Getty Conservation Institute 321d ago

Full Lecture Title — Complexity in the Hygro-Mechanical Behaviour of Wooden Panel Paintings: Undeniable Presence And Implications For Modelling and Conservation Much research has been devoted to systems that exhibit complex outcomes and characteristic behaviours. These include evolution that is highly sensitive to initial conditions, the presence of multiple independent interconnected components, and the ability to interact with the environment by exchanging matter and/or information. The evolution of such systems is typically non-linear, with multiple pathways by which the system can evolve in the domain of randomness. Wooden panel paintings have many analogies with such systems: the layered structure is made up of different materials (interconnected components), the quantity and disposition of which has changed over time according to the pictorial school (initial conditions), and that establishes a continuous moisture exchange with the conservation environments (environmental interaction). Despite the reduced number of variables involved (wood anatomy, material stiffness and hygroscopicity), the hygromechanical behaviour of wooden panel paintings is that of a complex system with marked non-linear behaviours. This study considers the implications of this epistemological assumption for the modelling and the definition of the conservation strategy, paying particular attention to the importance of 1) the knowledge of the constitutive material properties and the physical laws governing their behavior, and 2) the knowledge of the boundary conditions describing the state of the system (each individual painting) at a given time (i.e. the actual values of stiffness and moisture diffusion). Presenter: Marco Fioravanti, University of Florence