A light touch for Rothko murals
What would the famously exacting abstract artist Mark Rothko think about using a ghostlike technology to recapture the vibrancy of his faded Harvard murals, a virtual restoration that can disappear with the flip of a switch? Experts never like to speculate on the original intentions or interests of an artist, but someone intimately close to the late painter is a fan. Christopher Rothko, the guardian of much of his father’s work, was initially unsure about the restoration technique, which was developed over several years by a Harvard team with help from experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But when he saw a test run of the technology at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum last year and observed light from a digital projector preserving his father’s vibrant brushstrokes while restoring the faded murals’ rich hues, he was “surprised and thrilled,” said Mary Schneider Enriquez, the Houghton Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. “It...