The Art and Science of Conservation: Behind the Scenes at the Freer Gallery of Art 

Kamy M THANK YOU!!! These beautiful works would more than likely been destroyed, damaged, lost or simply forgotten but because they are in this collection literally millions of dollars are being spent to conserve and restore them. I absolutely believe in nationalism to a degree but simply because a work was made in one country doesn’t mean it should or has to remain there.

There are likely many works there (that are and were of high cultural value to the people of the original nations) that were stolen during wars and conquerings. However that was the norm of ancient people. You would come in and take over a nation, then either destroy or take cultural artifacts as trophies. Was it wrong to do so? Absolutely. The way we as humans (of all races, mind you) have hurt each other and the planet in power struggles is horrific. But the people there working at the museum aren't the ancient pillagers who did that. They're people who are passionate about seeing the cultures of these places thrive for as long as possible. They pour their heart and soul into their work. By all means, talk all you want about the awful way we came to have these works of art, but don't blame the people who work there today for the sins of people centuries ago.

@@MissingmyBabbu If only more people shared your viewpoint.

Same I didn't understand how it didn't smear the ink since Chinese paintings are generally painted with waterbased ink.

All of them? The artifacts shown were donated or purchased through auction. The point of the museum is to display cultures of the world, so they acquire representative artifacts.

@@Hypatia4242 Are you joking? Most of them are stolen.

chimini because the type of art is Islamic. It’s describing the type of art not the country of origin, much like a surrealist painting can be from any country.

Code Name I totally agree with you.

Those paintings are Indian and always will be Indian coz Farsi was widely spoken in India we Indians not only spoke it but we combined Farsi and Hindi and made a different very very beautiful language called Urdu... we still have Farsi language as a subject in lot of colleges and universities... have a great day...

Those were truly Indian. They even used ochres and pigments found in India. Persian paintings had calligraphy combined in painting but jehangir totally changed that and made only paintings not even calligraphy. He asked his painters to use cinnabar ...a form of mercury for the bright Indian red worn by married Indian women as sindur

The assistant comes from Taiwan. The first painting is japanese and the water-washed second one is chinese. The brush are both common for chinese, korean and japanese mounting process and restoration. It's just more known in the occident as japanese hake as well as japanese papers.