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Restoration (Term used in art to indicate)

a term used in art to indicate the renewal or repairing of paintings, sculptures, buildings, etc., which have been defaced or partially ruined. It includes the retouching of faded and injured pictures, and the replacing of lost limbs or features of antique statues. But in reference to architecture its meaning is broader; it indicates, first, a representation, by picture or model, of a ruined structure restored to its original state; secondly, the rebuilding of dilapidated or fallen portions of an edifice; and thirdly, taking down so-called "debased" work in a composite building, and replacing it by architectural features in harmony with the general style of the ancient edifice. The first attempts to reproduce Gothic work followed on the decay of the Renaissance style of architecture, and constituted the germ of the modern restoration movement, or Gothic revival, as it is generally called. This movement began to work actively about the beginning of the 19th century, and was largely accelerated by a revival of activity in the Established Church of England. An impulse was given to the restoration movement by a society called the Camden Society, and afterward the Ecclesiological Society, which was composed of churchmen and clergy, and started at Cambridge in the year 1840.

The movement produced specialists, of whom Sir Gilbert Scott was the most noted. In his hands was placed nearly every cathedral church in England, as well as a countless number of parish churches. As examples of "restoration" works we may give the N. transept of Westminster Abbey and the W. side of Westminster Hall, nearly the whole of St. Alban's Abbey, the W. front of Salisbury Cathedral (where an attempt has even been made to produce mediæval sculpture), Chester Cathedral, Worcester Cathedral; in fact, not a cathedral remains in England that does not bear marks of the movement. The "restoration" movement spread to Scotland, the Continent, and even to India, but a re- RESURRECTION action set in, and later sentiment was in favor of merely keeping in repair all ancient structures.