Unsuccessful restoration of works of art. Ecce Homo: the ruined fresco that saved the city (6 photos) Restored Jesus

On August 21, a small article appeared in the Spanish edition of Heraldo, which talked about how terrible a resident of the small town of Borja, an 80-year-old pensioner, restored the mural "Ecce Homo" ("Behold the Man"), painted by artist Elias Garcia Martinez. Photos of the fresco depicting Jesus Christ before and after the restoration were attached to the publication. On the updated version of the work, Christ was unrecognizable - the fresco began to resemble a child's drawing depicting either a monkey or a fluffy potato with eyes.

After the publication in Heraldo around the act of Cecilia Jimenez, who decided to restore the fresco, which, according to various sources, dates from the late XIX - early XX century, a real scandal erupted. Some attacked the old woman with the most severe criticism, while others defended the elderly Spaniard, proclaiming her the new Munch and Modigliani in one person. Be that as it may, the image of Jesus Christ created by Jimenez seems to have already taken its niche in modern art.

Cecilia Jimenez told reporters that she started working on the restoration of the "Ecce Homo" fresco, located on a church column, a few years ago. According to the parishioner of the church, she was upset by the state of the work, which deteriorated due to humidity in the premises of the religious building.

The pensioner, as she herself claims, turned to the priest, and he allegedly agreed that she should carry out restoration work. "Of course, everyone knew about what I was doing. When people came to church, they saw what I was drawing. The rector knew. How could I do such things without permission?", Jimenez was quoted by the media. At the same time, representatives of the church claim that they knew nothing about the artistic work of their elderly parishioner.

One way or another, the restoration, begun in 2010, was completed in the summer of 2012. The results of Cecilia Jimenez's work came to light a couple of weeks ago, when specialists arrived at the church to assess the state of the fresco depicting Christ in order to draw up a restoration plan. The restoration was to be done at the expense of the granddaughter of the author of the fresco Teresa Martinez - it was she who allocated the money and sent it to the church.

Arriving in Borja, the experts found something completely different instead of a fresco - a primitive image of a certain creature with a fur-covered head (as an option - dressed in a woolen bonnet), sadly turned to the side. Staring down at the experts from the mural was, as BBC News wrote, "a pencil sketch of a very hairy monkey in a baggy tunic." Only this dimensionless tunic reminded of the original appearance of "Ecce Homo" - both before and after the restoration it was beetroot color (by the way, as Teresa Martinez noted, Cecily Jimenez's tunic did not come out as badly as everything else). The church in Borja promised that the fluffy Jesus would disappear - the fresco is planned to be restored again, this time by professionals.

After the news spread in the English-language press about the most unsuccessful restoration in the history of art, a campaign was launched on the Web to save the fluffy Jesus (bloggers have already managed to give Jimenez's work a new name - "Ecce Mono", which they translated as "Behold the monkey"). Of course, the creation of an elderly Spaniard in just a few hours has become one of the most popular Internet memes - you can find "phototoads" for fluffy Jesus without particularly straining.

A petition appeared on change.org in defense of the restored Jesus. The author of the updated version of the old fresco is compared with Goya, Munch and Modigliani, and in the work itself they see criticism of the "creationist theories" of the Church. At the time of this writing, more than ten thousand people have voted for the preservation of "Ecce Mono". Perhaps they are all right in their desire to recognize the furry Jesus as a work of art in its own right.

Goya is not Goya, but the fresco by Cecilia Jimenez can be called an interesting example of primitivist painting (if we abstract from the existence of the original version). Primitivism as a painting style was born around the time when García Martinez, following academic traditions, painted the walls of a small church in Borja; now the works of the greatest primitivists, such as Niko Pirosmani and Henri Rousseau, hang in museums and cost a lot of money. There is nothing to say about the avant-garde artists who experimented with this style and turned to it, unlike the Spanish grandmother, absolutely consciously.

In this story, Cecilia Jimenez showed herself, of course, not Pirosmani, but definitely a grandiose popularizer who gave the world knowledge. "The most terrible restoration" turned into a real triumph for the artist Elias Garcia Martinez, whom no one in the world knew until that moment. Born in the municipality of Requena in 1858, he began to draw there, then studied painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Saint Carlos, then went to Barcelona and after it to Zaragoza. There he got married, taught, painted, died - in a word, nothing impressive. The most interesting page in the artist's biography was the creation of a fresco depicting Jesus, who turned into a monkey in the 21st century.

The fact that the updated fresco will be useful was probably already understood in the church itself, which in recent days has been receiving inquisitive tourists on an enhanced basis. And they can be understood - there are a lot of canonical images of Christ, and only one in a bonnet.

In his article, The Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones rightly notes that a devout pensioner could make a career in the comic genre. Her act can only be compared with the restoration of the portrait of James Whistler's mother, made by the famous Mr. Bean, who literally sneezed on the picture, and then, in horror, put it in order. The gift of comic destruction also needs to be possessed, and by using it wisely, it is now possible to build a whole strategy for popularizing art. Jones, however, advises paying attention to more worthy specimens - to paintings by old masters, or, well, to the frescoes of the early Renaissance in the Palazzo Schifanoia.

The task of the restorers is to restore dilapidated and damaged works of art. Just covering up or painting on it will not work, otherwise the masterpiece will be spoiled. But sometimes unfortunate professionals get down to business, after which you either have to redo everything, or nothing can be saved. At the sight of such work, art lovers open a bottle of valerian.

"Fluffy Jesus"

The most sensational case of unsuccessful restoration occurred in Spain. Cecilia Jimenez, 80, volunteered to restore a fresco depicting Jesus that adorned the Shrine of Mercy in the city of Borja. But for some reason it came out completely different from the original. Perhaps the old woman's eyesight failed. The resulting painting was called "Fluffy Jesus".

You 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 has become known throughout 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 historians believe that its result is not the most successful.

When the masters 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.

Whims of Berlusconi

In 2010, workers erected statues of Mars and Venus in front of Silvio Berlusconi's residence. But the statues were found with missing body parts. And Berlusconi ordered to restore them. Everything turned out pretty well, but art critics did not appreciate the prime minister's impulse. It is believed that the "correction" of ancient sculptures is akin to vandalism, because we do not know how the statues looked originally. After this criticism, Mars and Venus were returned to their original state.

Brightened up the picture

The painting "Saint Anna with the Madonna and the Christ Child" was restored and turned out to be much brighter and lighter. If earlier dark shades prevailed in the picture, then after the restoration the picture became brighter, as if the action takes place on a sunny day. According to experts, this is contrary to da Vinci's vision. Some of the Louvre's advisory committee experts even stopped work in protest at such a restoration.

Unrecognizable Lenin

Every Russian city has a statue. And in the Krasnodar Territory, one of the statues was unlucky: after the 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 “lewdness” 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 deteriorating.

A few 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 rest of the wall will be rebuilt more carefully.

Matrera Castle

The reconstruction of the ancient fortress of Matrera 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, an authoritative community of architects, took the side of Quevado. But the locals are still unhappy.

Tutankhamun's beard

In 2014, a 10 kg gold mask was dropped by a Cairo Museum employee, and the beard fell off the relic. Instead of going to professionals, the woman turned to her husband, a restorer.

He glued the beard with superglue. Yes, and at the wrong angle. In addition, he stained Tutankhamun's chin with glue, decided to scrape it off and scratched the mask. Luckily, it has recently been properly restored.

A baby with a strange head

The sculpture of the Madonna and baby Jesus in the Canadian city of Sudbury once suffered from the hands of vandals: the baby's head was chopped off and stolen.

Artist Heather Wise volunteered to fix the situation. But the result of her work looked more than strange and caused discontent among the locals. The head of the sculpture bears a strong resemblance to the youngest Simpsons character, Maggie.

But in the end, Heather's actions played a positive role in this story: the person who stole the real head was 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. To date, thanks to the painstaking work of restorers, countless works of masters of the past have been preserved. One good example is this angel sculpture in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.

The word "restoration" comes from the Latin "restauratio", which means "restoration". It will not work just like that to tint or cover up, otherwise the cultural monument may be damaged and even destroyed.

One of the textbook examples of incorrect restoration is the restoration of the Parthenon at the beginning of the 20th century. They wanted the best, they tried, but the wrong materials, the wrong tools, not very careful work with the wreckage. As a result, some of the objects were destroyed, not restored. Almost a hundred years have passed since then, and ... nothing has changed.

Matter word

The castle of Matrera beautifully, although not very reliably guarded the expanses of the Spanish province of Cadiz from the 9th century until 2013, when heavy rains (and tourists) led to the collapse of the central tower. Local authorities urgently attended to the repair of the national monument. Three years later, the castle was unrecognizable: beautiful, new! And ... in March 2016, a scandal erupted.

This is a new word in restoration, and this word is obscene. The locals mentioned to them both the authorities and the restorers, and then specialists took over the job, having lost an important research object. The restorers themselves explained that all the requirements of Spanish law were met. Their result is safe to visit, shows the original size of the tower, the textures and colors of the original materials, and clearly separates the preserved elements from the remake. For this work, the architect even received a professional award.

And in 2002, the builders managed to demolish the house of Isidore of Madrid, the patron saint of the Spanish capital, which had stood there for about nine hundred years. It seems that these Spaniards have a grandfather working at the old castle factory. They have these old castles well, just heaps. Here they take down anything.

"Fluffy Jesus"

And again we will talk about Spain. One of the few attractions of the small town of Borja was the fresco Ecce Homo ("Behold the Man") by Elias Garcia Martinez depicting Jesus Christ in the crown of thorns.

In 2010, 83-year-old parishioner Cecilia Jimenez, with the consent of the rector, took up the restoration of the fresco, which, although it was the same age as the “artist” and (also?) began to crumble, it still looked better. This had to be corrected.

The result became public in 2012 and exceeded all expectations. Witty people began to call the fresco "Fluffy Jesus" or Ecce Mono ("Behold the monkey"). The old woman explained her creative vision by her lack of experience and disgusting lighting in the church. The rector of the church, frowning, was silent.

There is no bad without good. The fresco in its original state was of interest only to art historians, but “Fluffy Jesus” attracted literally crowds of tourists to the town, providing local residents and Cecilia herself with work, the church with income from visits, and those who like to laugh with a huge number of caricatures and fotozhab.

barber of cairo

The broken nose of the sphinx was not enough for the Egyptians. In the summer of 2014, in the process of moving exhibits at the Cairo Museum, Tutankhamen's priceless funerary mask somehow fell off his beard. To solve the problem, one of the workers came up with the idea to glue everything back, but more securely. And what could be more reliable than epoxy resin?

Carefully, of course, it didn’t work out, and the unfortunate restorer, out of school habit, scraped off the drops of glue with a scalpel, leaving beautiful and noticeable scratches on the pressed gold. By the way, before this procedure, the beard was separated from the mask and attached to a special sleeve, which could be restored without much difficulty.

Alas, epoxy resin can only be separated with a layer of metal, and historians are not yet ready to go for this. However, it is possible that during the next transfer the mask will be dropped again and the beard will break off again ... The main thing is that they do not repair it themselves.

True, there was some good news. Scientists very carefully examined the mask for other damage and found that with a high degree of probability it was originally intended for Nefertiti. Unless, of course, this inscription with a felt-tip pen is original ...

Sponge Bob in the style of "Minecraft"

Turkish resorts do not tolerate dilapidation, so in 2010 the authorities of the Istanbul suburb of Şile decided to restore the two thousand-year-old Byzantine fortress, picturesquely sprawled on a coastal island.

In August 2015, the restoration led to a trial in the Turkish parliament and an investigation, and foreign tourists, as if by agreement, began to compare the fortress with SpongeBob SquarePants. Why not? Many resort towns can be called "Bikini Bottom". Schiele is now in the forefront of the renaming.

The municipal workers themselves indignantly explained to journalists that it was a shame to look at the crumbling fortress, and now it is like new ... I mean, really new.

Funny pictures

The municipal authorities of the Chaoyang District simply did not have enough money for professional restorers for the Yongzhi Temple Complex. Or maybe they chose the restorers on the principle of "whose kung fu is better." Yes, and too lazy to follow the progress of work. What is there to watch? It's just a room with frescoes, not Comrade Mao's house-museum.

As a result, in 2013, instead of restored frescoes from the Qing Dynasty, visitors to the temple saw bright but sloppy scenes from Buddhist legends that have nothing to do with the original drawings.

Those responsible were fired, but after this “restoration”, restoring the old frescoes, if at all possible, costs significantly more than the amount saved. By the way, that rare case when the head of the regional party cell was reprimanded for damaging religious objects.

castrated tree

In 2011, several restorers were accused of censoring a 700-year-old Roman fresco of The Tree of Fertility by removing several dangling phalluses from the painting. Journalists called the tree castrated.

The restorers themselves did not deny the disappearance of organs, stating that if something was dissolved during the cleaning process, it was completely by accident, since the fresco was in very poor condition. And in general, who cares how much was hanging there initially? And after all, someone was not too lazy, he thought that exactly 25 hung before the restoration. Yes, the head of the local cell of the Communist Party was not injured.

Illuminated thoughts

Repeatedly, the leadership of the Louvre was offered to clean the da Vinci painting, but until 2011 it was impregnable. However, water wears away the stone, and the solvent, meanwhile, brightens the picture. When the result became visible, the British restorers began to claim that they had discovered the true artistic design of da Vinci, and the Louvre authorities opened a vial of valerian. It was officially stated that the result was satisfactory, but two members of the advisory The committee that oversaw the work on the painting resigned in protest. Experts are still arguing about the acceptability of such a restoration.

Strange Angel

Profitable house of Panteleimon Badaev is known both to Petersburgers and tourists. Moreover, at the World Exhibition in Paris, he was awarded a gold medal. Here, not every person receives a medal, and the house is rarely like that at all. Unfortunately, the medal bearer did not survive the war in all its splendor: a shell hit him. After repairs in the 50s, the Art Nouveau house became a communal apartment, which also had a bad effect on its condition.

In 2013, the house decided to restore. Suddenly, historians noticed that one of the parts of the bas-relief, depicting the nymph of music, changed in the face.

The organizers of the repair claimed that no restoration of the bas-relief was carried out, and in this form it came to them initially, but they also did not undertake to restore it. They don't own talent. The authors of the “masterpiece”, who worked on the appearance of the house somewhere between 2008 and 2013, were never found, and the locals called it the “steppe maiden”. The steppe maidens, in turn, call the changed nymph "a native Petersburger".

Saturn Mercury is almost invisible

In August 2015, Moscow was preparing for the city's birthday, and Myasnitskaya Street received a very strange gift.

The face of the god Mercury on the bas-relief of the Kuznetsov Trading House miraculously changed. The majority decided that the legendary restorer of the Badaev house had come on tour to Moscow, although, perhaps, the god of trade was skewed by the prices he saw for repairs in Moscow. Like it or not, the damage was done, and the authorities promised to return it as it was. Or at least find a prettier sitter.

Admiralty Freaks

In 2011, when examining the tower of the main building of the Admiralty, the restorers discovered the most interesting creations that could be attributed to any genre, except for classicism. Of the 28 antique figures, only one remained close to its original form, and the rest ...

In 2012, a rather curious scandal took place 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.

A fresco called Ecce Homo ("Behold the Man") was a local landmark in the small Spanish town of Borja. She really was 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 now looked, in the words of the correspondent of the BBC, "a monkey in an ill-fitting jacket." On the Internet, the pensioner's work has also become known as "Fluffy 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 had been started. The news spread around all the news channels of the world, and on the Internet it instantly acquired the status of a meme, provoking an avalanche of cartoons.

Under a flurry of press condemnation, church ministers rushed to make excuses, fenced off the "scene" and organized a committee to restore the fresco.

But then things took an unexpected turn: crowds of tourists poured into the hitherto unknown town with a population of 5,000 people and reigning unemployment!

The income of the city has grown many times, and the church, not at a loss, again opened access to the fresco and began to charge 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 deductions for her work.