So why do conservators prefer northern daylight for inpainting? In Steven Weintraub\u2019s talk titled \u201cIllumination For Inpainting: Selecting an Appropriate Color Temperature\u201d which he presented in the Paintings Session at the 42nd Annual Meeting in San Francisco, he answered this question, as well as a few others about light sources and selecting an appropriate color temperature.
\nSteven explained how, in his opinion, it is the distribution pattern of skylight that helps make it so ideal. When diffuse skylight from a north-facing window enters a room, there is a \u201csoft\u201d directionality. This type of light distribution avoids the problem of harsh shadows typically associated with point sources of light. It also avoids the opposite problem of flatness due to the absence of shadows, a condition associated with diffuse sources such as over-head fluorescent lamps.
\nUsing only skylight or daylight for inpainting, however, sets the conservator up for two problems: The first, as Steven mentioned in his abstract, is that the availability and control of northern daylight limits the amount of time, and the location in which it can be used. This becomes a real problem if you happen to be facing a tight deadline during the short winter days in the northeast, or like myself, have constantly changing lighting conditions, such as those during the bout of thunderstorms that we often have here during Houston summers. The second problem, which Steven explained in more detail during his talk, is that the spectral power distribution of typical sources of gallery lighting is pretty much the opposite to that of daylight. The result is that if inpainting is done only with daylight, it increases the risk of metamerism when exhibiting the artwork in an electric lighting situation utilizing a warm color temperature source.
\nIt is for both these reasons that many conservators opt for a mix of electric light and daylight for inpainting, and when possible, test the matching of inpainting in the lighting conditions for which it will be displayed.
\nBut, how does one choose an appropriate electric light source? Steven explained his research and suggested that selecting an appropriate color temperature with adequate color rendering properties was a key.
\nApparently, color temperature in the range of 3800\u00b0 Kelvin is the magic number. From Steven\u2019s talk, I learned that color temperature within the 3800\u00b0K range is the transition point between warm to cool on the color temperature scale. Within this color temperature range, Steven theorizes that one gets the best balance of saturation with warm and cool colors.
\nSteven concluded his talk by illuminating a pair of reproductions of a very well known painting by Ren\u00e9 Magritte, demonstrating the difference in appearance of the image in various color temperature lighting conditions. This showed how the moderate (3800\u00b0K) range really did look the best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So why do conservators prefer northern daylight for inpainting? In Steven Weintraub\u2019s talk titled \u201cIllumination For Inpainting: Selecting an Appropriate Color Temperature\u201d which he presented in the Paintings Session at the 42nd Annual Meeting in San Francisco, he answered this question, as well as a few others about light sources and selecting an appropriate color … Continue reading “42nd Annual Meeting \u2013 Paintings Session, May 29 \u201cIllumination For Inpainting: Selecting an Appropriate Color Temperature\u201d by Steven Weintraub”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,34,37,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annual-meeting","category-paintings","category-private-practice","category-specialty-sessions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}