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.
People build houses and paint pictures, create household items and art. By coming into contact with such objects every day, we unconsciously “influence” them, leading to wear and destruction. Houses become cracked like the paint on a painting, clothes wear out, and books become scuffed. That is why, along with the art of creation, the art of restoration appeared - restoration. Anything that loses its aesthetic appearance at a certain stage of time needs restoration. This is a responsible and labor-intensive process that requires the practical skills of an artist, and therefore history knows not only high-quality examples of restorations, but also very depressing ones. About such unsuccessful examples of restoration of works of art in this article.
Brighter, higher, stronger!
French art experts started a real scandal, accusing the Louvre of a terrible restoration. It is worth noting that we are talking about a painting by Leonardo da Vinci. This is not an ordinary portrait of a noble person, but a work painted with the brush of the greatest master of painting. The essence of the accusations boils down to the excessive brightness that the canvas acquired after restoration work. This degree of brightness, according to experts, does not correspond to the author’s original idea. The Louvre notes that this was the most discussed restoration of all that was planned, and the committee approached the work with particular care. But these are all colorful words, but in fact, two representatives of the museum left the committee in protest against the inappropriate restoration. These are Ségolène Bergeon Langle, who was responsible for the work of restorers in all the national museums of France, and Jean-Pierre Cusant, the former curator of paintings at the Louvre. In their opinion, during the restoration work, important analyzes were not carried out that would determine the harmful effects of a potent solvent. Langal and Cusan generally considered the use of solvent unacceptable, but British masters stated that the materials would not spoil Leonardo’s unique pictorial effect, called sfumato. The committee ultimately assessed the work of the restorers as acceptable, but independent experts agree that lightening the surface significantly spoiled the painting. Perhaps the British restorers added brightness so that we could see the masterpiece as it originally looked in da Vinci’s workshop, because some paint pigments darken over time and lose their richness.
Sad pictures
Restoration of historical heritage is always of great importance in every state. These could be castles, buildings, paintings or frescoes. In our case, the object of work was a centuries-old fresco of the Qing Dynasty, located in the temple on Phoenix Mountain. The drawings that adorned the walls were in a deplorable state, the outlines of the figures had lost clarity, and the paint, worn out by time, had noticeably peeled off. The enterprising rector of the temple himself organized a collection of donations for restoration; this required 660 thousand dollars. During the restoration work, many violations were committed, and the saddest thing is that the artist practically painted new characters that do not repeat the plot of the original painting. Restoration categorically does not allow the creation of a new image on top of the old one, but only touches up the necessary fragments. Visitors to the temple note that the beautiful fresco has been hopelessly damaged and looks like a cheap decoration. Two officials responsible for carrying out such work were fired, but the customer noted that he was satisfied with the result. Unfortunately, it is obvious that the use of simple colors and the artist’s style showed the world cartoon scenes in the halls of an ancient Chinese temple.
Fluffy Jesus
Sometimes unsuccessful restorations can become the object of more than just disappointment and criticism. This happened with the fresco depicting the image of Christ in the Temple of Mercy. The temple is located in the provincial town of Bohra, the author of the fresco is Elias Garcia Martinez. A parishioner of the temple decided that the work needed restoration work and decided to personally do it. In 2010, 80-year-old pensioner Cecilia Jimenez began personal restoration; according to her, the rector of the temple allowed her to do this, but this information was not officially confirmed. The process was completed in the summer of 2012, and Cecilia’s work literally blew up the Internet when the pictures went online. The finished work resembled more of a hairy monkey or, upon closer inspection, a Jesus in a fur hat. Experts were outraged, summing up that this was the worst restoration work in history. Perhaps this is so, but Cecilia Jimenez, in addition to her ill-wishers, had defenders who pointed out the old age of the pensioner, and the uproar was a consequence of her kindness and desire to help the temple. And the help was really significant. The unsuccessful restoration attracted a huge number of tourists, and the temple collected charitable donations amounting to over 50 thousand euros.
wet business
Innovative artists surprise the public not with paintings that are familiar to the eye, but with installations and art objects that are assembled from all available materials. Contemporary art goes so far beyond understanding that sometimes very funny things happen to it. One of these occurred in the Dortmund gallery with the participation of a conscientious cleaning lady. The woman who kept order ruined the work of art, thinking it was just a wet spot. The piece was called “When the Ceiling Started to Dribble” by sculptor Martin Kipenberger. The art object was a rubber trough, inside of which there was a wooden tower made of boards. The lime mortar at the bottom of the container imitated rainwater and was an integral part of the composition. The hardworking cleaning lady, however, made her own adjustments and carefully wiped up the puddle. The sculpture is valued at 800 thousand euros and was rented by the gallery from a private collector. Gallery workers claim that the job cannot be restored, and the unfortunate cleaning lady, whose details have not been disclosed, was reprimanded.
» in original form (left)
and after “restoration” (right)
Write a review about the article "Furry Jesus"
Notes
Links
- /lenta.ru
Excerpt describing Furry Jesus
"Aliment de poison d"une ame trop sensible,"Toi, sans qui le bonheur me serait impossible,
"Tendre melancolie, ah, viens me consoler,
“Viens calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite
"Et mele une douceur secrete
"A ces pleurs, que je sens couler."
[Poisonous food for an overly sensitive soul,
You, without whom happiness would be impossible for me,
Tender melancholy, oh, come and comfort me,
Come, soothe the torment of my dark solitude
And add secret sweetness
To these tears that I feel flowing.]
Julie played Boris the saddest nocturnes on the harp. Boris read Poor Liza aloud to her and more than once interrupted his reading from the excitement that took his breath away. Meeting in a large society, Julie and Boris looked at each other as the only indifferent people in the world who understood each other.
Anna Mikhailovna, who often went to the Karagins, making up her mother’s party, meanwhile made correct inquiries about what was given for Julie (both Penza estates and Nizhny Novgorod forests were given). Anna Mikhailovna, with devotion to the will of Providence and tenderness, looked at the refined sadness that connected her son with the rich Julie.
“Toujours charmante et melancolique, cette chere Julieie,” she said to her daughter. - Boris says that he rests his soul in your house. “He has suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive,” she told her mother.
“Oh, my friend, how attached I have become to Julie lately,” she said to her son, “I can’t describe to you!” And who can not love her? This is such an unearthly creature! Ah, Boris, Boris! “She fell silent for a minute. “And how I feel sorry for her maman,” she continued, “today she showed me reports and letters from Penza (they have a huge estate) and she is poor, all alone: she is being so deceived!
Boris smiled slightly as he listened to his mother. He meekly laughed at her simple-minded cunning, but listened and sometimes asked her carefully about the Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates.
Julie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholic admirer and was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of disgust for her, for her passionate desire to get married, for her unnaturalness, and a feeling of horror at renouncing the possibility of true love still stopped Boris. His vacation was already over. He spent whole days and every single day with the Karagins, and every day, reasoning with himself, Boris told himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in the presence of Julie, looking at her red face and chin, almost always covered with powder, at her moist eyes and at the expression of her face, which always expressed a readiness to immediately move from melancholy to the unnatural delight of marital happiness, Boris could not utter a decisive word: despite the fact that for a long time in his imagination he considered himself the owner of Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates and distributed the use of income from them. Julie saw Boris's indecisiveness and sometimes the thought occurred to her that she was disgusted with him; but immediately the woman’s self-delusion came to her as a consolation, and she told herself that he was shy only out of love. Her melancholy, however, began to turn into irritability, and not long before Boris left, she undertook a decisive plan. At the same time that Boris's vacation was ending, Anatol Kuragin appeared in Moscow and, of course, in the Karagins' living room, and Julie, unexpectedly leaving melancholy, became very cheerful and attentive to Kuragin.
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.
