WHEN AN OIL portray is dried and completed, it’s supposed to remain that method. But when Ida Bronken, an artwork conservator, started to arrange Jean-Paul Riopelle’s “Composition 1952” for show in 2006, she observed drops of moist paint have been trickling down the canvas from deep throughout the masterpiece’s layers. Equally odd have been the tiny, arduous, white lumps poking by means of the portray’s floor, as if it had a case of adolescent pimples. Different sections appeared comfortable and moist; some paint layers have been coming aside “like two items of buttered bread”, Ms Bronken says.
