The fine art of fine art conservation: Christopher Naples

KENT — Chris Naples leans back in his desk chair inside his art studio, furrows his brow and exhales. A smile flashes at the corners of his mouth as he scans the sundry paintings in his presence. 

“That’s a deep question,” he says. 

So he takes a circuitous route to the answer. 

He recalls his artistic background, he explains the finer points of his craft, and he spells out his process. He shares his intentions, he reveals his reservations, and he expounds on competing philosophies within his field. He even recounts the restoration of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. 

Naples, speaking thoughtfully as he winds his way through every answer, has the aura of an experienced college professor. Surely he encountered just that type while studying at Southern Connecticut State University. He ultimately finished his degree in fine art at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, while completing an internship in art conservation at the same time. But Naples was still far from the polished craftsman he is today.  

The paintings are the teachers

“You learn conservation in front of the painting,” Naples explains. “You learn it in front of thousands of paintings, dialoguing with those paintings, developing and refining your skills of observation to the point where you master your craft. Conservation is ultimately just that — a craft — and I think it’s fair to say it takes 10 years to develop a level of competence.” 

Naples pauses for a moment and his studio partner, Christina Labrie, pops her head out from behind an easel in the corner of the room. 

“And it’s much more academic than people think,” she says. “There’s no other teacher than the paintings.” 

Naples nods in agreement and then elaborates on Labrie’s interjection. 

“You can learn the science and the materials,” he explains, “but you must ultimately be honed by the paintings, which is why the best people in the field brought an innate talent to many, many years of practice.”

So there is a level of intuition involved? 

“Bingo,” says Labrie, from behind her easel.  

What Naples and Labrie — and the newest member of their crew, Sarah Good — strive to do is preserve and restore fine art objects. Generally, this refers to any treatment or intervention that prolongs the life of a fine art object, which can be anything from a painting to a sculpture to a historical document. Naples and Labrie specialize in American paintings and have been working together since they were 24 years old.   

As art conservators, they are commissioned by collectors and museums to bring paintings back to life. The process is quite simple: A client brings them a painting he or she has purchased and asks them how much it will cost to conserve it — or, if the client is wise, Naples says, laughing, “He’ll ask ‘What does it need before I make the investment?’” 

An average conservation project costs between $5,000 and $10,000, so it certainly pays to be prudent. (A simple cleaning, typically costs $1,000.) 

A three-step program

The restoration process requires nearly as much forethought as hands-on work. Upon receiving a painting, Naples asks himself three important questions and carefully contemplates the answer to each. 

First: What am I trying to bring back?

Second: What am I trying to preserve?

Third: What materials am I going to use to achieve those ends?

Once he has connected these dots, he begins the physical restoration — a process that is, again, broken down into three steps. 

He starts with the structural stabilization of the painting, perhaps the removal of a facing from a prior conservation. He then cleans the painting, careful to erase any blemishes or signs of fatigue. Finally, he finishes with the cosmetic restoration, the actual application of new materials.

It is this last step that so deeply consumes Labrie behind her easel, her focus nearly undivided as Naples continues to ruminate on their craft.  

He is commenting on philosophy now, laying out the two competing ideologies that guide a conservator at work. On one side is the theory of reversibility, which calls for the exclusive use of materials that can be easily reversed or removed. On the other side is the theory of compatibility, which calls for the exclusive use of materials that are compatible with the original materials. 

Neither theory is inherently better than the other; the conservator must decide based on what he intuites from the painting. 

“That’s why conservators carry so much responsibility,” Naples explains. “There’s no universal measure, so you have to take everything on a case-by-case basis.” 

Naples, for his part, mostly leans toward reversibility, a tendency informed by the paintings he restores. But it all depends on how the conservator views a work of art, how he interprets it. 

“You don’t paint with your hands, you paint with your eyes,” he says. 

Gradually, Naples moves past process and theory and delves deeper into his purpose as an artist. A conservator’s goal, he explains, is to preserve the physical integrity of a fine art object and, more profoundly, to revive its spirit. The latter objective entails tapping into the artist’s original vision, and it is here that Naples errs on the side of restraint. 

“You try to bring the object back to an optimal state visually while being careful not to assume,” he says. “You don’t want to put too much of yourself in the painting.” 

There is a touch of tension in Naples’ voice as he describes this dilemma between reviving a painting and renovating it, between connecting with it and imposing on it. Striking this balance seems to be the conservator’s biggest challenge, and the fulcrum is painfully sensitive: one moment you’re hovering above an artist’s work, the next moment you’re crashing right into it.  

It is at this moment that Naples seems to answer that question — that “deep question” — laid out some twenty minutes prior: What is it about art conservation that appeals to him most? 

It is the conversation he creates with artists long gone, the connection he forms with paintings past their prime, and the dialogue he sparks between the past and the present.  

There is also an art gallery at the Naples Studio, open Thursday to Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. or by appointment (call 860-592-0700).