The Times - UK (2020-08-03)

the times | Monday August 3 2020 1GM 31

Wo r l d

When Belgian restorers unveiled what
they had done to the mystic lamb in
Ghent Altarpiece, the 15th-century oil
painting considered to be one of the
world’s most important artworks, they
faced incredulity.
Critics expressed a mixture of mock-
ery and irritation at the human features
that the restoration had given to the
lamb in the painting by the Flemish
masters, Jan and Hubert van Eyck.
Some said they could not get
used to its stare. Others
compared it to a range of
contemporary figures,
such as Derek Zoolan-
der, the character
played by Ben Stiller
in the 2001 comedy,
Zoolander.
Now Belgium’s Royal

The restoration of the
lamb’s features reflects the
original Ghent Altarpeice

The San Giorgio bridge

will be inaugurated today.

The 2018 Morandi bridge

collapse cost 43 lives. The

bridge was later blown up

Genoa’s sleek San Giorgio bridge,
which is due to be inaugurated today,
has become a symbol of pride for Italy.
No one could be more proud of the
remarkable engineering achievement
than Roberto Carpaneto, whose com-
pany oversaw the demolition of the
stricken Morandi bridge and the build-
ing of its replacement, its elegant lines
drawn by Renzo Piano, the architect
behind the Shard in London.
The collapse of the poorly main-
tained bridge during a violent storm on
August 14, 2018 was a national tragedy,
sending 43 people plunging to their
deaths. The economic cost of the disas-
ter has been estimated at between
€4 billion and €7 billion (£3.6 and 6.3
billion) and it is believed to have cost
the port city up to €10 million per day in
financial losses.
Mr Carpaneto is the head of Rina
Consulting, a Genoa inspection and en-
gineering services company that was
founded in 1861. Together with the con-
struction company Webuild and the
shipbuilder Fincantieri, he helped raise
the new bridge in a record 13 months.
“It was not always an easy task. We
faced critical situations and some sur-
prises, such as tough weather condi-
tions in November and the Covid-19
pandemic,” Mr Carpaneto told The
Times.
Building the 1km bridge across the
Genoese neighbourhoods of Sampier-
darena and Cornigliano, crossing a rail-
way line, four main roads and the Pol-
cevera river while causing minimum
disruption to the inhabitants of the city
was a huge challenge for the planners.
“The location inside the town, close
to inhabited buildings, was a problem.
There were also industrial firms close
by, such as Ansaldo Energia, which
needed to continue production. One of
our priorities was to limit disruption as
much as possible,” Mr Carpaneto said.
The other priority was speed,
achieved by careful planning, close co-
ordination with national and regional
authorities, and about 1,000 people
working day and night every day of the
year except Christmas.
“We were responsible for both the
demolition and reconstruction. That
was a key point as we were able to work
on the two activities in parallel,” Mr
Carpaneto added.

The company also had to cope with

rebuilding the bridge while maintain-

ing social distancing. It began devising

engineering solutions to the problem in

February, reducing the number of

workers used in a single operation and

distributing their presence in the work-

place throughout the day, providing

them with personal protective equip-

ment, measuring temperatures and

tracking the movements of the workers

every day.

“That was very important when one

of our workers fell ill. Only 20 people

had been in contact with him, who went

into quarantine. It allowed us to con-

tinue work without interruption,” Mr

Carpaneto said.

Among the memories that stick in his

mind is the sound of machines cutting

A race has begun to clean layers of lead

dust from the grand organ of Notre-

Dame. Jean-Louis Georgelin, the

retired general given the job of over-

seeing the restoration , aims to hear the

organ play on April 16, 2024, the fifth

anniversary of the blaze that devastated

the cathedral.

The date is in keeping with the

deadline set by President Macron, who

said that he wanted to rebuild Notre-

Dame within five years.

This will be a challenge. The organ,

considered to be the finest of its kind in

France, if not the world, will have to be

taken out of the cathedral before the

dust can be removed. Given that it has

about 8,000 pipes, 109 stops and five

keyboards, the task is immense.

The first part to be removed will be

the console, followed by the pipes. All

the parts will be placed in watertight

French pull out the stops to

repair Notre-Dame organ

containers while specialists tender for a

contract to dust them down. The

cleaning will take three years.

The instrument was created in 1733

by François Thierry to replace a less

grandiose version.

Many church organs were destroyed

during the French Revolution, when

rebels burnt the pipes to make bullets.

The one at Notre-Dame was spared,

reportedly because its organist kept the

revolutionaries happy by playing La

Marseillaise.

The organ survived the fire that

destroyed the cathedral’s roof and spire

on April 15, 2019, but the dust that fell

from the lead roof made it unplayable.

General Georgelin said: “Our ambition

is to return the instrument to the func-

tioning state it was in before the fire.”

To try to speed up the cathedral’s

restoration, Mr Macron decided this

summer that the new spire would

replicate the old one, avoiding the need

for an architectural competition.

Critics of altered altarpiece were wrong

Institute for Cultural Heritage says a

scientific study has provided irrefutable

proof that the human expression was

indeed a feature of the original work.

Using macroscale x-ray fluorescence

and infrared reflectance imaging spec-

troscopy, researchers from Antwerp

University and Washington’s National

Gallery of Art have shown that the hu-

manoid lamb painted by the Van Eyck

brothers in 1432 was altered a century

later to make it look more like an

animal.

The restoration, says the study, has

gone back to the artists’ initial

intention to portray the

lamb as a representation

of the sacrifice of Christ.

The mockers, in other

words, were wrong, ac-

cording to the scien-

tists.

The work comprises

12 panels featuring bib-

lical figures, measures

4.4m by 3.5m and is in

Ghent’s St Bavo’s cathedral.

Not only is it said to mark the

transition towards Renaissance art, it is

also thought to be the most stolen

painting, with panels having been taken

from it at least seven times, including by

Napoleon and the Nazis.

The lamb, with blood flowing from its

chest into a chalice, is in the central

panel. Generations of art lovers be-

came accustomed to the 16th-century

overpaint of the work, which left the

lamb looking as lambs usually do, with

its eyes on the side of the head.

During the €2.2 million restoration,

which began in 2012, the overpaint was

scraped away to reveal the human fea-

tures that the Van Eyck brothers origi-

nally produced. The lamb was staring

straight out of the painting, its lips were

pursed and nostrils wide.

The result brought a chorus of com-

plaints from people familiar with the

work, many of whom said they felt un-

comfortable with the lamb’s human ex-

pression and preferred the 16th-centu-

ry overpaint. Some were so aghast that

they said the restorers must have got it

wrong — a claim debunked by the new

study.

Belgium
Adam Sage

France

Adam Sage Paris

through concrete at night during the

demolition and the use of strand jacks

to raise 100-metre beams, each weigh-

ing 1,000 tonnes, in the sector that

straddles the Polcevera.

The abiding memory is that of the

support of the Genoese people, who

urged on his colleagues and responded

positively to their transparent commu-

nications, with all plans published on

the project’s website. “It’s

not a single episode, but the

fact that we had the support

of the community. The

people somehow pushed all

of us to work as quickly as

possible. They would stop

us in the street to talk and

invite us for coffee. There

was a relationship of trust,”

Mr Carpaneto said.

Piano, 82, paid tribute to

the victims of the Morandi collapse and

to the industry of the new bridge’s

builders at a classical music concert for

the workforce last week. “This is a Ge-

noese bridge that does its work in

silence,” the architect said, in reference

to the generally reserved character of

the city’s residents. “It’s also the child of

a tragedy and that is something that re-

mains with us all.”

New bridge gives Genoa back its pride

LUCA ZENNARO/EPA; ALESSANDRO DI MARCO/EPA; VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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