Restoration of Sigiriya frescoes vandalized in 1967-by Raja de Silva

Restoration of Sigiriya frescoes vandalized in 1967-by Raja de Silva

Source:Island

Excerpted from SIGIRIYA PAINTINGS by

Raja de Silva , Retired Commissioner of Archaeology

On the morning of October 15, 1967, the Archaeology Commissionner, Dr. CE Godakumbure, instructed me to go immediately to Sigiriya and take necessary action to remove the green ink (S. theentha), which, according to an incoherent message received from the Overseer, was understood to have been splashed on the paintings in the fresco pocket by vandals during the previous night.

I arrived that evening at Sigiriya with my conservation staff and the onset of the rainy season of the North-East Monsoon, and with liberal quantities of chemicals for the removal of ink. I was informed that the priceless paintings had been daubed not with ink but with a green paint. The paintings were inspected the next morning in the company of the Police, who had locked with a new padlock, the door leading to the fresco pockets at the head of the spiral staircase, after their investigations the previous day. It appeared from the police investigations that the vandals had surmounted two locked gates and opened the final padlocked door of the fresco pocket with a key.

The greatest problems of conservation and restoration that were faced at Sigiriya were those attendant on the vandalism that took place in October, 1967 when a commercial green paint was daubed on 14 of the 19 paintings extant in the fresco pockets (five in pocket A and 14 in pocket B). 12(a). In addition two of the disfigured paintings had been physically damaged beyond repair, by hacking away the head of one figure (pocket B, No. 3) and the portion above the waist of the next (pocket B. No. 4). 7(a), 10, 10(a). The very next painting (pocket B, No.5) was stabbed at with a pointed instrument – “the most unkindest cut of all”.

The paintings in pocket A which had been covered by the daubing of green paint were Nos. 3 and 4; the panels in pocket B which had been similarly disfigured were Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13. Broken fragments of the painted plaster were strewn on the floor of pocket B and the paint had trickled on to the lower parts of the ground and the floor of the other pocket as well. Much of the paint had not dried and the cool weather due to the monsoonal rains had inhibited the drying process. No test for the removal of the paint were possible as the chemicals brought from Colombo were for the purpose of removing ink stains, misconstrued as the material strewn on the paintings (the Sinhalese word for ink being the same as that for paint). A full photographic record in black and white and in colour was taken together with samples of the paint and the broken plaster, and conservation team returned to Colombo on 16 October.

No time was lost in conducting experiments for the expeditious removal of dry and drying paint from the fragments of the Sigiriya plaster (without damage to the original painted surface) and from similar wall surfaces in the laboratory. The keystone of the tests was to devise a method of dissolving the paint and removing it from the surface of the wall before the dissolved paint solution had time to penetrate into the lime plaster (intonaco). A suitable method of treatment was successfully devised in Colombo, and the conservation party left for Sigiriya on October 19.

On October 20, a successful method of cleaning the greater part of the vandals’ paint was devised in the fresco pockets and by end of the day about half the area of pocket B, No. 10 was cleaned. In patches where the original paint layer had fallen off in the past revealing the intonaco, there was a light blue colour due to the constituent of the paint of this colour; which turned out to be Prussian Blue, being absorbed in such areas. On returning to Colombo on October 21 a conference was held the next day chaired by the Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs; in immediate response to a Government request from the International Centre for the Study and Preservation of Cultural Property, Rome, for the services of the best available expert to restore the paintings, Luciano Maranzi, an alumnus of this Centre was selected and had arrived in the Island for a period of two weeks.

The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, had readily agreed to bear the expenses involved. After briefing the Minister and discussing the problems involved whilst in Colombo, Maranzi, Raja de Silva and his technical staff left for Sigiriya the next day with materials for restoration from the Archaeological Laboratory as well as from Italy. Maranzi conducted experiments for two days and devised a quicker method of cleaning the paintings than had been used a few days earlier by de Silva, with the use of the same solvent, trilene. Maranzi expressed no great surprise at this coincidence as he recalled seeing me at the Rome Centre in 1956 when I was on a short training course there.

Maranzi, however, used to good effect other materials too that had been brought by him, and adopted a faster and more efficient method of cleaning the paintings than we had used. Maranzi and the Archaelogical Survey Department (ASD) staff worked in the fresco pockets from early morning till fading light of the evening (food being brought up daily) until November 3, 1967; he left the Island on November 4 after completing the initial part of his programme of work and advising us on how to continue the restoration work pending his return in 1968.

The programme of restoration and conservation was phased out as follows:

1

Removal of the yellow and green constituents of the vandals’ paint

In this process, the modern restorations carried out by the ASD were also largely removed, the exception being the resistant green paint, easily recognizable as not original from slight impasto nature, that may have been done by the “lasting spirit fresco medium” recorded by Bell.

The method adopted by Maranzi was the application of Decapex (Nitrosmalti, Via Quattro Novembre, Roma) a jelly like proprietary brand of mild paint remover. A small pad of cotton wool was then dipped in trilene, firmly held with the fingers and thumb and drawn across the painted area already treated with Decapex. By repetition of this procedure, the green and yellow constituents of the vandals’ paint were removed. On conducting this part of the cleaning operation, it was found that in certain areas where the original paint had fallen off in the past (and the intonaco had been exposed) the blue constituent of the vandals’ paint had been absorbed on the intonaco, and was resistant to the paint remover. However, dark growths of algae around some of the panels as well as most of the restorations of the ASD were removed.

2. Consolidation of the plaster of the physically damaged figures

An emulsion of polyvinyl acetate, Vinamul (ICI, London), known locally as Chemifix, further diluted with water was introduced using a hypodermic syringe and needle at the broken edge formed by the destruction of parts of B3 and B4. The exposed rock surface (seen to be pitted all over as a “key” for the laying of the ground) resulting from the vandalism on panels B3 and B4 was plastered with a mixture of sand, lime and polyvinyl acetate emulsion. Before the work was completed on B5, a memento in the form of two coins of the day engraved with the names of Maranzi and de Silva and dated March 25, 1967, were inserted in the fresh plaster mix at the edge of the broken ground of the wall painting, to be found at some distant date when the applied plaster is removed or falls away.

3. Removal of the resistant Prussian Blue

This constituent of the vandals’ paint can be decolorized by the use of alkalies. The application of inorganic alkalies such as even very dilute sodium hydroxide can lead to complications later due to the conversion of any excess into sodium carbonate. The Rome Centre advised the use of a volatile organic base, normal butyl amine, which was found to be satisfactory for our purpose. The application of the amine entailed the use of a cotton-wool padded glass rod.

4. Restoration by Maranzi of the areas exposed by the removal of modern restoration work by the ASD.

The “many lamentable pitting” on the paintings found by Bell had been modeled in and touched up in his time by using modern colours that extended beyond the repaired areas. The white frame left on the removal of Murray’s tissue papers had been restored using colours that did not blend well with the background colour laid on the plaster in ancient times. All these having been removed in the cleaning process of 1967, Maranzi did the minimum amount of restoration necessary, using emulsion paints (Reeves polymer colours) and Aqua Tee acrylic polymer emulsions (Bocour Artists, Colombo, New York). This work was done in an acceptable manner. so as to enable the viewer to recognize which areas had been restored. SM Seneviratne, Draughtsman and MWE Karunaratne, Photographer, assisted Maranzi in this part of the programme.

5. Application of a Preservative Coating

The painstaking and unstinted assistance given by SM Seneviratne, MWE Karunaratne, and RA Wilson, WK Samaranayake and Lokubanda of the Archaeological Laboratory, is placed on record.

Maranzi returned to the country on March 4. 1968 to personally undertake the remaining phases of the restoration work, i.e., touching up, and the application of a preservative coating of an easily removable synthetic resin, Paraloid B72, dissolved in trilene. This served also to enhance the clarity of the paintings. Maranzi copied (from existing photographs) in the fresco technique, the damaged panels B3 and B4, on an asbestos sheet plastered with a lime mix – the only example of a fresco painting in the country, which is exhibited in the archaeological museum, Sigiriya. He left Sri Lanka on April 11, 1968. It may be noted here that we were able to obtain Maranzi’s services on several later occasions, when he trained our conservation staff, and restored our paintings elsewhere in the country.

Maranzi had come, revivified the divine females of the fresco pocket to their pristine beauty, and had departed, leaving these specimens of ancient pictorial art for present and future generations to delight in. The entire nation and lovers of art outside our shores are surely indebted to him for the excellence of his restoration work.

On May 8, 1968, the fresco pocket was ceremonially opened to the public by the Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs in the presence of a distinguished gathering and thousands of citizens, after a historic meeting held at the Audience Hall Rock.

Comments are closed.