Restoring the Salvator Mundi

Short, but nice article. If you’re interested in restoration you might enjoy Baumgartner’s YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvZe6ZCbF9xgbbbdkiodPKQ

I wholeheartedly second this recommendation. I love that channel, and I don't even understand why. The videos are incredibly soothing and pleasing. They speak to the craftsman in me.

Apparently Baumgartner and his techniques are under some criticism from other restorers, but all I could find was a somewhat angry Reddit thread.

If you are interested in art restauration, I can highly recommend the Baumgartner Fine Art Restauration channel on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvZe6ZCbF9xgbbbdkiodPKQ

It's extremely relaxing to watch. I guess I chose to wrong profession.

If you understand German, there was also a good 45 min documentary about a restaurator a few weeks ago on SWR:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-hbYKyyWiI

His gilding skills are superior to Baumgartners.

"The power of this disquieting portrait of divinity—a persona unseeing, all-knowing, eternal, pitiless."

I agree. Completely the opposite of the 'suffering god' of pure self-giving love, dying by torture at the hands of the evil in order to save them from a fate worse than death. Someone was having a joke on Christians.

What's interesting is that the "Sacre Coeur" image on the basilica ceiling at the "Sacre Coeur" in Paris is similar: expressionless, pitiless. Yet the whole point was the heart of a god that burns with love and compassion. Who painted that? Who approved of it?

https://pixabay.com/photos/jesus-christ-sacre-coeur-altar-49...

Her adulating tone frankly undercuts her claims, namely that the Louvre is not questioning the attribution.