Preserving Art and Thanatos: The Relationship between Restoration and Death

The cultural association Aretè has promoted a meeting entitled 'Preserving Art and Thanatos' as part of the series 'Alla fine dei conti' at the Casa del Mantegna in Mantua. Due to the pandemic, the event took place without an audience. Led by Elena Alfonsi with the TEA S.P.A. group, the series of meetings from January to May 2021 explores the relationship between culture and death. The specific meeting investigated the connections between art, conservation, and death, highlighting how art survives the artist and lasts over time. The discipline of restoration aims to prolong the material life of artworks, combining humanistic and scientific disciplines. Funerary art, linked to burial, expresses cultural and religious legacies, and is subject to rapid regulatory evolution. Historic cemeteries, mostly from the nineteenth century after the Edict of Saint Cloud in 1804, have undergone transformations due to public hygiene laws, often in conflict with the protection of cultural heritage. Only since the 1980s have protection norms begun to prevail, leading to mediations between technical and conservative aspects. Works in historic cemeteries are often made of resistant materials such as stone or metal, created to last a long time.