"It's hard to imagine a Renaissance painting without the Renaissance," Miguel Angel Corzo says. "The Rest on the Flight to Egypt with John the Baptist is a beautiful painting, but beauty is not its only value. It reflects a revival of classical heritage, recognition of the greater pleasures of life -- the epoch in which it was created.

"Looking at a painting or cultural artifact without considering its context devalues the work of art," he says.

Whether you interpret a cultural heritage site as an archaeologist, study its friezes as an art historian, pray in its sacred places as a shaman, or visit the ancient ruin as a tourist, you benefit from experiencing art where artists created it.

"Yes! There is beauty in a painting. Yes! There is beauty in architecture. Yes! There is beauty in an archaeological artifact. But what about the cultures that created them?" Miguel Angel asks.

"Why should all the kouroi (statues of athletic, young men) be in the National Museum in Athens? Archaeologists excavated them from several sites throughout Greece," he says. "It would be a far richer experience if a visitor went to the Acropolis and saw some of them there."

Leslie Rainer and Francesca Piqué apply the final touches to restoration of a royal bas-relief from Abomey, Benin.

Neville Agnew, a group director at the Getty Conservation Institute, adds: "Cultural heritage sites may have scientific, aesthetic, religious and economic values.

"An appreciation of these values offers the visitor a deeper understanding of a work of art."

Most of the 440 places chosen by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as World Heritage Sites, including the rock art paintings of Baja California, Mexico, the Mayan site of Copán of Honduras and the Forbidden City of Beijing, are threatened by the forces of nature and modern society.

"Unchecked development, pollution, mass tourism, warfare and the forces of nature are destroying in one generation an artistic legacy that took humanity centuries to create," Neville says.

hominid footprint: Getty Conservation Institute scientists produced this representation of a Laetoli footprint by overlapping two high-resolution images. The deep impression at the bottom of this contour map suggests that the hominid who made this print walked like a modern human, carrying most of the weight on its heel.

Archaeologists, conservators, engineers and scientists from the Getty Conservation Institute explored ways to preserve humid archaeological sites in Belize. They discovered techniques to prevent salt crystals from destroying the wall paintings in the Tomb of Queen Nefertari in Egypt. They pioneered ways to preserve wall paintings and archaeological sites along China's Silk Road. They worked alongside government and tribal leaders to preserve the 3.6 million-year-old footprints of humankind's earliest ancestors in Tanzania and developed coatings to protect the 14^th century mosaic that decorates the façade of St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague.

Neville Agnew concludes: "It is our duty as stewards of cultural heritage to make sure that we pass on to future generations what we inherited."

Thomas Ulrich writes for Hewlett-Packard and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Christina Lopp is a visual interaction designer for Hewlett-Packard in the Bay Area.

Note: On November 30, 1998, Miquel Angel Corzo left the GCI to create cultural projects and partnerships throughout Los Angeles and the world.

All images courtesy of the Getty Conservation Institute,
Los Angeles, California, (c) 1998 The J. Paul Getty Trust

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