To keep the world’s treasury of paintings looking up to snuff, museum conservators fight the beauty-stealing tides of dirt, age, and more acute forces, such as floods and fire. Now, it seems, they might consider adding lasers to their centuries-old closet of cleaning gear.
Conservators usually freshen up paintings with the equivalent of gentle scrubbing, often with chemical solvents. Because they have much higher precision, lasers can potentially improve on these techniques for removing unwanted soot, paint, or varnish, says Marta Castillejo of the Institute of Physical Chemistry Rocasolano in Madrid. Although restorers sometimes use lasers to bust dirt off museum pieces, they haven’t embraced them widely, especially not for paintings.