The Historical Ontology of Art

In this article, I argue that our ontology of art has undergone a major change in the course of modern history. While we currently think of artworks as parts arranged in a certain way, there was a time when artworks were thought of as metaphysically more akin to ordinary artefacts such as tables and chairs; that is, as wholes having replaceable parts. This change in our ontology of art is reflected in our approach to art restoration. But what explains the change? I will suggest that the change took place because of a change in our conception of the function of art. More specifically, I will suggest that we have started to think of artworks as parts arranged in a certain way, because we have started to think of artworks as having, primarily, an aesthetic function.

SCENet: Secondary Domain Intercorrelation Enhanced Network for Alleviating Compressed Poisson Noises

In real image coding systems, block-based coding is often applied on images contaminated by camera sensor noises such as Poisson noises, which cause complicated types of noises called compressed Poisson noises. Although many restoration methods have recently been proposed for compressed images, they do not provide satisfactory performance on the challenging compressed Poisson noises. This is mainly due to (i) inaccurate modeling regarding the image degradation, (ii) the signal-dependent noise property, and (iii) the lack of analysis on intercorrelation distortion. In this paper, we focused on the challenging issues in practical image coding systems and propose a compressed Poisson noise reduction scheme based on a secondary domain intercorrelation enhanced network. Specifically, we introduced a compressed Poisson noise corruption model and combined the secondary domain intercorrelation prior with a deep neural network especially designed for signal-dependent compression noise reduction. Experimental results showed that the proposed network is superior to the existing state-of-the-art restoration alternatives on classical images, the LIVE1 dataset, and the SIDD dataset.

Szable w kontekście badań nad bronią dawną – przyczynek do dziejów bronioznawstwa polskiego

Sabres in the context of research on historical weapons – a contribution to the history of Polish hoplology This article is an attempt to provide a comprehensive view on the history of hoplology in relation to the most popular type of weapon used in the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the sabre. The research history addresses the issue of modern weapons, which is motivated by the emergence of various types of sabre at that time. Research on old weapons, inspired primarily by collectors, museologists and members of academia, traditionally uses a range of methods developed by history, art history, archaeology and art restoration. Such research can also enter the field of sociology and cultural studies, provided that we take into account the fact that weapons, sabres in particular, symbolized social standing. The variety of issues, which are generally confined to the above mentioned concepts, also translates into the historiographic sphere. Because of that, it may be surprising that Polish literature on historical weapons only dates back to the second half of the 19th century. However, collectors had shown interest in military items much earlier. The first part of the article presents the most important private collections of weapons from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century, with particular focus on the almost entirely preserved collection of Izabela Czartoryska, who founded the first museum in Poland. This layout is the starting point for presenting academic interest in military items, divided into the pre- and post-war periods.

Role of Surveying During Reconditioning of Monuments

Ernő Foerk’s most well-known work in architectural circles is certainly the volume published in the reprint edition, which collects the material of the building surveys conducted by the students of the Hungarian Royal Public Higher Architectural Industrial School between 1912-1942. The introduction to each volume shows that he considered to document the buildings as the main task of the surveys - besides their role in education - and thus to serve the Hungarian culture. Architectural surveying is still one of the most important starting points for monument reconditioning. Ideally, the process of monument reconditioning consists of the following steps: Scientific Research - Pre-planning Technical Studies – Compilation of a Planning Program and Planning - Professional Authority Control (getting of building permission) – Building Construction Work and (Fine Art) Restoration - Maintenance. This paper presents the essential role of surveying in this process.

Aprons Made from Canvas: The Legacies of Marie-Jacob Godefroid, Restauratrice to the French Royal Art Collections, 1741-1775

Eighteenth-century Paris was a site for significant changes in the art world, whether stylistically in the movement from Rococo towards Neoclassicism or socially in the growing presence of female artists. One field that emerged in this milieu was art restoration, here referring to the treatment of easel paintings in order to prevent signs of aging, such as surface discoloration, warping, etc. This paper focuses on Marie-Jacob Godefroid, a female art restorer active in the mid-eighteenth century whose career was unique in several regards, whether in life as a widowed mother or in work as an art restorer-dealer who received royal recognition. Launched from this biographic approach, my paper seeks to identify broader conceptions of womanhood that allowed female artists paths to success in a field hard-set by patriarchal traditions.