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Art & Art History vocabulary · Museums & Galleries

Conservation

Meaning in art & art history, with examples

/ˌkɑːnsərˈveɪʃən/nounCommon term

In art & art history, conservation means: The professional care of artworks and objects to slow down damage and keep them stable for the future, through scientific study, careful treatment and control of light, humidity and temperature.

In Turkish: koruma, konservasyon, koruma-onarım

How it is used

Conservators work in conservation studios and labs. Preventive conservation controls the environment, while conservation treatment repairs the object, ideally in ways that can be reversed. Many museums prefer this word to restoration.

Example sentences

  1. The tapestry will spend six months in the conservation studio.

  2. Good conservation means doing as little to the object as possible.

Common collocations

  • conservation studio
  • preventive conservation
  • conservation treatment
  • paintings conservation
  • restorationWork done to repair a damaged or decayed artwork or building and bring it closer to its original appearance, for example by cleaning it or filling in missing areas.
  • pigmentA coloured powder, made from minerals, plants, insects or chemicals, that gives paint its colour when it is mixed with a binder such as oil, egg or gum.
  • frescoA way of painting walls or ceilings with water-based pigments on fresh, wet lime plaster, so the colours become part of the wall as it dries; also a painting made like this.
  • permanent collectionThe artworks and objects that a museum owns and keeps long term, as opposed to works borrowed for temporary exhibitions.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Museums & Galleries

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