What is Patina?
In its most common use, the term refers to the green film formed naturally by oxidation on copper and bronze. The green bronzes of antiquity, "rediscovered" more than five hundred years ago, awakened our awareness for the painterly qualities of aged art materials.
Actually, the word seems to have originated in relationship to paintings. Fillipo Baldinucci, in his Lexicon of Art from 1681, used "patina" to describe the dark tone which develops on a painting's surface over time. In the eighteenth century, the term was transferred to metals. The increase of machine production in the nineteenth century caused a new appreciation for handmade objects and their unique, precious aging process.
Today, one uses the term very broadly, especially in the art conservation field (see Thomas Brachert's book Patina) to describe all processes of change that occur in art objects with the passage of time.
Regardless of how we think of patina, either as a nostalgic ingredient that increases our enjoyment of the arts or, in a strictly scientific manner, as a corrosion product, patina is an integral part of an artwork. The effect on an object's patina must be considered in any conservation treatment that respects the wholeness of the object.
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