Arius is working to set new industry standards in digital archiving of fine art. Far beyond current condition report standards, Arius can accurately map both geometry and colour values for millions of data points creating an accurate digital record which can be pulled for comparison in years to come. If a painting is lost to fire or flood there will be a highly accurate digital record that ensures the cultural significance of a piece is not entirely lost. Banking high-quality data sets enable future restoration and preservation.
One of our future initiatives is to create an industry standard secure digital signature for authentication of art – the art equivalent of a VIN number on a classic car. This could underpin essential provenance records that are in demand more than ever before.
Our technology would enable authentication without the need for a physical tag or any surface contact, useful for both historical and contemporary art at risk of unauthorized reproduction.
Arius optical scanning and digitization can be used to inspect the fragile surfaces of masterpieces to identify early signs of degradation.
Each pixel simultaneously captures both colour and geometry, so there is no misalignment.
Changes in the paint surface due to deterioration or damage from smoke can be detected even when it can’t be seen by the human eye.
Using the precision and accuracy of Arius data sets, combined with our expertise in elevated printing technology, near perfect reproductions are now possible.
This enables museums and collectors to display, or work with, accurate representations of art without risking damage to the originals. This also has the potential to enable more innovative art exhibitions in situations where it is impossible for the original to leave a secure facility.
When a painting is badly damaged, or severely degraded, the risks associated with restoration increase significantly.
Conservators can utilize Arius’ data to plan solutions on digital models, which can also be prototyped with our textured reproduction capability.
By virtually restoring a painting without even touching its surface, Arius is creating a new paradigm for art restoration.
In this video, Arius Technology’s Chief Technology Officer, Mike Jackson, and the National Gallery of Canada’s Director of Conservation and Technical Research, Stephen Gritt address the challenges of paint degradation with impressionist artwork. They discuss how they digitally restored a Claude Monet masterpiece and then produced a highly accurate textured reproduction capturing both the colour and geometry of Monet’s brushstrokes as they appeared on the day they were painted.