Painting Failures

Why Paintings Deteriorate

For over a hundred years, most causes of paint failures have been studied: humidity, temperature, and paint embrittlement. The symptoms were obvious—cracking, delaminating, and paint loss—but the causes were not. Conservation workers gradually formed concepts about the causes of cracking and paint loss of old paintings. The paint industry studied failures in paint films. Artists developed their own ideas but remained largely unaware of the research from the conservation community and the coatings industry.

This course explains why paintings deteriorate and provides the primary causes of paint failures.

This is the cornerstone course for the Painting Best Practices Foundation series of courses.