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colophons, by mounting pages from a later edition in order to make complete an incomplete copy of a first edition. Paintings and statues are restored in such a way as to alter the work; parts of the body which offend against censorship are covered up or eliminated; parts of the work are removed or a polyptych is separated into its component parts.
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Such alterations may be made in both good and bad faith, depending on whether one believes or does not believe that Ob is still identical with Oa, that is, that the object was altered in accordance with the intentio auctoris. In fact, we see as original and authentic ancient works which have been substantially altered by the course of time and by human intervention: we have to allow for loss of limbs, restoration, and fading colors. In this category belongs the neoclassical dream of a "white" Greek art, where in fact the statues and temples were originally brightly colored. |
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In a certain sense all works of art which have survived from Antiquity should be considered forgeries. But following this line of thought, since any material is subject to physical and chemical alteration, from the very moment of its production, every object should be seen as an instant forgery of itself. To avoid such a paranoiac attitude, our culture has elaborated flexible criteria for deciding about the physical integrity of an object. A book in a bookstore continues to be a brand-new exemplar even though opened by many customers, until the moment in whichaccording to the average tasteit is blatantly worn, dusty or crumpled. In the same vein, there are criteria for deciding when a fresco needs to be restoredeven though the contemporary debate on the legitimacy of the restoration of the Sistine Chapel shows us how controversial such criteria are. |
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The weaknesses of these criteria provoke, in many cases, very paradoxical situations. For instance, from an aesthetic point of view, one usually asserts that a work of art can be recognized as authentically such, provided it maintains a basic integrity, and that if it is deprived of one of its parts it loses its organic perfection. But from an archaeological and historical point of view, one thinks thateven though the same work of art has lost some of its formal featuresit is still authentically original, provided that its material supportor at least part of ithas remained indiscernibly the same through the years. Thus "aesthetic authenticity" depends on criteria that are different from those used in order to assert "archaeological genuineness." Nevertheless, these two notions of authenticity and genuineness interfere in various ways, frequently in an inextricable way. The Parthenon of Athens has lost its colors, a great deal of its original architectural features, and part of its |
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