Art Review : The Resurrection of ‘Madonna and Child’ : Rogier van der Weyden’s masterpiece, on view at the Getty, hasn’t looked so good in 500 years.

Certainly among the rarest and arguably the finest old master painting in California is the Huntington Gallery’s “Madonna and Child.” Made by the legendary 15th-Century Flemish master Rogier van der Weyden, the late work is on loan to the J. Paul Getty Museum where it has been newly restored by paintings conservator Mark Leonard. It’s now on view in an installation by curator Arianne Faber Kolb alongside two Getty paintings by Rogier followers.

One is “The Dream of Pope Sergius,” whose toy-like town scape bespeaks the peace of Christian faith. The other is a “Deposition” that echoes Rogier’s masterpiece in Madrid’s Prado museum.

Rogier’s genius lay in his ability to take the then avant-garde realism of the Van Eyck brothers and meld it with the undulating decorative line of the Middle Ages. The result is a combination of optical believability and spiritual poetry that conveys a sense of the Christian religious experience that is still moving.

The “Deposition’s” rhythm of downward curves suggests a dirge accompanying the grieving Mary when, later, she rocks the body of the crucified Christ as if he were still a child.

He is in “Madonna and Child.” He wriggles from Mary’s arms to play with the Holy Book, not knowing what it contains for him. Mary looks on, sweetly sad, as if she senses what is in store for the infant she knows to have no father but God. She is heavily draped as if already in mourning.

It has always been a poignant picture. In the past one wondered if that quality were not in part produced by its rather shabby physical condition. In Paris, before its acquisition by the Huntingtons in 1907, French conservators found its original wood paneling badly deteriorated. They painstakingly transferred the painting to canvas. The Huntington put it back on wood but it still bore the imprinted texture of the fabric and a nasty seam where the original support had cracked.

Leonard undertook the picture as part of a Getty program to assist other museums in the restoration of important paintings.

Cleaning uncovered the old fissure and numerous gaps in the paint, but a picture otherwise in sound condition. Leonard fixed the damage with the care of a human computer painting one pixel at a time. In the process he discovered interesting stuff about Rogier’s working methods.

Using a technique of Medieval artists, Rogier rendered Christ’s halo with narrow strokes of viscous paint radiating from the child’s head. These he covered with a sheet of gold leaf. When the paint was dry, he brushed away the excess leaf adding a magical effect in the otherwise highly realistic scene.

Depicted fabric and ornament seem to have physical substance. Flesh tones radiate the diaphanous glow of baby skin. The final restoration is as close as human ingenuity can get to a resurrection.

Also newly on view is a show of 25 master drawings called “16th-Century Ornamental Designs.” It’s a useful reminder that old masters we now consider geniuses were also craftsmen working for patrons who did not always require the Sistine Ceiling.

What I need today, Albrecht, is a nice design for my armorial signet ring.

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If you were Albrecht Durer you probably grumbled to yourself about being under-appreciated by dunderhead fellow Germans, but you did it. Nice too.

Taddeo Zuccaro was considered a great artist in his day but he did not shy off the occasional design for a majolica or metal plate. Why should he when the ring of pagan nude lovers and warriors displays a talent equally at home doing grand domed ceilings.

It was all part of the job and not insignificant. Hans Baldung Grien was willing to subdue some of the weirdness of his proto-surreal style in his stained glass design, “A Monk Preaching.” The high Mannerist Domenico Beccafumi’s “Study for a Figure of Abraham” was for the pavement of a big commission he held for the cathedral of Sienna. Baldessare Peruzzi, a follower of Raphael, designed an altar for the same cathedral.

Scholars love this sort of thing because it gives them the look of lost ornamental objects. Artists probably liked it because it was often a mark of their ability to handle projects both grand and intimate, the latter allowing them to let their hair down a bit.

The Dutch Friedrich Sustris seems to relish the idea of doing an image of “Angels Bearing the Column of the Passion” for the etched glass lid of a reliquary. The contrast of weight and flight likely struck him as perfect for the translucent material.

Whimsy predominates in Theodor de Bry’s design for a pendant where an owl sits on a grape vine holding a jewel aloft.

Both patron and artist seem decidedly light-hearted in Hieronymus Lang’s design for a stained glass roundel with the arms of a married couple. In it a winsome lass holding a distaff gives a saucy glance to a farmer bearing a decidedly blunt but impotent implement.

* J. Paul Getty Museum, 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. Rogier van der Weyden through Oct. 7, “Ornamental Designs” through Aug. 14, Parking reservations required, (310) 458-2003, closed Mondays.