The Conservator, The Apprentice, and the Problem Part 4 

She's pretty cool. I like Kit.

That’s a different day, Julian has a different shirt on

@@kathynay5498Yeah that's how days off work.

also, the "the office" look at the camera at 32:09 lol

Kit is an awesome addition to the channel.

It is not about provenance, it is about the artist. A copy can have all the provenance in the world, it will not make it a bit more valuable.

@@1959Berre "the place of origin or earliest known history of something" Such as who created it, meaning the artist. "a record of ownership of a work of art or an antique, used as a guide to authenticity or quality" Also meaning the artist. I think you may have been thinking of another word, or just really wanted to correct someone. Even though they are correct.

Personally, I don't see what the value of a painting is because of who painted it. To me it would be the quality of the work. Actual, I do understand, why the artist makes a painting more valuable but I'm never going to own a painting done by a famous artist. Therefore it's just my appreciation of a painting that is it's value.

In Europe, there's a fair chance that nobody would want it at an auction sale. An American copy of this quality only has a vague aesthetic value, thus would not be worth more than a couple hundreds.

Some people claim that art valuation is a scam.

I hope so. She just needs to move that isolation layer brush about twice as fast.

It’s also, as a student, exciting to work on an ‘important’ old master. It must be disappointing.

@@Voartist 😂 absolutely! Those timelapse shots! Gosh comparing Julian's pace to kit's! Wow! But It'll come with time tho, rn it's ok for her to focus on precision.

@@anagabrieltrevino5439 I like her. I think she'll do well. My advice to her, and I'm not at art expert by any means, is to intern with more than one restoration person. I think that concept applies to many professions. It's like getting a second opinion from another doctor.

I’m in print production and know and hate that feeling. When you don’t have the time to make what you produce up to your own high standards it is so demoralizing. Especially if it’s a project you’ve really gotten into it can be pretty near heartbreaking and Kit handled it like a champ.

There is a difference though. This is a product he worked on and finalized for his client. His name is on it. If anything, these are his portfolio as a conservator. You wouldn't want to publicize something that isn't representative of your standards. It hurts right now but pays of in the long run I would say.

@@Djoarhet001 I get it, it's just funny.

Yes, it's some time and money you won't get paid for, but it could be much more expensive if - without proper context - it was percieved as representative of poor workmanship. It's always a balance.

This is why I love Julian

to be fair though they're probably not under under for this thanks to the RU-vid revenue. I'm not sure exactly what the conversion is but 900k+ views across this entire 4 part series on top of patreon revenue probably more than covers the costs of a free varnish job on 1 painting.

I love the "I have the half of my haloween costume, then the "Christ!" from Juiian XD

Hahaha they’re so funny

They play off each other well. It's a great dynamic and adds a nice dimension to the videos and dialogue.

I think Kit is going to be a perfect foil to Julian . She's a plucky sidekick :)

Rue, when was it?

I hope the church didn’t expect the discount as well.

This is a example of good karma.

Waouh !

@@cgstadler they always do

@@yeshummingbird depends on ur beliefs, instant karma is something others also believe in

this is mood

Totally Agree. I cheered when Julien gave her the apron. What a moment to end this journey.

Agreed! Kit is adorable in all the best ways, and I can't wait to see more of her.

WHY?...

It was gut wrenching watching them deflate. I get that it’s a business and that ultimately, the client calls the shots. But it just feels so wrong to pull the plug on funding the project when they could’ve read the dang sticker on the back pointing to the actual artist, and googled where the painting actually came from! It was like watching them be punished for something they didn’t do.

@@innocentnemesis3519 really late to the conversation lol sorry but in one of the earlier videos they mentioned the label was on the inside of the stretcher, flush against the back of the canvas, and they we're probably the first people to see it since the painting was stretched. I dont think the client in this case had any way of knowing/seeing that before they took the canvas off

R.I.P. 😔

It slows the vids down to an insufferable level...Its like sitting in on a Grade 3 class.

@@projektkobra2247 Agreed. I know more about art conservation than Kit, just from trawling youtube for a few years.

@@yessanknow302 -I come here to watch art restored...I dont care for this new girl he has...I know thats gonna trigger the hoi-polloi in here..but these episodes are duller than watching paint dry. Get it? I slay me.

@@projektkobra2247 😆

Julian just couldn't do it, he just couldn't let a painting go out of his studio without a proper coating of varnish!

I would think the cost of renovating a bathroom would be more than a coat of varnish. That being said, I don't know how expensive that varnish is, and what the labor costs for it are (if any were paid). But, maybe Julian felt it was a loss that would pay itself back in other ways, such as maintaining a reputation of excellence and quality without exception.

@@iRunavala the amount of varnish used on a single painting typically wouldn't be too expensive, especially compared to the reputation cost of sending out a painting without a protective layer.

@@InnocentGuillotine Yea, and the client is being quite stupid with not even wanting to pay for varnishing tbh. It's like they must already have to pay at least 80% of the original conservation cost with what's been done so far, then maybe reduce the retouching to 5% instead of the 20% it would take, but then skimps up on the maybe 1% of the entire budget it would take to varnish it. Just decides to leave it unfinished at the last stretch because they weren't expecting it not making money for them. Sure, it's a loss, but it's still better to not throw it in the garbage bin, just pay for the last bit and accept the loss. Hang it in your house or something even if it's monetarily worthless, better that trashing the piece. And maybe with some luck, there can still be some return or make it even, but you ain't gonna be having much chance of that if you leave it unfinished.

You win BECAUSE you learn.

The difference in the before and after is absolutely breath taking. I agree, the varnish was the right move for this one. Awesome work for the both of them 🙂

Don't forget that the extra revenue from the RU-vid/Patreon might cover some of it as well (although they would get that either way so it's still a loss). Glad it wasn't scrapped at least.

I was just thinking the same thing. Especially if your client is a prominent figure in the art world the last thing you want to do is mislead them on the value of the painting. Sure, you’ll make some extra cash now but you’ll be out of business sooner rather than later.

Choosing to varnish shows remarkable integrity and a focus on what is important.

@@AsmodeusMictian I think the major difference was made before the discovery (lining, cleaning, flattening the canvas, etc.), which was still on path for the full deal. But yes, the retouching is just good enough to not meet the eye at a distance, making the end result a solid piece.

I'm glad that you hired Kit. She gives a different perspective to the restoration work that I can relate to. BTW Kit, I love the color you added to your hair.

i am also grateful for Kit, not just because it's really good to see someone learning new things and advancing in their craft and career, but also because Kit asks all kinds of questions in the moment that we, the viewers, might have and that Julian might not think to talk about since he's been doing this for so long.

YES!! Kit is such a great great Addition. We love you Kit!

Agreed! Kit is awesome. i love her earrings as well !

I like her presence. She looks interested, engaged and also interesting and with a great sense of humour. The Bob Ross comment and the "I don't like the colour" had me in stitches. She is capable and we now have proxy in the process to ask what we also wanted to ask. I adore her hair btw [though it is rude to comment on someone's appearance but what awesome hair!]

There is a saying that goes: "That will have to do! screamed the perfectionist."

Well said.

i don't think he is a top of the line restorer. his painting skill need quite a bit of work

@@paulnovak833 Wow. Back that statement up. If you can't move along.

An original Murillo is worth millions - a copy of a Murillo is worth as much as a copy of anything else. Have no illusions: fine art is not owned for it's beauty, but as it's value as an investment medium, like mansions or wine. 99% of art pieces are simply aesthetic - which is investors do not buy them because they can neither store nor generate wealth, merely beauty and humanity. F that, right?

Oh wow I never considered that... It makes me wonder if there's some kind of archive of all the stolen paintings from around the world where museums, private collectors, and conservation personnel can screen for stolen goods. Who would you even report that to? Just your local police? I imagine if a stolen painting has left its country of origin you would eventually have to get some kind of international organization involved. A touchy subject to be sure!

That would be a no brainer for any serious conservator like Julian. Of course he would have to report it or risk his reputation. The current situation is much more tricky as you want to conserve as much value for the client but can’t be involved in covering-up the true identity of the painting...

​@@Creature_of_Knight Italy has a specific branch in one of our police forces that has an archive of every piece of art that has been stolen from our country and they cooperate with other countries to bring the pieces back, so there must be an equivalent in other countries

For the very same reason, major galleries keep provenance records on every piece in their collection. Some make this documentation freely available online. No serious, legitimate buyer is going to acquire a piece with an unknown history. It may be stolen or a forgery.

@@Creature_of_Knight It highly depends on countries, and the specific structure it happens in. How the authorities were made aware of it as well (whistleblower, customs, warrant discovery after investigation, etc). Egypt for instance has a dedicated police force for cultural items trafficking. France as well. A judiciary group called TREIMA (an acronym that basically means "Thesaurus of imagery and electronic research in artistic matters") will authenticate a piece. If it happens to be a stolen piece, responsibility will be determined (was the owner unwitting? Or knowingly buying stollen goods? etc). After that, proper judicial procedures begin. Once they are over, the piece is to be returned to the owner. If it's a matter of international relations (say, a stollen mummy, or a crown jewel that belongs to a country) Ministry of culture takes over, jointly with external affairs, to give back the pieceto an embassy which will manage from that point. Or, if the owner isn't a state (individuals, institutions, estates,...) the tribunal will be contacting the rightful owner for retrieval. The biggest chunk of work to detect stolen art, however, is a database shared by Interpol, that is often retransmitted to people like Julian (at leats in France), appraisers, art insurance companies etc. TREIMA, or equivallent groups, employs a ton of historians and various kinds of experts to expand that database from older crime (take for instance post-WWII losses of jewish-owned paintings, or pillaged museums in occupied countries) and police personel to update modern crime (break-ins and heists).

I hear that. I do costumes for theatre. Our motto is "good enough for Row L."

This applies in a lot of areas. Is it really worth it to spend double the time and effort to make a 10% improvement on something? Usually not, especially if it's to be seen for only a short time or limited audience. I say this coming from the corporate marketing / graphic design world.

@@tinderbox218 it's called the pareto principle. 80% of the result comes from 20% of the work.

even a billboard designer!

Meanwhile Kit : Yeah... Just nice and easy does it...

@@bluejar5614 unrelated but riding a motorcycle slowly is more dangerous than riding it at a "normal speed" and im absolutely talking from experience

I dunno... that flanel shirt looks SUPER comfy...

Hey, spoilers!

Don't read comments before watching the video!

@@yorgle That's what I was thinking! I want one...

Introduce the camera man.

Oh yes.

As a video editor too. The gray is so subjective it becomes painful to work with.

I get the same when restoring antique guitars: I know can make it a fully playable instrument, but the client just want to conserve it so it doesn't deteriorate any further.

It is actually very simple. As owner of the business you sould know how much an hour of your work costs (based on your expenses, costs and desired income). With that you simply take the amount of money presented by client and then divide it by cost of your work for hour. Then you get how many hours of your work your client bought and just simply work for that amount of time over given project.

@@crazyfrytka That can end up with you having a not finished work if you ends up working more hours on some parts. Like, if you had to do some painting at the end but then you're out of time, do you turn a low quality work that may hurt you in the future? Sometimes when you work in private practice you have to eat a bit of a loss to protect some notion of quality work so you don't harm yourself, and hope it may propel to better budgeted works in the future.

A+++ comment. (It really is a fantastic series for those reasons, though, all joking aside. I feel bad for enjoying it so much when it was so unfortunate for them!!)

I bet the Chimera Tacks arc will be nice

I think Scraping comes back in that arc. He was always my favorite villain from the first season.

@A CV not the spoiler 😧

Wouldn't that be self-sabotaging for Julian to talk about it?

@@anya_mz my thought exactly, but if Julian wants to share he can, not up to us.

Would also love to hear his perspective. If he ever does a Q&A after this I hope that someone asks him what paintings he bought/why he got them.

Yes, while it's a bummer that the owner had an unexpected downturn on the hoped for investment, and the restoration was cut short in business terms for the conservators, the real tragedy is the artist who has been branded "not worth fully restoring". I can't help wondering what will become of this painting.

It’s like shares in prized show horses, it’s just how expensive rich people stuff works

It’s very strange to see, I wonder who started the movement of taking shares in art as a whole

Sort of takes the soul out of art. And ultimately it’s only worth what it’s worth when it gets sold to a buyer. Surely you can’t just artificially increase the value of your shares until the piece actually gets sold

@@Francoberry only if you decide to look at it in that way. Look at it this way, more paintings than ever before have resources allocated to their preservation.

No different than investing in gold, really.

That was a smart move by him. It cost him half an hour and a few bucks in material, while getting in the clients's good side

@@Edino_Chattino Is it even worth getting in the good side of such a client? That last varnishing would likely cost at worst 1% of the entire project, and the client must need to pay like at least 80% for the job that has already been done. To skimp on the last 1% and leave the painting without the main protective layer is just... idiotic at best. The client should have just taken the loss with some grace, he can at least hang it in his home or something, surely is better than trashing it after having to pay so much. So yea, i sure wouldn't want a client like this...

There's certainly significant skill and talent in being able to reproduce this painting, and that is not worthless - one would assume that Mr. Strecher made something of a living at it - but the true art is in the concept, not the execution. It's certainly skillful to play a Rachmaninoff or Hendrix composition, but we generally still recognize the composer over the instrumentalist. Murillo was also nobody until he created something new. Strecher remained "nobody" because he didn't create anything new. He was just a talented technician.

Van Gogh said the same... Keep painting. There's a reason you love to paint.

really feeling the same here, it's... frustrating to say the absolute least, that vague aura of greed

I agree, it's interesting because he's restored paintings from completely unknown individuals with no known value and those owners are perfectly OK with that because the painting is special to them.

@@wbfaulk The thing is though it was always known to be a copy. The question is why is a contemporary copy worse less than a period copy? Because the art world says so lol

There is the impermanence of human existence. We can't live forever into the future, but we can hold hands with the past - and that extends our own life into that past. If I hold my grandfather's gardening tools, I am holding hands with him in 1932 when he used those tools. If someone told me that the tool was replaced ten years ago with a replica, the tool loses that magic.

It's the association bias (or I think that's what it is called) we link objects with actual unrelated things in either a positive or negative way. It's the reason why you wouldn't want to live in a house where somebody died or like a painting just because you like the artist.

I wholeheartedly agree. Let's say you have two identical paintings, the only difference is that one was painted by a famous artist, the other a copy. Does this make the copy any less beautiful just because it's not done by the artist? Sure, monetary value may be different.

@@amcconnell6730 I get what you're saying but that's somewhat of an imperfect analogy isn't it. A painting isn't a piece of equipment to dig dirt with but arguably has an intrinsic value which is its beauty and the craftsmanship and artistry that went into it. Imho it doesn't only get its value from who happened to touch it. Rather the opposite - certain artists are considered important _because_ of the quality of the art they created. If an artwork was so beautiful and masterfully executed that people thought it was an original, you should think it has an intrinsic value and if anything, it proves that the artist that made it may be deserving of more recognition than they got. Attaching the value of a piece entirely to a name, even knowing how elitist, exclusive and arbitrary the art industry has always been, is really a rather weird attitude towards art that I wish wasn't so common. I find it hard to believe that a creation completely loses its value just because of who made it.

I think Julian explained it clearly at the beginning: problem is less the name than the body of work : the more paintings you sell, the higher the price of your paintings. It’s not the case of the artist here. Also the impact of your work is to consider. Obviously if you made a copy you didn’t entirely create this, whatever the level of skill necessary to reproduce it.

maybe not the DARE t-shirt but the vibes are absolutely on

I love that Mr. Bean movie.

Because they gambled on it being a contemporary of him or from his school, which would have value according to the art investment world.

They may not have known about the original before buying it. And it does bring up the point that the painter obviously made a living painting copies which if sold as such aren't a problem. But if the painting is bought and sold as an original then things get difficult and disappointing.

Sometimes multiple "copies" of the same or similar painting are made by the school, in which the original artist might still be involved in, for instance, putting the sketch on canvas. Some paintings are studies for others (although those are usually smaller). Trying out compositions, getting facial expressions right, ... Putting a large masterpiece straight on canvas without any practice pieces before is rare indeed.

@@BrianAndrews73 Did you not listen to Julian? He's said previous and in this episode repeatedly as well that they knew that the original was in the museum before purchasing it.

That whole discussion felt like a build up for the ad though. Very contrived.

@@davidlylejones True. Thats why I dislike the kind of in-video ads he does, they always feel so forced. And sometimes when they don't feel forced or when I forget that he does those and I get invested into what he is telling, I am so disappointed that it was just for the ad.

Word.

@@davidlylejones I didn't have the feeling you described while watching. The conversation about value and how to deal with clients willingness of investment keeps going after the advertisement. Different central point, but dependent on the question how people value art. And might value different. Even if it is contrived, it might also come from rehearsal, a second shot because the first one was bad (some other problem with the mic)? Or they had this talk off camera? And we still have the project which has been cut short. Just that for an ad? Done less sophisticated retouching, remove and redo it for the revenue? I doubt that. My feeling is, Julian chooses the advertiser that fits the narrative best. Not the other way around.

@@Paranaith I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I always hate when RU-vidrs try to weave their sponsorship ads into the overall narrative of the video. Like, you’re not being clever. I know I’m being advertised to. I don’t think I’ve ever been tricked by a RU-vidr’s sponsorship segue. I can always see it coming, especially if it’s a sponsor I’ve seen a thousand times before. Just put in a regular commercial break. Just pause the video and say “hey, time for an ad break.” I don’t care how elaborate or creative your skit is, I’m still skipping it every single time and blacklisting whatever sponsor you’re advertising, because I hate being advertised to. So save yourself some time and energy. I’ve got nothing against RU-vidrs taking sponsorships. By all means, get that money. Just don’t insult my intelligence. I can see your “clever segues” from a mile away.

Monologuing lol. Sounds funny

Yeah, but would you rather have a beautiful painting worth $500 or a beautiful painting worth 2.5 million? The client isn't wrong to be disappointed even if their hopes were artificially inflated to begin with.

@@carlotta4th That’s not the point of art in the first place. Whichever one speaks to you the most.

@@oscodains this. i would much rather have an attachment to a $500 painting that i own than have a $2.5 million painting that i just dont like

@@nadismolina exactly, take "Who's afraid of red blue and yellow". It's worth a lot, although it doesn't speak to me on a personal level, whereas if you take a recreation of one of Van Gough's works from 50 years ago, worth maybe $200, I'd hang that up in a heartbeat

@@carlotta4th I wouldn’t care as long as I loved it… in fact I’m not sure I’d want to be responsible for something worth that much…

In other words, you're a crook.

i would love to hear about watercolor conservation!

If he ever does a Q&A I really hope that someone asks this.

He has generally been really cagey about the products he uses. I suspect it's to discourage people from attempting their own poorly-considered amateur conservations, but it seems unlikely that he'd reconsider that decision now. That said, I agree that it would be useful and interesting information, and he did actually mention the brand of his retouching paints in this video, so hopefully I'm wrong.

Mostly traditional methods and oils. A lot of modern oils, for example, discolor over time--like Chrome yellow (which Vinent Van Gogh called "as bright as the sun" in his now brown sunflowers). The old paints are better but even then some just had a hard time lasting. Yellows and reds commonly faded out of paintings. And other pigments like lapis lazuli are too expensive (and faked with modern branding) to be feasible for an average artist. So just do your research and do your best. Linen canvases or wood panel prepared with a marble coating, and longlasting proven oil paints.