresco was painted over, he added, to protect it from deterioration because it couldn’t be removed,” Brady writes.
That seems awfully hard to believe. Take, for example, an April 2000 Times story about a huge fresco that was threatened by deterioration.
Both the deteriorating building and the mural are in need of restoration. But Robert A. Peck, commissioner of the public buildings service for the agency, said that preservation advisers had told him that the mural would not pass the historical review required in order to have it restored.
So officials plan to restore the building and destroy the mural sometime this year, either by removing the plaster or painting over the mural.
And consider an LSU Today article on a project to restore on-campus frescoes:
Grenier said it took one month just to remove the three layers of paint that were put on top of Dietrich’s exterior mural. She noted that the mural proved to be “extremely forgiving in its tolerance of the chemicals and manipulation required to remove the heavy layers of over painting, which could even destroy other types of mural paintings.”
Maybe there is a special kind of paint that preserves a work of art as delicate as a fresco. And maybe that paint is royal blue. Still, I’m no expert, so I’m going to see what I can find out about the archdiocese’s method of fresco preservation. I’ll keep you posted.
Shades of My Lai?
But who could argue with a cardinal who in his own words is “a colossal success.” A cardinal who insists that only he and his wealthy trustees need know of diocesan finances.
If the people need something to do, instead of questioning the cardinal, they can make these unreal quotas that the diocese has imposed on every parish.
I’m not an expert either, but I know a little about artistic conservation. There are experts, and there are skilled restorers — let us ask the archdiocese which they consulted and employed.
The one thing I do know is that such restoration takes a long time. It seems my mother spent a good deal more time and effort getting one of her mother’s paintings, of presonal significance to five or six of us, restored than the archdiocese spent on the cultural patrimony of a significant congregation.
By the way, I’d be very surprised if it was true that it couldn’t be removed — couldn’t be easily or cheaply removed, sure. Again, who were their experts?
Joseph J–
I think it was Ben Tre instead of My Lai, but your point–”To save the village we had to destroy it”–is well-taken.
NYT is sloppy in local reporting having fixed its telescope on national and international events. The skewed story is because the editors were afraid of the hierarchy and did not research the story. Therefore, painting over the fresco becomes an art preservation technique and the dwindling parish was in fact growing. Will NYT publish a retracftion?
It seems unlikely that painting over the frescos was necessary to save it, but then, there is some absent information. If the frescos were deteriorating or at risk of deterioration from, say, construction or demolition associated dust, painting over them could prevent or minimize deterioration or the accumulation of dirt. I am not a conservation professional, but I have worked with a few and I have helped my in-laws hire professionals to preserve some of their paintings, and I am usually amazed by the science of preservation, what techniques work, and how it seems like something that would destroy a work could actually preserve it. So maybe someone will fill in the gaps here. I suspect that if it was necessary it was because of the plans for demolition of the other parts of the building.
I talked to museum preservationists about preserving frescoes by overpainting and they said that it is totally preposterous even to suggest such a method. All kidding aside, the bishop was preparing to bulldoze the church and sell the land to the developers. He did not want to see in the debris the holy figures and was religious enough to pour paint on them , although he could not do the same on the parishioners.
I found out about the ruling in our case a few days ago. Apparently an unofficial text of the ruling was posted on the internet. One of our lay trustees found it by accident while trying to locate the New York Times article. Today’s New York Post reports on the ruling in a brief item titled “Ruling a Death Knell for Church.” In his initial post on our suit, Grant Gallicho posed the question: “Now, one might ask, what does it mean for a trustee of a parish to seek its demise? I imagine that question will be taken up in court today.”
In court, we learned that the Archdiocese covertly replaced our Administrator, Father Sawicki with Monsignor Gilleece, Chancellor of the Archdiocese. New trustees were also carefully chosen. We all gasped.
What might it mean for the Administrator and Lay Trustees to be surreptitiously replaced so that all five trustees of the parish can seek its demise?