Retouches with History. Conservation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Adolf Herman Duszek and its authorial post-WWII Restoration

Abstract

[EN] WWII left a great proportion of cultural heritage in Middle-Eastern Europe damaged. In the immediate aftermath of the war, there was neither necessary expertise, manpower nor resources to deal with such complex and total conservational challenges. Artists and craftsmen took to preserving and repairing the most darling objects of local heritage, leaving to us not only their original works, but also visible marks of the struggle to preserve them. Today, we are facing the task to preserve the multilinear story hidden behind those objects - their original body, wounds, and bandages, showing both the art of creation as well as the art of restoration to next generations. A great example of such a conservation effort is the story of The Sacred Heart of Jesus, painted by Adolf Herman Duszek in 1924 and restored by him after the war, in 1950. Over 70 years later, the painting required another intervention – mainly because of the bad state of preservation of the paint layer. The main challenge of this restoration was to find the balance between leaving the visible traces of the history of the object, the conservation ethics as well as the aesthetics and expectations of the recent owners. As it turns out, the impact of a private context is a significant aspect during the formation of the conservation programme. This paper discusses the need for compromises which had to be reached during the conservation of this particular painting.