A Spanish pensioner tried to independently restore a 19th-century fresco - one of the main attractions of the local church. The result was disastrous.
A fresco by Elias García Martínez depicting Jesus Christ graced a church near Zaragoza for over a hundred years.
Art Over the years, it has received some damage: some of the fragments have been erased due to the high humidity in the room, and in some places the paint has crumbled.
Then the 80-year-old woman brought paints to the church and completed the missing details.
According to BBC correspondent Christian Fraser, instead of the Savior on the fresco, it turned out to be something similar to a hairy monkey in a shapeless tunic. Martinez's fine work was hidden by crudely applied paint.
The parishioner soon realized she had damaged the ancient work and contacted the local council, who are hoping to restore the fresco.
The image of the “restored” fresco spread all over the world and attracted the attention of thousands of Internet users.
“I am very glad that my church and my city became known to the whole world thanks to me, although this was not my intention when I began restoring the fresco,” explains Jimenez.
As a result of enormous attention and mass criticism, Jimenez felt acutely about what happened.
“She spends every summer in the temple,” explains Jose Maria Aznar, who is responsible for the maintenance of the church. “All these years, Cecilia has helped us restore the church without any problems. At first she was afraid to touch the fresco, seeing that it was badly damaged, but one morning she took her brushes and, without discussing it with anyone, began to “restore” it.
Although Ms. Jimenez has her detractors, many people support her. Hundreds of fans sent her letters of approval.
“I want to thank you for the support I receive from all over the world,” says Jimenez. “Thanks to her, I feel much better now.”
“She told my wife what she had done, she said, 'I retouched the mural and now it looks terrible, I have to leave town, I'll leave it like this for now, but when I come back I'll fix it,' explains Aznar. “But, despite her good will, I, as the person in charge of the temple, had to inform the mayor’s office of Borja.
After this, local authorities came to the church to analyze what happened. They later published their findings on a blog. They were posted on Facebook, and Borja and its residents gained worldwide fame.
Spanish art experts are planning to hold a meeting in the church to discuss the restoration plan.
Juan Maria Oeda, a member of the city council for cultural affairs, which is involved in the case, said that the culprit is ready to meet with experts and tell them what materials she used.
"I think she [the pensioner] had the best intentions. If we fail to restore the mural, we will hang a photo of the work on the wall of the church," Oeda said.
The artistic value of the fresco is not very great, but local residents appreciated it.
According to the BBC correspondent, as luck would have it, a local restoration center had just received a donation from the artist's granddaughter, which was intended to restore the fresco.
The task of restorers is to restore dilapidated and damaged works of art. Simply covering up or painting on will not work, otherwise the masterpiece will be ruined. But sometimes would-be professionals get down to business, after which either everything has to be redone, or nothing can be saved. When they see such work, art connoisseurs open a bottle of valerian.
"Furry Jesus"
The most sensational case of unsuccessful restoration occurred in Spain. 80-year-old Cecilia Jimenez volunteered to restore the fresco of Jesus that adorned the Temple of Mercy in the city of Borja. But for some reason it turned out completely different from the original. Perhaps the elderly woman’s eyesight failed her. The resulting painting was called “Furry Jesus.”
One can argue endlessly about whether Cecilia is guilty or not. On the one hand, the fresco was damaged. But on the other hand, the temple became famous all over the world, and Cecilia is now called the new Goya.
The heroes of the frescoes were deprived of their eyes
The restoration of the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel was the most extensive restoration work of the 20th century. But many art critics believe that her result is not the most successful.
When the craftsmen cleaned off the soot, they touched the top layer of frescoes with corrections by Michelangelo himself. As a result, some of the heroes of the frescoes lost their eyes.
Berlusconi's whims
In 2010, workers installed statues of Mars and Venus in front of Silvio Berlusconi's residence. But the statues were found with body parts missing. And Berlusconi ordered their restoration. Everything turned out quite well, but art critics did not appreciate the Prime Minister’s impulse. It is believed that "correction" of ancient sculptures is akin to vandalism, because we do not know what the statues originally looked like. After this criticism, Mars and Venus were returned to their original state.
Brightened the picture
The painting “St. Anne with the Madonna and Child Christ” was restored and turned out much brighter and lighter. If earlier dark shades predominated in the painting, then after restoration the painting became brighter, as if the action was taking place on a sunny day. According to experts, this contradicts da Vinci's vision. Some of the Louvre's advisory committee experts even stopped working in protest against this restoration.
Unrecognizable Lenin
Every Russian city has a statue. And in the Krasnodar region, one of the statues was unlucky: after restoration, Lenin received a disproportionately long arm and someone else’s face. It turns out that the monument stood in this form for a long time, until in 2016 photographs of this “obscenity” became widespread. This story even appeared on central television, after which the leader of the world proletariat was remade.
the great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China is the largest architectural monument. Unfortunately, it is slowly being destroyed.
Several years ago, restorers unsuccessfully reconstructed one of the most beautiful sections of the wall, 780 meters long, by simply covering it with concrete. The matter is currently under investigation and the restoration of the rest of the wall will be given more consideration.
Matrera Castle
The reconstruction of the ancient Matrera fortress in Spain turned out to be very controversial: the tower began to look too modern. It turned out that the restorer Carlos Quevado wanted to show which part of the fortress is new and which is ancient. By the way, Architizer, a reputable community of architects, took Quevado’s side. But local residents are still unhappy.
Tutankhamun's beard
In 2014, an employee of the Cairo Museum dropped a 10-kilogram gold mask, and the beard fell off the relic. Instead of going to professionals, the woman turned to her restorer husband.
He glued the goatee with superglue. And even at the wrong angle. In addition, he stained Tutankhamun's chin with glue, decided to scrape it off and scratched the mask. Fortunately, it was recently restored properly.
Baby with someone else's head
The sculpture of the Madonna and Baby Jesus in the Canadian city of Sudbury was once damaged by vandals: the baby's head was broken off and stolen.
Artist Heather Wise volunteered to remedy the situation. But the result of her work looked more than strange and caused discontent among local residents. The head of the sculpture bears a strong resemblance to the youngest character of The Simpsons, Maggie.
But in the end, Heather's actions played a positive role in this story: the man who stole the real head became embarrassed (apparently by Heather's work) and returned it. The sculpture has been restored.
It is worth noting that cases of unsuccessful restoration of works of art are rare. Today, thanks to the painstaking work of restorers, countless works by masters of the past have been preserved. One good example is this sculpture of an angel in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.
In 2012, a rather curious scandal occurred in the art world: everyone rushed to repost the news about the Spanish pensioner Cecilia Jimenez, who “restored” a fresco from the beginning of the 20th century.
The mural, entitled Ecce Homo (“Behold the Man”), was a local landmark in the small Spanish town of Borja. It was indeed in a deplorable state, but the result of the work of the self-proclaimed restorer both horrified and amused the public. Instead of the face of Christ, from the wall of the temple there was now, as a BBC correspondent put it, “a monkey in an ill-fitting jacket.” On the Internet, the pensioner’s work has also become known as “Furry Jesus.”
Ironically, a relative of the author of the fresco, the artist Elias Garcia Martinez, sent funds to the temple to restore its work, but the help was late: by that time Jimenez had already managed to complete what she started. The news spread across all news channels around the world, and instantly acquired the status of a meme on the Internet, provoking an avalanche of cartoons.
Under a barrage of condemnation from the press, church ministers rushed to make excuses, fenced off the “scene of the incident” and organized a committee to restore the fresco.
But then things took an unexpected turn: crowds of tourists poured into a hitherto unknown town with a population of 5 thousand people and reigning unemployment!
The city's income increased significantly, and the church, not at a loss, again opened access to the fresco and began charging visitors an entrance fee. Cecilia Jimenez, who at first asked for forgiveness for her vandalism, also changed her attitude to the situation, hired a lawyer and began to demand royalties for her work.
For several years now, tens of thousands of tourists have been flocking to the Temple of Mercy, located in the Spanish city of Borja. They want to look at one small fresco depicting Jesus Christ with their own eyes. But instead of awe, some people burst into involuntary giggles, while others look away in bewilderment. The fact is that the fresco has been restored. But it turned into something completely unimaginable.
An 83-year-old resident of the Spanish city of Borja, Cecilia Jimenez, was not thinking anything bad when she offered her help in the restoration of the fresco “Ecce Homo”, created by the artist Elias García Martinez in 1932. The painting began to crumble and threatened to disappear completely, so with the permission of the rector of the temple, the parishioner began restoration paintings. It took her 2 years.
When people saw the updated fresco, many could not say anything from the shock they experienced. Instead of Jesus, there was now a creature from children's drawings. Some called the mural a “potato with eyes,” others called it a “monkey,” and still others called it “Fluffy Jesus.” Relatives of the artist who painted the fresco even wanted to sue the elderly woman.
Cecilia Jimenez sincerely did not understand what she had done wrong when a flurry of indignation and reproaches rained down on her from all sides.
However, ironically, the town has become popular among tourists. Everyone wanted to see what the old lady had done with the fresco. Soon the temple servants introduced a symbolic entrance fee, and souvenir shops appeared nearby on the street. When Cecilia Jimenez found out about this, she immediately went to demand her share of the profits. The authorities met the woman halfway because, thanks to her “restoration” and the influx of tourists, the economy of the city of Borja has stabilized.
Some art historians have already attributed “Furry Jesus” to the “primitivism” painting style and compared it with the works of such masters as Goya and Munch.
By the way, the work of Edvard Munch was also perceived ambiguously by his contemporaries.
80-year-old amateur artist Cecilia Giménez had nothing but good intentions when she turned her attention to the deteriorating fresco of Jesus Christ on the wall of the Cathedral of Mercy in the small Spanish town of Borja.
The mural, entitled "Ecce Homo" (meaning "Here is the man"), was created by Spanish artist Elías García Martínez in 1930. Although the work was generally considered by the press to have "little artistic value" because "Martinez is not a great artist and his painting Ecce Homo is not a 'masterpiece,'" the fresco nevertheless acquired some sentimental value among the local population.
So, when the original paint on the fresco began to peel, Cecilia Jimenez, who had no special training, took on the task of restoring the aging artwork.
The damaged fresco "Ecce Homo" on the left and its "restored" version on the right.
Jimenez touched up the painting stroke by stroke for several years with the knowledge of the parish priest and church guards, until one day in the summer of 2012 she decided that the fresco needed a major restoration. In the middle of the "restoration process", Jimenez went on vacation because the work took much longer than she expected. The woman intended to complete it upon her return, but, for better or worse, she never got the chance again.
By the time she returned from vacation, the general public had learned of her failed efforts, and Jimenez had become a worldwide laughing stock. The failed restoration became a major topic on the Internet, spawning many memes and jokes on the World Wide Web. Journalists compared the restoration to how the famous character Mr. Bean, played by Rowan Atkinson, ruined the painting “Whistler’s Mother”. Some compared the painting to a blurry image of a potato and a monkey. Others called her "Furry Jesus" and "Ecce Mono" ("Behold the Monkey").
Jimenez felt so humiliated that she cried for days and refused to eat, according to her family. As a result, the woman had to seek help from a psychiatrist and take medication. At some point, the heirs of Garcia Martinez threatened to sue Cecilia Jimenez for damaging the painting, but, fortunately for her, they did not follow through.
The original intact painting (left), the damaged painting (middle), and Cecilia Jimenez's restoration (right).
Nowadays, in a strange twist of fate, the small, little-known town of Borja has suddenly appeared on the international tourist route. Every year, tens of thousands of curious visitors with a strange sense of humor come from far corners of the world to witness the tragic fiasco for themselves and go home with various souvenirs such as mugs and T-shirts featuring the "new and improved" Ecce Homo mural.
Cecilia Jimenez, whose failed attempt to restore a church painting once drew mockery and ridicule, is now a local celebrity. She is presenting prizes in a competition for young artists who paint their own versions of "Ecce Homo." People recognize her on the street and shout: "It's Cecilia! It's Cecilia!" It even has 49% of the revenue from the sale of souvenirs. The rest goes to the family of the artist Martinez.
Cecilia Jimenez may not have been able to restore the painting, but she managed to revive the destiny of her city. The influx of tourists has helped stabilize Borja's economy, reeling from the economic downturn that has plagued the rest of Spain over the past few years.
"For me it's a story of faith," said Andrew Flack, the opera librettist who wrote a comic opera about how one woman defaced a fresco and saved the city. "It's a miracle how she was able to help tourism flourish!"
“Why do people come to look at the fresco if it is such a work of art?” he asks. “This is a kind of pilgrimage, transformed by the media into a phenomenon. The ways of God are mysterious. Your catastrophe may turn into a miracle for me.”
Mr. Bean's "Restored" painting by James McNeill Whistler "Arrangement in Gray and Black: The Artist's Mother" from the film "Mr. Bean", 1997
Assortment of souvenirs "Ecce Homo".
A collection of Internet memes about the failed restoration of the "Ecce Homo" fresco.
Tourists line up to look at the church painting "Ecce Homo" on the altar at the Shrine of Mercy in Borja, Spain.
