DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF LEGIBILITY IN RESTORATION OF POLYCHROME WOOD SCULPTURES

Abstract

The concept of legibility applied to restoration procedures of religious sculptures with devotional and museological functions is often used in the development of intervention criteria in restoration objects. In defining these criteria, legibility may be related to other concepts of restoration theories, to the function of the restoration object and to the subject or community that owns the object. The aim of this article is to discuss the concept of legibility used in the restoration of devotional sculptures of active worship and museological function. We will exemplify this through monographs written by students of the course Conservation-restoration of movable cultural assets at the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, who used this concept as a guide in the restoration of polychrome wooden sculptures from the 18th and 19th centuries, belonging to the Archdioceses of Belo Horizonte and Diamantina, in Minas Gerais, Brazil.