Search

What are Cy Twombly's sculptures made of? This article presents an overview of a non-destructive examination conducted on three sculptures by American artist Cy Twombly (1928–2011) as part of an art-technological research project at the Doerner Institut in Munich. The artworks are part of the collection of the Brandhorst Museum and belong to Twombly's series of so-called 'Original Sculptures': assemblages of individual found objects, which the artist covered and modified with layers of plaster and white paint. To develop a long-term preservation strategy, the research focused on understanding the materials and construction methods used in Twombly's sculptures. In collaboration with the Chair of Non-Destructive Testing at the Technical University of Munich, the artworks were inspected using X-ray radiography and computed tomography. The results showed that Cy Twombly used various everyday objects made from wood, plastics, metal, and paper/cardboard to build the assemblages. Unexpectedly, the examinations revealed that the individual parts are solely held together by the coating of plaster and paint, lacking additional mechanical connections. The overall structure thus proved to be very fragile and highly sensitive to physical stresses, whether due to handling, transport, or strains in the microstructure caused by climatic fluctuations. Since little was known about Cy Twombly´s choice of materials and manufacturing details, the results offer valuable insights into the overall artistic process and decision-making of one of the most influential artists of the 20th/twenty-first centuries. Conservators can use the art-technological findings to monitor the sculptures 'condition and develop or adapt long-term preservation strategies, including aspects such as ambient climatic conditions and handling storage and transport specifications. In addition, the knowledge generated can be used for further research on the specific materials and transferred to other artworks by Cy Twombly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Henan Province is the birthplace of Chinese civilization and one of the earliest human settlements, which means that the area has an important national cultural heritage. Traditional villages are an important facet of this cultural heritage, and studying their spatiotemporal characteristics in different periods has important theoretical and practical significance for the sustainable development and protection of cultural heritage in the region. This paper takes the traditional villages of the Yellow River basin in Henan Province that were formed before 1919 as the research object. Information on the ancient river was obtained through a literature search as well as via field research, and the important tributaries of the Yellow River in different periods were mapped using ArcGIS 10.0 software. The nearest neighbor index, kernel density estimation, standard deviation ellipse and other methods were adopted to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of the traditional villages. The factors that influenced the evolution of traditional villages were explored in depth by combining changes in the course of the river and water conservancy projects. The results show that the formation of traditional villages along the Yellow River in Henan Province has experienced a historical track of growth, contraction, growth and prosperity and stability. The traditional villages along the Yellow River in Henan Province generally show a clustered pattern, forming a dense concentration of traditional villages in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. The center of gravity shows a migration trend from southeast to northwest. In terms of influencing factors, the spatiotemporal evolution of the relationship between villages and their distance to water is closely related to climatic fluctuations, changes in channel, water conservancy projects and social and cultural factors. This paper deepens our understanding of the relationship between traditional village evolution and watersheds by improving the consistency between village spatial distribution and historical geography and provides a useful theoretical reference for the sustainable development of China's traditional villages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this study is to understand influences of bulk structure of geomaterials on water storage and transfer, in order to assess durability and climate change impact on the UNESCO world heritage sites in Alexandria, Egypt. This study deals with the responses of water towards the physiochemical and physicomechanical behaviours of Calcarenitic rocks, that are utilized in Greek and Roman monuments at Alexandria. Many vulnerable archaeological sites [2.3–2.5 m above mean sea level (M.S.L)] are identified at Alexandria, specifically at the Eastern Harbor, El-Shatby the Greek necropolis and Moustafa Kamil Roman tombs and addition to the Roman Catacombs of Kom El-Shoqafa which excavated with deepth − 18 m from the land surface. These UNESCO heritage sites suffer climate change impact (heavy rains and sea water rising) as well as multiple geoenvironmental and geophysical hazards. In this study a general outline of the various tests, surveys and analyses is presented, highlighting the most important issues related to the durability and climate change impact. This paper represents the comprehensive in-situ, field and laboratory surveys and tests undertaken in these outstanding world heritage sites. The field testing program comprises various geotechnical and geophysical field and laboratory tests aiming to define the physical, mechanical and dynamic properties of the hard soils/soft rock materials of the archaeological sites where these outstanding monuments are excavated and constracted. By analysis of linear correlations, some essential mechanisms should be underlined, which may connect the macrostructure to the microstructure of the geomaterial. A systematic method of analysis clearly appeared and emphasized the role of the bulk structure (i.e. grain size, grain contact, specific area, pore shape and microporosity) on petrophysical and petromechanical behavior of rock materials. The study revealed that the petrophysical and geomechanical properties of Calcarenitic rocks are influenced by size, shape, packing of grains, porosity, cement and matrix content, all controlled strongly by depositional fabric and postdepositional processes. The accurate analysis of the physiochemical and physicomechanical behaviours of Calcarenitic rocks that are utilized in Greek and Roman monuments at Alexandria allowed us to define the pathology of these monuments and to estimate the durability, climate change impact and ultimate geostatic loads that they can survive under their present geoenvironmental conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding paintings as physical systems is fundamental for advancing environmental specifications that would allow for effective management of museum environments in terms of reducing energy use and carbon emissions while maintaining high standards of collection care. The current environmental specifications were derived using the criterion of the crack initiation in undamaged, usually new, material. In reality, historical paintings exhibit complex crack patterns called craquelures. The present paper analyses painted wood which is among the category of cultural objects most vulnerable to relative humidity and temperature fluctuations and frequently found in museum collections of various kinds. Fracture toughness determined experimentally for the most brittle component of pictorial layer—the ground layer (gesso) is used as a 'failure criterion'. Comparison of energy release rate—calculated for the model of the gesso laid on a wooden substrate using finite element analysis—with the structure toughness, allowed the fracture saturation expressed as the ratio of spacing between cracks S to gesso layer thickness t to be determined for various combinations of the gesso stiffness and geometries of structural flaws at which cracks initiate. For flat geometry of a panel painting and panel thickness of 40 mm, representing the worst-case, largest stresses in the gesso layer, the fracture saturation occurs when S/t is larger than 5, even if flaws in the gesso layer are present. The paper shows that the fracture saturation significantly changes vulnerability of paintings to climate variations—a panel painting with developed craquelure network is significantly less vulnerable to climate variations than an undamaged one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: We are experiencing a period of climate change the extent and impact of which is uncertain. In the cultural heritage sector the need for monitoring to inform our understanding is widely agreed, yet there is a lack of consensus over what constitutes 'monitoring for climate change'. This is due, at least in part, to the extended timescales involved. In this paper the design and implementation of one solution is described; a sustainable legacy indicator tool (LegIT) for the long term tracking of surface weathering effects on built heritage. Results: The assessment of climate change impacts requires 30-100 years of data collection, equal to the period referred to as the 'climate norm' by meteorologists. The LegIT is a sacrificial stone object that registers changes in the severity and/or magnitude of weathering patterns on built surfaces, providing a legacy data source for future decision makers. To ensure its sustainability, careful thought was given to the choice of materials, data retrieval and archiving. The tool aims to track surface changes caused by recession, salt crystallisation and microbiological growth. Conclusion: The development and installation of the LegIT is the first long-term exposure trial to be initiated at heritage sites in Ireland and is intended as a legacy for future researchers.[Figure not available: see fulltext.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The present study reports results from the large-scale integrated EU project "Climate for Culture". The full name, or title, of the project is Climate for Culture: damage risk assessment, economic impact and mitigation strategies for sustainable preservation of cultural heritage in times of climate change. This paper focusses on implementing high resolution regional climate models together with new building simulation tools in order to predict future outdoor and indoor climate conditions. The potential impact of gradual climate change on historic buildings and on the vast collections they contain has been assessed. Two moderate IPCC emission scenarios A1B and RCP 4.5 were used to predict indoor climates in historic buildings from the recent past until the year 2100. Risks to the building and to the interiors with valuable artifacts were assessed using damage functions. A set of generic building types based on data from existing buildings were used to transfer outdoor climate conditions to indoor conditions using high resolution climate projections for Europe and the Mediterranean. Results: The high resolution climate change simulations have been performed with the regional climate model REMO over the whole of Europe including the Mediterranean region. Whole building simulation tools and a simplified building model were developed for historic buildings; they were forced with high resolution climate simulations. This has allowed maps of future climate-induced risks for historic buildings and their interiors to be produced. With this procedure future energy demands for building control can also be calculated. Conclusion: With the newly developed method described here not only can outdoor risks for cultural heritage assets resulting from climate change be assessed, but also risks for indoor collections. This can be done for individual buildings as well as on a larger scale in the form of European risk maps. By using different standardized and exemplary artificial buildings in modelling climate change impact, a comparison between different regions in Europe has become possible for the first time. The methodology will serve heritage owners and managers as a decision tool, helping them to plan more effectively mitigation and adaption measures at various levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moisture adsorption and related dimensional change were examined in several samples of historic and contemporary parchment. The tensile behaviour was determined for contemporary parchment and two selected historic materials. The moisture-related data for most parchments are close to the contemporary material while aging and past treatments may lower adsorption of moisture and, in consequence, the dimensional change induced by changes in the moisture content. Contemporary parchment exhibited larger water vapour adsorption and moisture-related response compared to most historic materials and, therefore, can be regarded as the worst-case material in terms of the climate-induced risks to parchment. Tensile parameters of parchment varied significantly with increasing relative humidity (RH). Elasticity modulus declined from on average 1200 to 400 MPa and strain at failure doubled when RH increased from 30 to 85%. Parchment's critical strain at which permanent deformation occurred decreased dramatically with increasing RH reaching zero at 80%. Irreversible curling produced by variations in RH to which flat parchment specimens were subjected were measured by scanning the specimen surface with the use of a laser triangulation sensor. The degree of curling was expressed quantitatively as standard deviation of local curvatures in the parchment sheet. The study opens a perspective of using the relationship between degree of curling and magnitude of RH variations to derive categories of risk to parchment from indoor climate variations, under the condition that quantitative loss of aesthetical/display value of parchment objects resulting from increased curling is agreed. Historical parchment documents generally demonstrating considerable curling engendered by uncontrolled storage conditions in the past are not vulnerable to further distortion when subjected to variations in RH even of considerable magnitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]