Breadcrumbs, milk cruds and aesthetics

Restoration of the Basilica of Pécs

2019-2021

Most residents of the city weren’t even aware of the hustle and bustle that broke the quiet dignity of Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul’s Basilica of Pécs. The cathedral was founded in 1009 and got into the knowledgeable hands of craftsmen after fifty years in 2018.

The renovation that lasted three years affected all parts of the building and numerous specialties, from the modernization of heating and electricity to restoring furniture and frescoes.

The following series shows the operation of painter-restorers.

Renovation of the pillar footing. Cleaning surfaces that are hundreds of years old is also an important part of the restoration.

Wallpaper patterns were painted with the help of stencils.

The landscape of paints

The converging scales of concave-surfaced cupolas vary in size and shape. Recreating these scales is not an easy job; besides the knowledge of materials and the steady hand of the artist, it requires the qualities of an engineer as well.

Tool palette: brushes, rulers, canes. The cane helps steady the wrist and makes the strokes more accurate.

The Christ statue of the Corpus Christi Chapel, which served as a storeroom for some months.

Worn-off forms have to be entirely redrawn. Soaking off damaged a lot of images: during the process of drying, crystallizing salts peel off the paint to a measure where craftsmen have to dig into the archives to find out what a secco originally displayed.

Renovation is done from above, advancing downward.

To complete the shabby, damaged parts, restorers use a material made up of milk cruds and slack lime as adhesive; pigments are mixed with this substance the same way it was done hundreds of years ago.

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Birds of the south aisle.

The last phase of the painting restoration of a surface is the replacement and renovation of the gilding. The smoky gold foil is not easy to deal with; it is extremely thin, sticks to everything, and can be blown away by even the slightest breeze.