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Computer Graphics	How Water Damages a Canvas Painting Some accidents which occur to paintings are definitely beyond our control. The worst of these is fire. A picture which has been damaged by fire falls under the rule of all objects damaged by fire. Its regeneration depends entirely on how badly it was burned. Smoke damage is usually a surface damage and can be removed. The effect of excessive heat on a canvas painting is the same as its effect on any painted surface, the paint blisters and the support disintegrates. There is almost nothing that can be done for a painting which has suffered serious fire damage. Pictures slightly damaged by fire have been repaired, but if the damage is more than slight the repair is never a satisfactory one; the painting looks like what it is, a preserved ruin. Along with fire comes the hazard of water, which can be very serious. For this type of damage, I can give advice. Again, I believe this is an instance where immediate first aid can save a painting from destruction. When the fabric of a canvas painting gets wet it acts exactly in the opposite of what is customary in linen cloth -- it expands and then shrinks when dry. This difference in behavior is due to the glue size used in the preparation of the fabric as a support for a painting. The size swells when wet and the swelling forces the canvas to expand. For this reason so many paintings sag loosely on their stretchers in damp weather and tighten up again when the air is dry. Adjustment to movement of expansion and contraction cannot be made by the upper layers of the painting. They are suddenly displaced; when the shrinking occurs there is too much top layer for too little supporting space. The layers can no longer stay in their original position. If you have ever tried to replace a jigsaw puzzle in a box which is too small for it, you know just what happens; the sections of the puzzle buckle up and then burst. If you can treat your water damaged painting before it has a chance to shrink up in the drying, you can prevent the structure from going to pieces. FIRST AID FOR SERIOUS WATER DAMAGE In general, the treatment is similar to the one described for taking out dents and bumps, only that this time the dampening of the canvas has occurred without control and watchful regulation, and your wet area is apt to be sizeable. Arrange, as I instructed before, a flat surface covered with a waxed or water-resistant paper and place the painting face down on top of this. PLEASE note glassine paper is NOT water resistant and should never be used for this treatment as it wrinkles horribly with even a drop of water and all its wrinkles would be impressed on the surface of your painting. Have a supply of large white blotters, big enough if possible to cover the whole wetted area, and place one of them next to the canvas to absorb the wetness. In an emergency if you can't get white blotters use several sheets of newspaper; this too will absorb dampness although less efficiently. On top of the blotter, place a large slab of something rigid and flat, like a piece of plate glass or a sheet of smooth masonite. Cardboard is no good, it responds to moisture and no matter how stiff it may seem it is not rigid enough to be effective. On top of the flat surface put four or more weights, as many as you can get on, so that the pressure will be considerable. At half hour intervals, take everything off to change the blotter or newspaper layer as it absorbs the dampness from the canvas and replace it with a dry one. Put back the rigid surface and the weights each time. Keep changing the absorbing layer until the canvas feels dry to the touch. Remember that unless a rigid surface intervenes between the absorbing layer and the weights you will not get an all-over pressure on the wet damage and the section without pressure will shrink as it dries!   Don't pick up the painting to look at it until it is really dry and then pick it up very carefully. It is barely possible that the waxed paper put down to protect the surface has become stuck to it, if it has, LEAVE IT THERE and take the painting to a restorer who will work it loose with a mild solvent and free it from the varnish surface. As long as the paper is stuck to it, the paint surface will stay in its proper place. If you hadn't put the paper down, the paint might have stuck to your working surface and stayed there when you picked the painting up! When good quality waxed or Kraft paper is used, this rarely happens but in case it does, do NOT try to pull the paper off; the paint will come away with it unless the substance sticking them together is gently dissolved by the proper chemicals. GIVING THE SAME TREATMENT TO A PAINTING WITH IMPASTO If the painting which has been damaged by water has any impasto, heavy globs of paint which stick out from the flat surface, a slightly different preparation must be made to prevent these ridges of paint from being broken off under pressure or flattened out. Cover the flat working surface first with a piece of felt or a plain wool blanket, put the waxed paper down on top of this soft layer, then the painting face down so that the impasto will be cushioned in the softness of the material when it is under pressure. Be careful not to use a blanket with a strong textured weave or quilted stitching since these irregularities would be transferred to the surface of the painting during the pressing. It is vital to keep in mind the function of each item used in making a repair so that the correct result can be attained. WHAT CAN HAPPEN WHEN A WATER DAMAGE IS NEGLECTED When a water damage has happened in your absence and the wet canvas has already shrunk together and forced the paint film up and out, keep the painting flat, face up, so that the loose paint will not fall off. If you can, get a restorer to come to prepare the painting for being moved safely, by applying to it a protective facing. Unless measures are taken to hold the surface in place during motion, transporting a painting when the paint film is loose almost guarantees that it will fall off the fabric support. Once off, it is is impossible to reconstruct the broken surface even if you have saved the little bits of paint. No one tries to put fallen sections of a plaster wall back in again; it is repaired by filling the loss with new material. The same is true with a painting. But if you can keep the broken parts of a painting in proper position on the surface until the structure can be made solid again, there will be no loss and no need to replace any part of the paint film with new material.