How Art Conservators Restore Old Paintings & Revive Their Original Colors

We tend to imagine old paintings as having a muted, yellow-brown cast, and not without reason. Many of the examples we’ve seen in life really do look that way, though usually not because the artist intended it. As Julian Baumgartner of Chicago’s Baumgartner Fine Art Restoration explains in the video above, these paintings’ colors have changed over the decades, or in any case appeared to change, because of the layer of resin on top of them. When that kind of coating is first applied, it actually makes the hues underneath look richer.