Arts

Watch this MFA conservator very, very carefully clean a Van Gogh

A close-up of Van Gogh's “Houses at Auvers,” before and after cleaning. MFA Boston

May 24, 2016

A famed painting from Vincent van Gogh got its own version of spring cleaning earlier this month at the Museum of Fine Arts.

With a scalpel and light brush in hand, MFA conservator Lydia Vagts delicately and expertly freshened up the Dutch artist’s 1890 painting “Houses at Auvers.”

In the video from the MFA below, Vagts sweeps away what she calls the “gunk”—a mix of varnish, wax residue, and cotton fibers that had built up over the years—to reveal the original, vibrant flourishes of Van Gogh’s thick brushwork.

https://www.facebook.com/mfaboston/videos/10153538432382321/

“All of these materials that are stuck there are really interfering with the ability to look at the brushwork and really appreciate the variation and the beauty of Van Gogh’s strokes because it’s covered with gunk,” Vagts says.

The cleaning was part of the MFA’s Conservation in Action gallery and is open to the public for viewing. Vagts will be cleaning the painting through the month, an MFA spokeswoman said. Then in June, another conservator will begin work on a different Van Gogh, “Enclosed Field with Ploughman.”

“Houses of Auvers” shows the early summer landscape of Auvers, a rural town northwest of Paris, France. In a vote several years ago, the painting was chosen by Bostonians as the favorite impressionist masterpiece, WBUR reports.