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Restoration (2004-05) Oil on canvas, 122x180cm Private collection Restoration is a full size replica of the painting by Velasquez known as the Rokeby Venus, which was attacked by Mary Richardson in 1914. Richardson was a Suffragette agitating for votes for women; the WSPU (Women's Social and Political Union) tactics after the failure of the 1912 Conciliation Bill had become increasingly militant, and the campaign involved attacks upon private and public property. Attacks on works of art were part of their strategy. Mary Richardson sent a statement to the WSPU which read: I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history. I protest against the Government who are destroying Mrs. Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history. Justice is an element of beauty as much as are colour and outline [...]. If there is an outcry against my deed, let everyone remember that such an outcry is hypocritical as long as they allow the destruction of Mrs. Pankhurst and of her beautiful living women. And until the public ceases to countenance human destruction, the stones cast against me for the destruction of this picture are in evidence against them as artistic as well as moral and political humbugs and hypocrites. Richardson was sentenced to six months' imprisonment, which was the maximum for damage to a work of art. The painting was restored, though the marks where the canvas was cut can still be discerned. The title Restoration, carries a dual sense: the damaged Venus is in need of restoration; the painting of the damage done to the Venus restores the history of the painting, and the act of political iconoclasm. Museums' policies of restoration implicitly remove works of art from their histories in the sense that pictures are presented, as much as possible, as if in the state that they may have been when they left the artist's studio. Art objects are thus bestowed a rarefied existence, where anything external to the object itself is denied. |
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Detail of the (painted) cuts to the painting. ©copyright 2018 Nicholas Middleton |
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