This first volume of the Getty Conservation Institute's 'Readings in Conservation' series presents a comprehensive collection of texts on the conservation of art and architecture. Designed for students of art history as well as conservation, the book consists of 46 texts, many originally published in obscure or foreign journals. The 30 art historians and scholars represented raise questions such as when to restore, what to preserve and how to maintain aesthetic character. Excerpts have been selected from the following books and essays: John Ruskin 'The Seven Lamps of Architecture'; Bernard Berenson 'Aesthetics and History in the Visual Arts'; Clive Bell 'The Aesthetic Hypothesis'; Cesare Brandi 'Theory of Restoration'; Kenneth Clark 'Looking at Pictures'; Erwin Panofsky 'The History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline'; E.H. Gombrich 'Art and Illusion'; Marie Cl. Berducou 'The Conservation of Archaeology: and Paul Philipott 'Restoration from the Perspective of the Social Sciences'.