Voces del Prado

“I’m Still Learning”: A Reflection on the Profession

Rafael Alonso Alonso, Restorer, 1978-2016

When you’re a student and you have little knowledge, as in everything, you believe you can do anything. But as you progress, you see that you must do things with greater tranquillity. Even today, after so many years of experience, I still get scared, even with the best-known painters, who are the ones I have worked on the most. You have to be extremely careful, you can’t become complacent, because every picture is different. Of course, every painter is different, but even within the body of work of each painter, not all pictures are painted in the same manner. You have to take into account the technical developments undergone by each artist. The state of preservation of the pictures is not the same either, nor the circumstances through which the painting has come to you. So you are always dealing with something new, something unknown. You have to observe the work, study it, find out everything you can about its history, about the circumstances in which it has existed, about the restorations it has already undergone … so that you know as much about it as possible. Because if you don’t know the picture, it’s difficult to carry out a good restoration. So as you get older and you work more years, you become increasingly aware of how important your intervention is, and that you really don’t know anything. You have to learn every day. As Goya declares in his drawing of an old man, I’m Still Learning. If you ever say to yourself, “now I know everything, I’ve got nothing left to learn”, then that’s when you should stop working, because it’s dangerous.