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Light
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Light and Art
Light is essential to view artworks but at the same time it is probably the most destructive environmental element causing damage to artworks. Light is composed of wavelengths, both visible and invisible. The wavelengths which are visible to the eye are the ones which form colours. Although these rays can be harmful, the most destructive rays are the invisible UV rays.
Light, particularly UV light, causes paper to embrittle and to discolour and it can cause fading of design materials such as dyes and pigments in paints, pastels, crayons and inks.
Because light is so damaging to art, framers are able to use glazing products which are able to filter up to 99% of the UV light. Glazing with UV filtering properties comes in the forms of glass and acrylic.
UV protective glazing is defined by the United States based Fine Art Care and Treatment Standards Guild (FACTS) as glazing which block more that 90% of UV light.
The use of UV filtered glazing helps considerably in protecting artworks from deterioration and fading but it does not completely prevent the process of deterioration - it merely slows it.
Spot the horse.
The fine blue paper used for this chalk drawing was badly and irreversibly faded, not by sunlight but merely by exposure for ten years to indirect light reflected from within a room. The original mat covered a large area on the right and bottom of the sheet and protected this from fading.
J.S. COPLEY (1738-1815), STUDY FOR George IV, when prince of wales, M. AND M. KAROLIK COLLECTION.
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