Article on lighting

Mike Litman <lightsrc [at] ix__netcom__com> writes

>The Lighting Resource is featuring an article entitled "A
>Suggested Exhibition/Exposure Policy for Works of Art on Paper"
>written by Karen M. Colby....
>        http://www.webcom.com/~lightsrc/policy1.html

I think Karen Colby has done a very good job in establishing a
structure for a museum exhibition policy that combines practicality
with space for future refinements.  It's not difficult, for example,
to image how one would organize this into a database with multiple
further layers of technical information on specific pigments,
microchemical tests, polarized light microscopy identification, etc.
Imagine then (a structure like an "html" document) where if you had
a question about what she means by "unknown yellows and reds in
Japanese block prints," you might click on the sentence and find
references on a host of traditional Japanese colorants that would
provide more detailed information including non-photochemical
fugitivity.

If there is any weakness at the outset it probably is due to a
certain non-congruence between the general and the specific.  For
example, many of the light sensitive pigments in pastels and
watercolors are built around the same colorants as that which makes
up dyes.  So it's obvious that they both be incorporated into
Category One.  Yet, the colorant itself is a
1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone which is the colorant in some of the
"principal brilliant reds" in Category Two.  This is bound to cause
confusion.  Nevertheless, this represents a good start.

I would add, however, colored pencils to her Category One which in
many instances are no better than felt-tipped pens.

Jim Druzik

                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 9:36
                 Distributed: Sunday, October 22, 1995
                        Message Id: cdl-9-36-002
                                  ***