LIU Guan-Lin talked with ease and confidence on the screen. That was a Sunday morning, and the heat in London was finally assuaged. Now studying at the Chemical Engineering Department of Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, LIU shared from his seem-to-be-circuitous educational experiences to new techniques applied to identification and analyses of artifacts for further development of cultural artifact asset conservation.

Graduated from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at National Tsing Hua University, LIU takes up a career of research in the area of artifact conservation and restoration. Photo courtesy of LIU Guan-Lin

People familiar with him would call him Hsiao-Lu (meaning “lane” or “path”). Graduated from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at National Tsing Hua University, he has been viewed as a freak upperclassman since in the university, who oddly came to the Department of Chinese Literature to pore over classic poetry with his head wagging back and forth with us, and in the meantime studied with flying colors at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, a department known as a guarantee for landing a job at TSMC in the future. He even chose to research on bionic materials at the graduate institute. We saw him work for the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research in Taoyuan after graduation, and drop in the class of CHEN Tung-Ho, the Associate Research Fellow at the Department of Registration and Conservation of NPH, at Art Studies Graduate Institute of National Central University in the meanwhile. Within few years, he applied for the program of Science and Engineering in Arts, Heritage and Archaeology (SEAHA) at Institute of Sustainable Heritage of University College London. In a blink of an eye, he startlingly turned to research on chemical engineering, trying and operating the expensive apparatus in the lab at school every day even during the period of shutdown to take samples of oil paintings and art works for analysis. He also manipulated the “degradation” of mediums to commence his restoration research.

Well, it sounds far from good to manipulate degradation.

From Cultural Conservation to Scientific Conservation

Although restoration is usually viewed by the public as restoring artifacts by hand, it in fact covers multiple area and requires intricate procedures to be done, as LIU explained. Scientific conservation nowadays attempts to capture original appearances of works to know how to start restoration and what materials are suitable for the artifacts.

LIU participated in SEAHA with whole heart of passion for cultural conservation, expecting to accumulate knowledge through classes including literature review, field studies, and cultural restoration introduction. He even passed an entrance exam for the PhD program at the Institute of Archaeology. However, a field study changed his mind and rendered him a PhD of chemical engineering.

The two-week field study took place at the Hellens Manor in Herefordshire, a dwelling that can be traced back to the 12th century with a rich collection of artifacts despite changing hands for several times. It was the master’s students of SEAHA who were invited by the Manor to do the research on the environments and buildings, and LIU was then in charge of the analyses and verifications of oil paintings through spectrometers of multispectral imaging and hyperspectral imaging, the equipment distributed to him.

A controversial painting The Rice Portrait happens to be among the collection at Hellens Manor. The portrait is allegedly of the young English literature author Jane AUSTEN ¹ by painter Ozias HUMPHRY, but it’s still questioned by experts and scholars in terms of the era and fashion trends of outfits at that time.² LIU’s work is to investigate the metallic components of the pigments used in the painting through X-rays, providing professional standpoints from science.

The Rice Portrait scanned by the multispectral imaging spectrometer. Photo courtesy of LIU Guan-Lin

Through rays of different wavelengths, LIU discovered the chemical substances of zinc and titanium remaining on the painting, which made him doubtful that titanium white appearing after 1920 might be used during the process of creating, and the completion year of the work should be far later than 1788. Nevertheless, according to the host of the Manor, titanium white is likely to be added during restoration since The Rice Portrait had undergone the fire. LIU hence hoped to adopt micro-invasive approach to acquire pigment sampling from individual layers of the painting cross section, to identify the work by analyzing the using way and distribution of pigments. However, the limitations of techniques failed the identification, which pushed him to contemplate the feasibility of enhancing scientific techniques.

Through serendipity, LIU noticed the forum organized at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine titled “Science and Engineering Research for Cultural Heritage,” which convenes researchers from varied scientific backgrounds who strive for interdisciplinary collaboration to exchange with one another regularly and further stimulate the development of community. He was engrossed in the lecture on expanding art studies through spectroscopy given by professor Sergei G. KAZARIAN, and contacted him after the lecture. It in turn changed his research direction and encouraged him to study at the Chemical Engineering Department.

LIU was assigned by the professor to analyze works through Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy after joining PhD program. In fact, he had studied and utilized the equipment for his master’s research paper, during which time the Victoria and Albert Museum lent him the collection of a concrete pillar from Robin Hood Gardens,³ enabling him to sample and investigate the components using the non-invasive Near-Infrared spectroscopy assessment through hyperspectral imaging spectrometer to check the condition of concrete weathering.⁴

LIU adopted the non-invasive Near-Infrared spectroscopy measurement to check the condition of concrete weathering of the pillar collected by the Victoria and Albert Museum. Photo courtesy of LIU Guan-Lin

You have to understand how it spoiled before you do the research of conservation.

Practicing Restoration from Degradation and Identification

Now, the research instrument LIU’s mainly using is ATR-FTIR spectroscopy and spectroscopic imaging (abbreviated as “ATR-FTIR”), allowing him to take samples from research objects through non-destructive micro-invasive way and save samples in resin for future use with the will of balancing cultural conservation and scientific research. The strength of ATR-FTIR is to detect the bonding and structure of chemical substances and further determine the ingredients of objects. Nowadays, ATR-FTIR is applied to mediums like glass, paper, ceramic, and photograph, among which oil paint accounts for the largest part.⁵

The best instance is the research on decay of oil paintings executed by LIU in collaboration with the Royal Gallery, UK. Though the UK Parliament is the highest legislative body of the United Kingdom, it has collected over 8,000 pieces of artworks encompassing paintings, sculptures, murals, and fabrics over centuries, among which feature the Saint Mosaics at corners of Central Lobby.⁶ The source oil painting of the mosaics whitened, however, and through sampling and analyzing, LIU found out that the saponification reaction took place when the lead sub-carbonate ((PbCO3)2·Pb(OH)2) used for underpainting and lead in the pigments combined with the oil for medium, making the former move to the surface of painting and react to sulfides in the air, which in turn formed white lead(II) sulfate (PbSO4) on it. LIU collectively refers to the compounds of lead sulfate as degradation products, pointing out the phenomena exist in innumerable antique art works.

As LIU confessed, he could not ascertain whether the lead(II) sulfate is foreign matter or substance in the pigments applied by the artist at first, drawing a blank after inquiring about it from the gallery staff. He then devoted himself in the art history and finally found the answer. For him, it’s like a process of scientific archaeology on oil paintings, through which one figures out conclusions only after scrutinizing the layers of paintings with assistance of scientific apparatus and historical knowledge. The research paper on this subject is slated to publish at the end of this year as well.

LIU seconded photos of albumen prints from the Imperial College archives of Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine for identification, and inspected the actual status quo of artifacts through scientific analyses. Photo courtesy of LIU Guan-Lin

To study processes of degradation, LIU also acquired monochrome photos of the 19th and 20th centuries from eBay to destroy them through ovens and chemicals to understand the deterioration course of photographs and check the possibilities of restoration. What’s intriguing is that the photos identified by the seller as albumen prints should be silver gelatin prints.⁷ Even though the categories of photo prints can be identified with naked eyes by some appraisers and archaeologists, LIU hopes scientific apparatus can offer another way for identification. As he seconded photos of albumen prints from the Imperial College archives of Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, he found accidentally that the photos should be salt prints since there is no constituent proteins of albumen on them. The accident deeply convinced him that scientific analyses do help them come closer to the truth about artifacts.

At the same time of doing research, LIU needs to bring up his judgement in terms of artifact conservation when discussing with colleagues with only STEM backgrounds in lab. Professor Sergei G. KAZARIAN,⁸ the lead of lab, has recently obtained samples of Morning in Stavrin (1909), Arabian dancer (1913), and Kirovakan Church (1948) by Armenian heavyweight artist Martiros SARYAN from a local museum these days. To LIU’s surprise, the local museum scooped the pigment out from the surface of paintings and preserved them in plastic zip lock bags, violating the stipulation of sampling processes and irreversibly harming the works. Seizing the opportunity, LIU reminded the professor to help museums take samples in a more artifact-friendly way. The professor now also endeavors to convince the National Gallery to donate obsolete but applicable equipment to Armenia. LIU sighed with emotion, knowing that there is still a long and distinctive way to go for artifact conservation in each nation.

The lab obtained and did restoration research on three works by Armenian heavyweight artist Martiros SARYAN. Photo courtesy of LIU Guan-Lin

Epilogue

At the end of the interview, we talked about his future plans. He self-deprecated that he will work for TSMC if he can’t make his living after graduation. We chatted about his schoolmates studying artifact conservation, most of whom have turned to work in financial industry. The core issue for the situation is the low salaries among museum staff, whether in Taiwan or England. On the other hand, scientific researchers are seen as an appendage of exhibitions and collections despite their educational attainment, not allowed to conduct research on collections at will but only for the needs of exhibitions curated at museums with low pay. For LIU in his final year of PhD program, it’s still a challenge to balance reality and ideality after the end of the cheerful academic career, and he’s still lost about how to keep going with persevering passion in the future.