ABSTRACT

This article starts from a real case and it speculates over a much broader issue: a possible re-integration in a painted surface.

The case: 1930s, the church of Santa Maria Addolorata in the Psychiatric Hospital of Pratozanino, Cogoleto (Genoa). Inmate painter Gino Grimaldi decorates the inner walls with a wonderful cycle of paintings, a chef d’oeuvre and a brillant example of art therapy. Nowadays a recent preliminary restoration stopped the decay process, but these paintings show wide lacunas. However we have lot of photographic documents of the original state of the artcraft, a very special one, because of its peculiars technique and materials. Because of these valuable issues, according to the to strong belief of the writer of this article, we are considering the possibility to perform a special restoration, a “pixel to pixel” image restoration, without materials usage.

The broader issue: several innovations in painting techniques (impressionism 1860, pointillism 1870, divisionism 1890) have been transferred to restoration applications later on (pictorial integration hatched, Brandi 1944, integration selection and chromatic abstraction, Casazza and Bandini, late seventies). In a similar way this new idea of a “light-based restoration” for Pratozanino church has roots in projected painting experiments (Bruno Munari, fifties), and in “kinetic art” (sixties).

Parole chiave/Key-words: light-based restoration, Orthodoxy, Projects, Conservation.