No noise and dust

The Hermitage gained trump cards in the fight against concerts on Palace Square

In his long-standing fight to limit or ban concerts on Palace Square, the director of the State Hermitage Museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky, received the help of experts. The first study of the effects of noise on exhibits in one of the world's greatest museums has been completed.

Ten concerts on Palace Square with a sound level of over 82 decibels take more than a year of life from the unique exhibits of the Hermitage. Experts from the All-Russian Art Scientific and Restoration Center named after I.E. told a Vremya Novostey correspondent about this. Grabar, who studied how acoustic influences affect ancient books, paintings and sculpture.

The results of this study were adopted by the State Hermitage Museum, whose leadership continues to fight against holding “high-profile” events on Palace Square. And lately there have been quite a lot of them passing in front of the main entrance to the museum. In this case, high-power acoustic systems are usually used, which create vibrations of glass in the windows and display cases of the museum. And most importantly, sound affects works of art. Meanwhile, museum storage requirements limit not only humidity and temperature regimes, but even the speed of air movement in the premises.

“We are not against concerts on Palace Square. And we even welcome classical music concerts. But the sound level in the halls of the Hermitage should not exceed 80-82 decibels. And this applies not only to our museum, but to any repository of cultural property,” says Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky.

Sometimes the speakers fulfill Mr. Piotrovsky's personal request and turn down the amplifiers. But the museum does not always have enough arguments. And then the Hermitage staff only have to watch how the priceless canvases vibrate. Moreover, as Vremya Novostey was told in the Hermitage, sometimes you can actually see this with your own eyes. And in order to influence the intractable concert organizers, you need some kind of document. Therefore, about a year and a half ago, the Hermitage commissioned an examination of the impact of loud music on the museum complex.

At the beginning of the research, experts determined the maximum level of vibration on the surface of the paintings in the halls of the Hermitage on ordinary days, as well as the sound pressure levels in these rooms during the performance of the Rolling Stones on July 28, 2007. The sound level then averaged 88 decibels.

The experts spent the rest of the time in the laboratories of the Grabar center, experimenting on samples. According to research results, the impact of sound is most strongly reflected on paintings. The final report talks about the physical and mechanical vibrations of canvases, the combined effect of oxygen, light and humidity fluctuations, and other parameters of the impact of loud sound on the Hermitage exhibits. According to experts, together all these factors “contribute to the accelerated penetration of water vapor with pollutants into the structure of materials and the unpredictable acceleration of the aging process of paintings.” And “an asymmetrical distribution of humidity under the influence of a high-frequency acoustic field, which promotes drying, can cause the formation or multiple increase of craquelure, peeling and scree of paint layers.”

To put it simply, ten two-hour concerts age the paintings by one year. A 200-hour exposure to long-term, repeated sound vibrations at a high sound pressure level (80-82 dB) lasts for 35-40 years.

As Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky told Vremya Novostei, the published study is only the first stage: “We have already forgotten what noise is. Some research is being conducted on this topic in Moscow. We first need to understand what it is. After all, there are no standards, There are no factors that determine the degree of impact of noise vibrations in various conditions, among St. Petersburg cultural and architectural monuments. The impact of sound on painting is only part of the big problem. Moreover, we are experiencing global opposition to all our initiatives. , with the Krylov Institute (St. Petersburg Central Research Institute named after Academician Krylov, is engaged, in particular, in hydro- and aerodynamic research. -- Ed. ), we are conducting research in this direction. Specialists take thousands of measurements. The interaction between noise and architectural structures is currently being studied. When we collect enough materials, we will present them to the authorities or come up with a legislative initiative."

Mikhail TELEKHOV, St. Petersburg