Don't try this at home

August 22, 2012 1:37 PM

Art restoration is probably best left to the professionals, as vividly demonstrated by an elderly Spanish woman's unauthorized attempt to repair a damaged fresco, “Ecce Homo,” by painter Elias Garcia Martinez. The results speak for themselves.
posted by Horace Rumpole (111 comments total)

I've seen better art in video games I've played. Whoops!
posted by ReeMonster at 1:39 PM on August 22, 2012

Some many good images, but this is the best.
posted by 2bucksplus at 1:39 PM on August 22, 2012 [16 favorites]

At what age does one go from being arrested for vandalism and defacement of a cultural artifact to just being an old lady who wanted to help?
posted by thecjm at 1:44 PM on August 22, 2012 [28 favorites]

I don't care if she's eighty years old, they should charge her with something.
posted by goethean at 1:44 PM on August 22, 2012 [7 favorites]

I thought we're going to have a talk about this Ecce (NSFW) Homo.

Brillant trolling by the lady, though. Brilliant.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:44 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

Oh god, not this again.

There's something so uniquely stomach-churning about classic works of art getting destroyed by some random marauder. There's such a huge gap in effort and awareness between a long-lasting, well-known work of art and the unremembered person who ends its progression through history. There's something weird living in that gap and I can't stare at it too long without becoming unmoored.
posted by greenland at 1:45 PM on August 22, 2012 [8 favorites]

Brilliant. Now they'll have to move up funding to fix it. Elegant if not ideal.
posted by tilde at 1:46 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

I want a print of the final version SO BAD.
posted by Greg Nog at 1:49 PM on August 22, 2012 [19 favorites]

Does this mean they've finally caught Banksy?
posted by ckape at 1:50 PM on August 22, 2012 [14 favorites]

As an art lover and a bit of a conservation Nazi (yeah, I've been known to tell people in museums NOT to touch the artworks, please) I shouldn't admit this: but that made me laugh out loud.
posted by yoink at 1:51 PM on August 22, 2012 [20 favorites]

I was instantly reminded of this Egyptian princess from late Pharaonic times. (I read about her in some mummy book when I was a kid, and slept with the lights on for a while after that.)

This actually happened in my family with something far less valuable, although irreplaceable. It was a very poorly preserved photograph of one of my great-x3 grandparents as a small boy with long curls and a sailor suit. One of my aunts paid some amateur to "restore" it, and what she got back was an oil-crayon painting of Little Lord Fauntleroy, with no perspective. It was like a piece of Southern outsider art without any charm.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:52 PM on August 22, 2012 [3 favorites]

I've made a huge mistake.
posted by cazoo at 1:55 PM on August 22, 2012 [25 favorites]

To give the lady her due, she's got the chocolate swiss roll at the bottom just right.
posted by numes with an s at 1:55 PM on August 22, 2012 [15 favorites]

she's got the chocolate swiss roll at the bottom just right.

Well, that's just the way Jesus's forearm looks, man. It's made out of a swiss roll. That's why he told people to "eat his body" -- it's delicious! In conclusion, this is why there's so many Christians today.
posted by Greg Nog at 1:57 PM on August 22, 2012 [45 favorites]

Apparently the point where you realize that you are incapable of doing anything but a terrible, terrible job is after the point where it's worth it to quit while you're ahead.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:58 PM on August 22, 2012 [8 favorites]

Unless they're really unlucky with the paints she chose, this is probably reversible. Overpainting usually is. I think the problem is going to be finding someone willing to spend the money on doing a full restoration on what is a pretty fourth-rate painting by an artist who's barely locally famous.
posted by yoink at 1:59 PM on August 22, 2012 [4 favorites]

It's easy to mock, but for all we know Christ was in fact half-man, half monkey with a terrible crick in his neck.
posted by Abiezer at 2:00 PM on August 22, 2012 [7 favorites]

Apparently the point where you realize that you are incapable of doing anything but a terrible, terrible job is after the point where it's worth it to quit while you're ahead.

Ain't that always the way?

"Let me just even up that haircut."

"Hang on, I think I've got some paint that will match that spot."

"Oh, that'll buff right out."

Etc.
posted by yoink at 2:01 PM on August 22, 2012 [4 favorites]

Well, that's just the way Jesus's forearm looks, man. It's made out of a swiss roll. That's why he told people to "eat his body" -- it's delicious! In conclusion, this is why there's so many Christians today.

Wine with swiss roll is just doctrinally unsound. Could it have been "drink of this chocolate milk"?
posted by yoink at 2:02 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

It's like what happens when you drunkenly try to even out your eyebrows and suddenly they're both gone and you have to draw them on like Sharon Needles every day for the next 3 months.
posted by elizardbits at 2:02 PM on August 22, 2012 [19 favorites]

Hm. I kind of like it.
posted by aught at 2:03 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

It's a pretty good likeness of the Lawgiver, but I'm more worried about the mutants she invited in to guard the doomsday bomb. Have you seen them without the masks? Eesh.
posted by gimonca at 2:04 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

Notable for the story outside of the story: the first picture is from 2010 and the second is from last month. More than grandma's amateur restoration job, I'd like to hear about the people in charge of a fresco which had weathered more than a century looking nothing worse than pleasantly weathered and then fell apart in a few months.

Apparently the point where you realize that you are incapable of doing anything but a terrible, terrible job is after the point where it's worth it to quit while you're ahead.

Schlimbesserung is a useful word here, as well as the Yiddish farpotchket.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:06 PM on August 22, 2012 [10 favorites]

I'd like to hear about the people in charge of a fresco which had weathered more than a century looking nothing worse than pleasantly weathered and then fell apart in a few months

The article speculates that the damage in the July photo could be from the woman preparing to "restore" it.
posted by burnmp3s at 2:08 PM on August 22, 2012 [4 favorites]

ricochet biscuit: "Notable for the story outside of the story: the first picture is from 2010 and the second is from last month. More than grandma's amateur restoration job, I'd like to hear about the people in charge of a fresco which had weathered more than a century looking nothing worse than pleasantly weathered and then fell apart in a few months."

From the article:

An original photograph of the painting taken in 2010, shows only minimal deterioration with Jesus crowned in thorns clearly visible in the portrait. There is slight white speckling across the piece.

Large white patches appear in a second photograph of the painting taken in July this year, possibly scrubbed off as the octogenarian began her project.

A final photograph reveals a portrait transformed beyond recognition.

yoink: "Unless they're really unlucky with the paints she chose, this is probably reversible. Overpainting usually is. I think the problem is going to be finding someone willing to spend the money on doing a full restoration on what is a pretty fourth-rate painting by an artist who's barely locally famous."

Ok, but if it's true that she scrubbed the old paint off before painting, how likely is a successful restoration?
posted by zarq at 2:10 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm a little confused -- this was on the wall of some church, and this lady snuck in there and did all this without anybody noticing until it was done?
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 2:12 PM on August 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

BBC: "The once-dignified portrait now resembles a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic"
posted by gottabefunky at 2:13 PM on August 22, 2012 [20 favorites]

The article speculates that the damage in the July photo could be from the woman preparing to "restore" it.

Yeah, but the somewhat better article they link to half way down says that the flaking happened as a result of moisture in the church.

Ok, but if it's true that she scrubbed the old paint off before painting, how likely is a successful restoration?

See above. But if she did scrub off paint, then that's a goner and can only be "reversed" by being re-painted after the photographic evidence.

the first picture is from 2010 and the second is from last month. More than grandma's amateur restoration job, I'd like to hear about the people in charge of a fresco

Doesn't look like a true fresco to me. I think it's painted a secco. It may even be oil paint directly on the wall (it looks too finely detailed for true fresco)--which would certainly help account for its vulnerability to water damage.
posted by yoink at 2:13 PM on August 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

All the other congregants of the church were also octogenarians. Nobody could see a thing.
posted by maryr at 2:13 PM on August 22, 2012

It's classic Dunning–Kruger effect or the old woman's lost her marbles
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:16 PM on August 22, 2012 [4 favorites]

I like it, says something about reäppropriation of public space and the current cartoon like state of the modern catholic church.
posted by Ad hominem at 2:17 PM on August 22, 2012 [27 favorites]

Also the defacing done to the teachings of Christ. Overall an interest work of outsider art.
posted by Ad hominem at 2:19 PM on August 22, 2012 [6 favorites]

Is this one of those "Spot the Differences" thing? Because I'm not seeing it.
posted by uncleozzy at 2:21 PM on August 22, 2012 [16 favorites]

reäppropriation

This is beautiful
posted by sbutler at 2:33 PM on August 22, 2012 [12 favorites]

Oh my god, this is awesome.
posted by odinsdream at 2:34 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

I wanted to not love this, but I couldn't.
posted by found missing at 2:34 PM on August 22, 2012

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Monchichi Jesus, His only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Tootoo.
He suffered under the Grumplins of Grumplor, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again.
He ascended to the trees and is seated at the right hand of Wizzar.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead and to laugh and play and have a happy happy day.
Chi chi chi, Monchichi, Monchichi.
Monchichi mean forgiveness of sins.
Amen.
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:35 PM on August 22, 2012 [27 favorites]

More like "Ecce Failo", am I right?
posted by The Tensor at 2:36 PM on August 22, 2012

The amateur restorer said she had undertaken the project "with good intentions" but, as culture councillor Juan Maria de Ojeda said, "she had gotten out of hand".

Interestingly, Atilla the Hun tried this same line when Leo I complained about all the pillaging in northern Italy.

Nobody bought it then, either, even though it was clear that the Huns had gotten a bit out of hand.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:36 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

What's another kitschy painting of Jesus more or less? We still have an incalculable number of them mouldering away. Kill the precious art curator that lives inside your head and bring this lady a few more to "restore". In a hundred years they may become highly sought-after outsider art, a monument to an old lady's spirit and chutzpah.
posted by squalor at 2:38 PM on August 22, 2012 [5 favorites]

They should just print out one of these and pin it to the wall. I guess you'd have to turn it around so he's facing the right way, I dunno, I'm not an expert here.
posted by Copronymus at 2:38 PM on August 22, 2012

Huge props to the Telegraph reader who left this anonymous comment a few minutes ago:

Rhesus Christ!
posted by rory at 2:42 PM on August 22, 2012 [74 favorites]

Wow.
Many allegories suggest themselves here, about lack of understanding of what true skill/expertise is. Business people figuring it should be easy to run a university; politicians figuring basic social institutions should be easily "improved"; demogogues substituting their unfounded beliefs for objective data and scientific method; etc.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:42 PM on August 22, 2012 [16 favorites]

The image would be a good business card for a freelancer:
"It is worth paying a qualified person"
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:46 PM on August 22, 2012 [35 favorites]

How many more works of art are going to have to be ruined before we can have a rational conversation about paint control?
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:47 PM on August 22, 2012 [13 favorites]

Huge props to the Telegraph reader who left this anonymous comment a few minutes ago

Passing internet denizen, I suspect.
posted by jaduncan at 2:50 PM on August 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

This can't be real, can it?
posted by Brocktoon at 2:52 PM on August 22, 2012

But, she's a Maker™!!!
posted by Thorzdad at 2:53 PM on August 22, 2012 [5 favorites]

It may even be oil paint directly on the wall (it looks too finely detailed for true fresco)--which would certainly help account for its vulnerability to water damage.

According to Spanish accounts, that's exactly what it was, oil paint directly painted on the plaster. Not only that, the artist had left written that he'd made it "in two hours of work". This wasn't an immortal masterwork, but rather a pious graffiti...
I'm no fan of defacement, but quite frankly, I can't understand the outrage.
posted by Skeptic at 2:59 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

It really is interesting. If we cannot decide what defines the relative merit of a work it renders all works equally worthwhile. Defacing any one work is like defacing the Mona Lisa. I wanted to know more about Elias Garcia Martinez but as of now Metafilter is the 4rd link for the painter on google. I am flabbergasted that he is more famous for having his painting painted over by granny than any of his intact works.
posted by Ad hominem at 3:01 PM on August 22, 2012

It's funny scanning the reporting on this painting. A number of news reports have upgraded it to a "masterpiece." As far as I can tell this is a work which no one has ever bothered to so much as mention on the entire internet before this incident.

That's not to say it deserved this defacement (I don't actually see a monkey so much as a lion-man who is going polar exploring), but it's always amusing to watch the media squeezing the facts to make a better story. No, wait, not "amusing"...what's that other thing? Depressing.
posted by yoink at 3:03 PM on August 22, 2012 [7 favorites]

paint control?

I know you are kidding but in New York you couldn't buy spray paint if you were under 18 for many years until some court ruling struck down the ban. This really put a crimp in my model aircraft building as a kid.
posted by Ad hominem at 3:05 PM on August 22, 2012

According to Spanish accounts, that's exactly what it was, oil paint directly painted on the plaster.

Ah, thanks. In which case it was always essentially a temporary work--short of someone doing something major like transferring it to canvas. I wonder if the artist would be amused by its brief moment of world-wide fame. "No, really, there's going to be this...well, it's a sort of constantly updated panorama thing where people will share pictures of their cats all over the world and for a brief moment your painting will actually displace the usual cat traffic! It will be more widely seen than almost all but the most famous paintings in the world. Many will declare it to be a great masterpiece. Truly!"

No, come to think of it there's just no way you could persuade him that this was going to happen.
posted by yoink at 3:12 PM on August 22, 2012 [12 favorites]

I don't care if she's eighty years old, they should charge her with something.

Putin would give her 5 years, at least.
posted by Kabanos at 3:12 PM on August 22, 2012 [8 favorites]

Oh this made me laugh so much, thank you.

(I don't actually see a monkey so much as a lion-man who is going polar exploring)

Roarld Amundsen?
posted by Jehan at 3:19 PM on August 22, 2012 [4 favorites]

The article speculates that the damage in the July photo could be from the woman preparing to "restore" it.

That is just it -- whatever happened is entirely speculative. I am told that "stewardship" of much is given unto the faithful. No one noticed an octogenarian with a paint scraper scratching away at a representation of the big J? No one can confirm or deny this?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:22 PM on August 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's like a contemporary version of the Lion on Gripsholms Castle.
posted by acb at 3:27 PM on August 22, 2012 [17 favorites]

It's a real life version of this famous old Mr. Bean sketch.
posted by felix at 3:30 PM on August 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

If she billed herself as an "outsider artist", she could clean up. There are plenty of early modernist paintings that aren't substantially better or worse than that.

Granted, most of them aren't painted over the top of somebody else's work. But in four billion years the sun is going to swell up, and all our art conservation efforts will have been for nothing anyway. I say let the old ladies have at it.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 3:47 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

This is botched only in the minds of the educated elites. aActually its a folk naif restoration of honesty and vision. Those in charge of our future will appreciate the reduction of detail and realistic authenticity in the service of their 99% brethren. She represents - so innocently - the first barbaric yawp wave of perceived desecration, particularly in her muddy passages of mouth and hair. I find that the ubiquitous narrative has simply been repurposed towards the Universal. Yes?
posted by wallstreet1929 at 3:52 PM on August 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

The article speculates that the damage in the July photo could be from the woman preparing to "restore" it.

Everybody knows you sand before you paint. Sheesh.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 3:52 PM on August 22, 2012 [5 favorites]

I find that the ubiquitous narrative has simply been repurposed towards the Universal. Yes?

Amen.
posted by deo rei at 4:00 PM on August 22, 2012

Personally, I would *love* to own this painting, and would pay tens of thousands for it, no questions asked.

I would then turn around and use its restoration as the premise for a reality TV program, with experts from around the world competing against each other each week to restore the unrestorable masterpiece.
posted by markkraft at 4:00 PM on August 22, 2012 [3 favorites]

Are we really going to have the contemporary-art-is-a-crock conversation here, too?
posted by shakespeherian at 4:03 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

I couldn't help but immediately think of this song..
posted by mannequito at 4:06 PM on August 22, 2012

Are we really going to use the are we really going to phrasing here too?
posted by found missing at 4:08 PM on August 22, 2012 [6 favorites]

Best description of the Internet: "it's a sort of constantly updated panorama thing where people... share pictures of their cats all over the world."
posted by booksarelame at 4:09 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

I don't actually see a monkey so much as a lion-man who is going polar exploring)

Huh, I'm seeing a touch of Bruegel here.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:19 PM on August 22, 2012

This pretty much sums it up.
posted by momochan at 4:35 PM on August 22, 2012

Well, this just proves nobody's too old to leave a lasting effect on civilization.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 4:37 PM on August 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think they should let her go back and finish the job.
posted by digsrus at 4:40 PM on August 22, 2012

In which case it was always essentially a temporary work

Apart from the part where it's a 19th-century work; 100+ years isn't that temporary. I don't understand why the painter should be internet-famous for his work to have artistic merit, but all that remains of this particular work is a bizarre paint job.
posted by ersatz at 4:47 PM on August 22, 2012

i don't see much of a difference
posted by camdan at 4:51 PM on August 22, 2012

I don't know much about art but I know what I like.

I'd hang that in my rumpus room.
posted by mazola at 5:03 PM on August 22, 2012

Did we just out Banksy?
posted by jenkinsEar at 5:05 PM on August 22, 2012

Nobody noticed any of this going on? This reminds me of a former IT director's advice.... "Let's break it and see who notices. If no one complains within a month, it was a piece of shit to begin with."
posted by Foam Pants at 5:37 PM on August 22, 2012 [6 favorites]

Nobody noticed any of this going on?

It's a pretty small church, in a pretty small town, probably not a lot of weekday traffic. Put it this way - would you have stopped her, or just assumed she knew what she was doing and was there by permission?

A number of news reports have upgraded it to a "masterpiece."

Technically, all that means is that the given work shows an apprentice is ready to strike out on his own, but yeah, point made, I couldn't dig out anything on the guy either.

(On the upside, sort of, I can see this boosting the price of his work and, as some Spanish commenters noted, tourism to that town. Hard times in Spain just now.)
posted by BWA at 5:52 PM on August 22, 2012

I can see this boosting the price of his work and, as some Spanish commenters noted, tourism to that town.

Heh. If that creates a tourist draw, I foresee towns hiring nonagenarians to deface countless works of church art in the name of commerce.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:59 PM on August 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

Apart from the part where it's a 19th-century work; 100+ years isn't that temporary. I don't understand why the painter should be internet-famous for his work to have artistic merit, but all that remains of this particular work is a bizarre paint job.

Depends what you mean by "temporary" of course. Oil painted directly onto a wall is a notoriously unstable and vulnerable technique. The painting may have lasted 100 years--it may also have undergone several previous (and less, um, original) bouts of restoration in the past. But compared to a fresco--which you can reasonably expect to survive for thousands of years (see the Roman frescos, for example) when you paint oil directly onto the wall you're accepting that the work will gradually flake away over time--as seems to have begun to happen pretty markedly before this woman began to do her restoration job.

As for what "remains" of the work--as I said above, probably everything that was there when she started is still there under her layers of paint, and as long as they're not unlucky with the kind of paint she chose to use, removing her overpaint might be a relatively straightforward.

As for the painting's merit--well, nobody is saying it's bad because it doesn't get mentioned on the internet. I'm saying that you can take one look at it and judge for yourself that it is an utterly unoriginal and not altogether competent painting, and consequently be quite unsurprised that it has escaped any comment or notice over its 100+ years of existence.
posted by yoink at 6:05 PM on August 22, 2012

Apparently the point where you realize that you are incapable of doing anything but a terrible, terrible job is after the point where it's worth it to quit while you're ahead.
posted by shakespeherian at 15:58 on August 22

This is about me, isn't it. THIS IS ABOUT MY CAREER I KNOW YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT ME.
posted by samofidelis at 6:17 PM on August 22, 2012 [6 favorites]

Apparently the point where you realize that you are incapable of doing anything but a terrible, terrible job is after the point where it's worth it to quit while you're ahead.

Anyone remember this?
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 6:22 PM on August 22, 2012

Jesus Christ, people, can't you see the naive beauty in this restoration?

We might as well whitewash Grandma Moses' canvases while we're at it.
posted by ovvl at 6:40 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

Just think of it not as losing a work of art, but gaining a meme.
posted by Crane Shot at 7:37 PM on August 22, 2012 [4 favorites]

Regretsy Math version. (Scroll down.)
posted by sourcequench at 7:44 PM on August 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

ECCE #YOLO
posted by argonauta at 7:45 PM on August 22, 2012 [3 favorites]

I've seen better Jesuses on pieces of toast.

Almost as horrific a work of art as Fifty Shades of Grey.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:00 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

It's interesting to me how much the article focuses on the woman's age. Having worked this summer in the geriatrics department of a hospital, I'm seeing ageism everywhere.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:19 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

I am horrified, yet I keep thinking of this and laughing.
posted by usonian at 8:33 PM on August 22, 2012

I don't understand why the painter should be internet-famous for his work to have artistic merit, but all that remains of this particular work is a bizarre paint job.

Well, the point is, as someone who has been to his fair share of art and antique auctions and yard sales, XIX century pious paintings are almost quite literally dime-a-dozen, and this was not a particularly competent one. Having seen better paintings of the same era and subject stand in the rain in third-rate junk sales, unwanted and unremarked, I can't manage to be particularly shocked about the fate of this one.
posted by Skeptic at 8:58 PM on August 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm actually relieved to know that it's not a particularly valuable piece of work, one that even the artist didn't seem to expect to last. I wonder what sort of man he was - maybe he would have found this as funny as we do.

Also this really makes me miss my nana. This is exactly the sort of thing she'd do. She loved art and craft but knew she had no skill, and it didn't stop her from making all sorts of odd looking things for no reason other than "I thought I'd give it a go." She always encouraged us to try things even if we weren't sure we'd succeed, the exact opposite of my own perfectionism. Sometimes it drove me batty, but oh I miss her crazy creations now. She would have thought this was hilarious and written an odd story about the artist in heaven, looking down on his updated painting and wondering wtf had happened.
posted by harriet vane at 9:19 PM on August 22, 2012 [3 favorites]

Jesus would want to turn the other cheek, but she didn't give him one.
posted by Gyan at 9:29 PM on August 22, 2012 [4 favorites]

I don't care if she's eighty years old, they should charge her with something

I'm not sure of many things, but I'm dead sure that Christ would disagree.
posted by Catch at 9:53 PM on August 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure of many things, but I'm dead sure that Christ would disagree.

Well, what do you expect an illiterate carpenter and amateur magician to know about art?
posted by goethean at 10:25 PM on August 22, 2012 [3 favorites]

Airbrushing might help.

Just a thought.



(If she'd have scrubbed harder, she might have seen the original numbers.)
posted by BlueHorse at 10:25 PM on August 22, 2012

We might as well whitewash Grandma Moses' canvases while we're at it.

DON'T GIVE THEM IDEAS!
posted by happyroach at 10:34 PM on August 22, 2012

Heh. If that creates a tourist draw

Wait until there's a leak in the roof above the painting. "The tears of Jesus!"
posted by pracowity at 11:36 PM on August 22, 2012

I don't often literally laugh out loud when I click on things, but hoo boy that before and after image.

The final line from the Telegraph article is as dry as tinder: "The restoration work was completed without permission."

You know what, the more I look at it, the more I like it. I suspect Jesus would have had a good laugh over it. Well, the Jesus in the restored painting definitely looks like he would have.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:12 AM on August 23, 2012 [5 favorites]

All this said, this old lady's effort rather reminds me of this.
posted by Skeptic at 1:13 AM on August 23, 2012

Reminds me of the Father Ted episode with the car.
posted by gene_machine at 3:06 AM on August 23, 2012 [3 favorites]

I don't actually see a monkey so much as a lion-man

Jesus lion, it's a Christ! Get in the car!
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:15 AM on August 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

Also, the title of the piece has reminded me of something from the days of Usenet (because I am OLD). It was a post ranting about how the Romans were obviously huge homophobes and were disparaging Jesus because Pilate said "Ecce homo" instead of "Ecce hetero".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:18 AM on August 23, 2012

God works in mysterious ways. Who are we to say that his invisible hand is sending us a message via this babuschka?
posted by JJ86 at 6:04 AM on August 23, 2012

I like this new Jesus.
posted by ninebelow at 7:44 AM on August 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

Good ol' Lumpy Christ!
posted by Turkey Glue at 8:37 AM on August 23, 2012

Well of course there's an @FrescoJesus Twitter account.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:38 AM on August 23, 2012

I'm saying that you can take one look at it and judge for yourself that it is an utterly unoriginal and not altogether competent painting,

Eh, I don't usually judge paintings unless I have them in front of me because pics are inadequate for that, at least to me.

Skeptic, I'm not saying the painting is necessarily great, and the subject matter is far from unique, but mishandling of public art pushes my buttons.
posted by ersatz at 4:03 PM on August 23, 2012

Ecce Rowlf
posted by homunculus at 4:40 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Ecce Equa
posted by ob1quixote at 4:36 PM on August 28, 2012

Update:

Woman Who Ruined Fresco Of Jesus Now Wants To Be Paid

Cecilia Giménez, the Spanish woman who really messed up when she tried to restore a 19th-century fresco of Jesus, now wants a piece of the action from the 2,000 or so euros ($2,600) her church has collected from tourists coming to see the ruined artwork.

Spain's El Correo reports, according to Gawker's translation, that the 80+-year-old Giménez has hired lawyers to make her case. A court battle is expected. Ars Technica says the church has also lawyered up.

Well, clearly she has embraced the philosophy that fortune favours the bold.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:53 PM on September 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

If I were them I would give her a stack of 100 euro notes, but instead of actual euros they would be poorly drawn copies.
posted by burnmp3s at 8:08 AM on September 21, 2012 [5 favorites]

I know you said Euros, not dollars, but I don't really know what Euros look like, so try this.
posted by maryr at 9:53 AM on September 21, 2012