Art conservators in museums worldwide are often tasked with restoring paintings that have been damaged by wear, moisture, or even the work of previous conservators!
A lengthy list records cases of inferior materials gunking up masterpieces as well as poorly executed brushwork and the like. Restoration without added goop is the idea of Alex Kachkine, a mechanical engineer at MIT.
The restoration is as a transparent film to be overlain on a damaged painting. It has to be removable; no goop that can’t be undone. The film or mask also has to be extremely stable dimensionally to align as perfectly as possible with the original, damaged painting.
Step One is to use deep learning, a form of AI, to fill in or replace damaged areas, only on the overlay. Such digital restoration has been in use, but previously the product was a new object or even just a new electronic image. Creating the overlay that reproduces colors and textures with extreme accuracy needs a few rules beyond the obvious. One is that the restorer does not try to infill the smallest details.
Step Two is to overlay the mask on the original. Keep it in place with framing and (removable) conservator’s varnish. It looks great, that newly restored painting of The Presentation in the Temple.
This has been an outreach activity of the Las Cruces Academy, viewable at GreatSchools.org.
Source: Nature, 12 June 2025, pp. 343-350.
