World’s most precious artworks are fading away, experts warn

Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” are losing their yellow cheer and the unsettling apricot horizon in Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” is turning a dull ivory. Some of our most treasured paintings are fading, warn experts who would like more money for the use of sophisticated technology to capture the masters’ original palettes before the works are unrecognisably blighted. Exposed to air, the yellow in cadmium – used by both Van Gogh and Munch – loses its brightness, while ultraviolet light turns it brown.

Our cultural heritage is suffering from a disease. These priceless icons of our culture are deteriorating.

Robert van Langh, director of conservation and restoration at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum

Speaking on the sidelines of a Paris conference on the use of synchrotron radiation technology to conserve art at a molecular level, Van Langh said 10 times more money should be spent on conservation efforts. Synchrotrons, stadium-sized machines that produce beams of bright X-ray light, are used to analyse the chemical degradation of famous artworks gracing the museums of the world. The technology would also allow “digital reconstruction” of original pieces, as they were envisaged by their creators, for posterity.

Arts