Műemlék-helyreállítások tegnap, ma, holnap (A 27. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1997 Eger, 1997)

Előadások - Herb STOVEL: Authenticity, as it he Nara Document and as relates to the restoration of historic monuments

faith. People spoke of authentic relics and their authenticity was given by the proclamation of someone in authority who said, this relic of the true cross is authentic. There was no effort to define or to understand whether the material genuine or real, only whether the church said that it was real. So the church, as the voice of authority gave credibility to these relics, gave credibility to objects. By the 18th century however you can begin to see people use authenticity in relation to what is geniune, and real, as opposed to what is a copy, in fashion, very similar to our own thinking. In the least 20 or 30 years you will often find authenticity used inter-changeably with integrity in the conservation world. It is of interest in the context of the Heritage Convention to understand that cultural heritage placed on the List, must meet the test of authenticity, while natural heritage, proposed for the World Heritage List, must meet the test of integrity. Two different words used inside the same convention for more or less the same quality. I am not trying to go into details only to suggest, that this is an area which is concerned of many of those who write about this subject, trying to understand how the word and its use has changed over time. My third point. Sometimes you see people beginning to use word ..authenticity" to focus on specific opinions or specific beliefs that they hold to be true. You will find for e. g. in the fashion of Ruskin that some will speak about ruins as authentic (John Ruskin, 19th c. writer). For Ruskin one must not interfere with the ruins, one must allow them to retains as authenticity and to slowly decay. Others, coming from often different cultures, equally passionately use the word to talk about reconstruction. Other speakers, other writers focused on authenticity as a value itself, as something, that has a kind of absolute, independent existence. You can see that in some ways I expressed my opinions here, because I put some questionmarks next to this point. My questionmarks concern those writers who are prepared to say, „this is authentic, it may not have value, but it is authentic and for me it is important to link authenticity to value. " There is another group who make the point that authenticity and how we use it depends very much on the cultral context in which it is applied. These people say that really we cannot define universal criteria that are applicable everywhere, all we can do is allow each culture to define what is appropriate in its own context. To give my own opinion again, while I generally believe this is true and in fact this is the thrust of the Nara document, if taken to an extreme, this can also be a dangerous point of view. This has allowed some groups to say, „I am different from you and therefore I can do what I want. I will define my own conservation criteria and I do not need to discuss with you or with any other groups." And it has been taken so far as to become a kind of invasion of responsibility for what the heritage values are for the larger population. These are five viewpoints, commonly expressed, there are more in any other academic discussion, but for me none of these provide the significant focus on the authenticity debate. Here is a way, we come to the context of the Nara document. And the context for that document and the context for the discussion of authenticity is quite specific. It simply asks a question, how does our understanding help us make better conservation decisions? It does not concern itself with definitions, with history, with different disciplines, viewpoints; it says, how do we, in conservation make practical and good decisions by using this concept in our thinking? I found in the contribution of Roberto Di Stefano, a former president of ICOMOS, in his paper for the Nara conference one sentence, which sums it up very well He says; „To be profitable, the debate on authenticity must seek rigourously to improve the quality, the objectivity, the effectiveness of actions to protect the world heritage." So his viewpoint is practical, not academic. And I believe, that is, what the Nara Document contributes to the conservation field. I try to summarize the 3 or 4 main points that the document makes. A few words about the meeting in Nara, so to know where that document came from. The meeting in