Museums and conservation

The twelfth entry is le craquelé, the net of fine cracks across a paint surface, and it is the past participle of craquer put to work as a noun. The verb is worth more than the noun here, because it spends most of its life outside the studio, in three turns of phrase English does not share. Plein à craquer is the commonest: a train, a hall, a suitcase filled to the point where the seams would give. English reaches for a different picture every time, « packed » or « bursting at the seams ». Craquer pour quelque chose is to give in to something one likes, so j’ai craqué pour cette gravure is not a complaint but an admission of pleasure. And il a craqué, said of a person, means the person broke down under strain and stopped coping. Only the third of the three has an English twin, « he cracked », which is precisely why the other two catch a reader out. Under all of them lies the same small noise, the sound of something giving way — and on the canvas of this entry that noise has been made visible.