The sensational story of rediscovering the Omayyad Mosaics has been told elsewhere. Thanks to the Louvre Museum and Ms. Loreline Simonis, we've also caught a glimpse of the polemics related to their restoration in the 1960's. To better comprehend the reasons underlying the vehement protestations of Ms. Marguerite Van Berchem vis-à-vis those restorations, nothing surpasses visually comparing the famous Barada Panel in the west portico "before" with "after".
Reproducing the huge (34 meters x 3.7 meters) panel in its entirety is impractical for our purposes so let's instead focus on the following details photographed in black and white 1928-1928. Easily identified is a missing portion at the left upper corner. The next step would be to examine the opposing color photo (2010) reflecting the 1965 restoration. The missing left upper corner mosaics had been replaced with new ones marked by the red line. How faithful and successful those repairs turned out to be is debatable. Fortunately, we do have a frame of reference consisting not only in the 300 photographs taken just after exposing the mosaics, but also faithful hand-made copies of selected parts of those mosaics, respecting size, color, shades, etc.
To illustrate the difference between the original and the restored mosaics, let's now look at one of the copies. This 330 cm x 297 segment displays the same scene visible in the above photographs before and after the 1965 restoration. The original colors were certainly less bright -not to say gaudy- than the drastically altered current ones.
One might object that the restoration has rendered the mosaics "prettier" but the issue at stake here is beyond mere aesthetics; the venerable Omayyad edifice is by far the proudest, most beautiful, most important monument of Damascus. I is no exaggeration to say that the mosque summarizes the history of the Syrian capital in its entirety. Those who happen to believe that the restoration is more appealing to sight than the original might as well decorate newer buildings according to their taste and leave al-Walid's masterpiece to better qualified technicians.
Reproducing the huge (34 meters x 3.7 meters) panel in its entirety is impractical for our purposes so let's instead focus on the following details photographed in black and white 1928-1928. Easily identified is a missing portion at the left upper corner. The next step would be to examine the opposing color photo (2010) reflecting the 1965 restoration. The missing left upper corner mosaics had been replaced with new ones marked by the red line. How faithful and successful those repairs turned out to be is debatable. Fortunately, we do have a frame of reference consisting not only in the 300 photographs taken just after exposing the mosaics, but also faithful hand-made copies of selected parts of those mosaics, respecting size, color, shades, etc.
To illustrate the difference between the original and the restored mosaics, let's now look at one of the copies. This 330 cm x 297 segment displays the same scene visible in the above photographs before and after the 1965 restoration. The original colors were certainly less bright -not to say gaudy- than the drastically altered current ones.
One might object that the restoration has rendered the mosaics "prettier" but the issue at stake here is beyond mere aesthetics; the venerable Omayyad edifice is by far the proudest, most beautiful, most important monument of Damascus. I is no exaggeration to say that the mosque summarizes the history of the Syrian capital in its entirety. Those who happen to believe that the restoration is more appealing to sight than the original might as well decorate newer buildings according to their taste and leave al-Walid's masterpiece to better qualified technicians.
Fondation Max Van Berchem
Fonds Eustache de Lorey
Paris, Musée du Louvre, photothèque du département des Arts de l"islam
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