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.
« Fluffy 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
Restoration of frescoes in Sistine Chapel became 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 Territory, one of the statues was unlucky: after restoration, Lenin received 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 still unhappy.
Tutankhamun's beard
In 2014, an employee Cairo Museum dropped a 10 kg golden 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 worked 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 of good examples is this sculpture of an angel on St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.
Fluffy Jesus
An 80-year-old Spanish pensioner restored the fresco "Ecce Homo" ("Here is the man"), painted by artist Elias García Martínez. We see photographs of the fresco depicting Jesus Christ before and after restoration. In the updated version of the work, Christ cannot be recognized - the fresco began to resemble children's drawing, depicting either a monkey or a fluffy potato with eyes.
After the news was published, a real scandal broke out in the Spanish and world media. Some attacked the old woman with severe criticism, while others came to the defense of the elderly Spaniard, proclaiming her the new Munch and Modigliani rolled into one. Be that as it may, the image of Jesus Christ created by Jimenez seems to have already occupied its niche in modern art.
Cecilia Jimenez told reporters that she began working on the restoration of the "Ecce Homo" fresco located on a church column several years ago. According to a parishioner of the church, she was upset by the condition of the work, which was deteriorating due to the humidity in the premises of the religious building.
The pensioner, as she herself claims, turned to the priest, and he allegedly agreed for her to carry out restoration work. “Of course, everyone knew about what I was doing. When people came to church, they saw that I was drawing. The rector knew. How could I do such things without permission?” Jimenez was quoted by the media. At the same time, church representatives claim that they knew nothing about artistic work his elderly parishioner.
One way or another, the restoration, which began in 2010, was completed in the summer of 2012. The results of Cecilia Jimenez's work were revealed a couple of weeks ago, when specialists arrived at the church to assess the condition of the fresco depicting Christ in order to draw up a plan for restoration work. The restoration was supposed 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, experts discovered instead of a fresco something completely different - a primitive image of a certain creature with a fur-covered head (optionally, dressed in a woolen bonnet), sadly turned to the side. From the fresco he looked at the specialists, as BBC News employees wrote, " pencil sketch with the image of a very hairy monkey in a baggy tunic." Only this very oversized 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 turn out so badly , like everything else). The church in Borja promised that the furry Jesus will 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 Internet to preserve the furry 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 Spanish woman in just a few hours became one of the most popular Internet memes.
Appeared on change.org petition in defense of the restored Jesus. The author of the updated version of the ancient fresco is compared to Goya, Munch and Modigliani, and the work itself is seen as a criticism of the “creationist theories” of the Church. At the time of writing this text, more than ten thousand people spoke in favor of preserving "Ecce Mono". Perhaps they are all right in their desire to recognize furry Jesus an independent work art.
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 pictorial style arose around the time when García Martínez, following academic traditions, painted the walls of a small church in Borja; now the works of the largest primitivists, for example Niko Pirosmani and Henri Rousseau, hang in museums and stand huge 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 as Pirosmani, but definitely as a grandiose popularizer who gave the world knowledge. “The most terrible restoration” turned into a real triumph for the artist Elias García Martinez, whom no one in the world knew until that moment. He was born in the municipality of Requena in 1858, began drawing there, then studied painting at the Royal Academy fine arts Saint Carlos, then went to Barcelona and then to Zaragoza. He got married there, taught, painted, died - in a word, nothing impressive. The very same interesting page The artist’s biography included the creation of a fresco with the image of Jesus, who turned into a monkey in the 21st century.
The fact that the updated fresco will be beneficial was probably already understood in the church itself, which in last days in intensive mode it welcomes curious tourists. And they can be understood - there are a lot of canonical images of Christ, but in the hood there is only one.
In his article, The Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones rightly notices that the devout pensioner could make a career in comedy. Her actions can only be compared with restoration of the portrait James Whistler's mother produced the famous Mr. Bean, who literally sneezed on a painting and then tidied it up in horror. You also need to have the gift of comic destruction, and by using it wisely, you can now build an entire strategy for popularizing art.
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The task of conservators is to restore dilapidated and damaged works of art. This work is creative, but not at all simple: a wrong movement and the masterpiece is ruined, so punctures are inevitable.
website collected sensational cases when restoration did not go as planned.
1. Damaged fresco
The most notorious case of unsuccessful restoration occurred in Spain. Cecilia Jimenez, 80, volunteered to restore a peeling fresco of Jesus in the local cathedral. But for some reason it turned out completely different from the original; apparently, the elderly woman’s eyesight had failed her.
One can argue endlessly whether Cecilia did evil or good. On the one hand, the fresco was damaged. On the other hand, the cathedral became famous throughout the world, and Cecilia is called the new Goya.
2. The heroes of the fresco who lost their eyes
The restoration of the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel was the largest restoration work of the 20th century. But many art critics believe that it was unsuccessful.
When the craftsmen cleared the vaults of soot, they touched the top layer of the frescoes with amendments by Michelangelo himself. As a result, some heroes even lost their eyes.
3. Berlusconi's fantasy
In 2010, statues of Mars and Venus dating back to 175 AD were installed at the entrance to the residence of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The figures were found with body parts already broken off.
Berlusconi ordered the restoration of the statues. It looked good, but art critics did not appreciate the Prime Minister’s impulse. It is believed that remaking ancient monuments in your own way is akin to vandalism, because we do not know what the figures originally looked like. Now Mars and Venus have been restored to their original appearance.
4. Lightened picture
Leonardo da Vinci's work “Saint Anne with the Madonna and Child Christ” began to look much lighter after restoration. If previously cloudy dark shades predominated, now the picture looks very bright, as if the action is taking place on a sunny day. According to experts, this contradicts da Vinci's plan.
Some of the Louvre committee specialists even left their posts in protest against such a restoration. But is the work of restorers so bad?
5. Unrecognizable Lenin
In the Krasnodar region, Russia, after restoration, a monument to Lenin acquired a disproportionately long arm and someone else's face.
It turns out that the monument had this appearance for a long time, but photographs of it came to the attention of the general public only in 2016. The story of the monument even appeared on central television. After this, the leader of the world proletariat was brought into proper form.
6. The Great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China is the largest architectural monument on earth, and, unfortunately, it is also gradually 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 a layer of concrete.
Now an investigation is being carried out against unscrupulous restorers, and the remaining parts of the wall are being restored more carefully.
7. 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 reconstructor Carlos Quevedo Rojas wanted to make it clear which parts of the fortress were new and which were ancient.
8. Tutankhamun's beard
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.
83-year-old resident spanish city Borja Cecilia Jimenez did not intend 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 restoring the painting. 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.
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 was acutely worried 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 that for now, but when I come back I'll fix it,' explains Aznar. - But despite her goodwill, as the person in charge of the temple, I had to inform the mayor's office of Borja.
After that, local authorities came to the church to analyze what had 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, the local restoration center I just received a donation from the artist’s granddaughter, which was intended for the restoration of the fresco.