Word: varnish
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...long ago, gallerygoing was a genteel affair. To and fro across carpeted floors swept the art lovers, sipping sherry. Safely up on the wall were the paintings, framed and titled, with prices on request. But no longer do the panes of varnish give onto idyllic visions of pinky Titian nudes, fluffy Millet sheep, plush Poussin valleys. Nowadays, avant-garde gallerygoing is more like the full 100 yards, with the visitors swivel-hipping through art works that threaten to tackle the visitor's body as well as his sensibilities (see color pages...
...have declared that Rudolf II's huge Hradčany palace was thoroughly bare. So did Czech Art Historian Jaromir Neumann, 40-at first. While studying inventories, Neumann found discrepancies suggesting that some old masters might still be lying around. And he found them-coated with dirt and varnish that has taken 22 restorers 2½ years to scour off. Now these 74 noble remnants, mostly from Rudolf II's collection, are on view again, some of them back in the marble-floored stables of Prague's Hradčany (see opposite page...
...brought the pushbutton age to everyday living. There are already more than 300 products available in aerosol cans, and their uses range from the routine to the recondite; they perfume rooms, freshen mattresses, renew golf balls, stiffen petticoats, bandage wounds, de-ice windshields, inflate flat tires, wax furniture, varnish oil paintings, scare off snakes and ward off pregnancies...
Novak covers his vagueness with a varnish of prophetic rhetoric in mystical language. The result is often powerful as when he talks about the civil rights movement: "Let us hope that many from among young Catholics join with their brothers, join the few, who work always and everywhere for justice." But more often his style is frustrating; it clouds his criticism and obscures his proposals...
Getty kept the painting, uncleaned, in storage for a quarter-century until a year ago, when a restorer at London's Thomas Agnew & Sons began to remove the scummy varnish. Was it Raphael's famous Madonna di Loreto of around 1510, known through more than 30 existing copies and through art-history references? X-ray and infra-red photography at London's Courtauld Institute probed its veil of oils, and now the best experts that Agnew can find say cautiously that the work seems to be an authentic Raphael. "The lightning strikes," said Getty. But, he adds...