Should Science Save Modern Art?

An artist has a special relationship with time. As the age-old adage goes, ars longa, vita brevis: Art is long, life is short. Art can achieve a level of permanence beyond the aspirations of any mere mortal, which is, in part, why it is so attractive to us. We use timelessness, too, to determine which art is great art, and which was a passing fashion. And as with so much else, our fascination with confluence of art and time has echoes in technology.

Ever since Leonardo da Vinci added turpentine to his “The Last Supper” in 1498, which began to eat away at the oils before they were dry, art conservators have been studying how to peel back the chemistry of light-broken polymer chains and oxidized copper to reveal the original, and seemingly timeless, versions of art that is centuries old. Museum goers take in the results in climate-controlled conditions, and are asked to consider the marks of time as academic curiosities layered onto the truer expression waiting underneath.

But these attitudes by curators and consumers alike