Failed artistic restorations: intention is not the only thing that counts

Seville is in a state of upheaval today because the face of the Virgin of La Macarena, a 17th-century sculpture by an unknown artist and of incalculable value to thousands of faithful, no longer looks the same. After undergoing several retouchings between 16 and 20 June, her eyes are a little smaller, her gaze is sadder, her eyelashes are longer and even her appearance seems lighter.

The Brotherhood of the Macarena of Seville had commissioned the professor and conservator Francisco Arquillo Torres to maintain the Virgin, although the result, as demonstrated by the reactions of the parishioners, was closer to a complete restoration.

Around the church, the screams and cries of the hundreds of people who gathered to visit the transformed religious image could not be heard, while social networks continue to boil with the disbelief of users who no longer recognize an icon of Seville.

Among the comments, there is even a theory that the sculpture was replaced by a different one, and some compare the modification to cosmetic surgery. "You can't treat a work of art as if it were a mannequin or a toy," commented one believer. "I see a resemblance to Victoria Federica," added another.

As controversies never come alone, just two days after the uproar surrounding the new face of the Virgin of the Macarena, a legal case came to light regarding the restoration of another virgin in Seville.

In this case, it is the sculpture of the Virgin Dulce Nombre de Bellavista, made by the sculptor Luis Álvarez Duarte in 1969 and which was restored in early 2021 by Darío Ojeda Cordero. Although the Heritage delegation of the Archdiocese of Seville approved the repairs, supervised by experts, as Ojeda Cordero states, the daughter of the original artist denounced the initiative four years later.

Guadalupe Álvarez Duarte took the restorer to court after detecting features in the Virgin's physiognomy that were very different from the originals created by her father.

Lawyers for both parties are already working on the case and the issue at hand is whether the preservation of the material support of the work can prevail over the intangible right to the idea of ​​the author who conferred it, as expressed by the author's lawyer. In the event of compensation, the author has guaranteed that she will donate the money to a charity.

The cases mentioned above are more recent, but it is not the first time that a well-intentioned hand decides to give a work of art a completely different look.

The phenomenon of Ecce Homo

A work that needs no introduction. This 20th-century mural is located in the Sanctuary of Mercy of Borja, in Zaragoza, and is almost as well-known nationally and internationally as the Virgin of La Macarena.

All thanks to Cecilia Giménez Zueco, an octogenarian amateur painter who saw the work of painter Elías García Martínez, then a professor at the Higher School of Art in Zaragoza, in a somewhat deteriorated state and began restoration work with the parish priest's consent.

The new features that Cecília introduced with her brush were so far removed from the original work that, at first, they were mistaken for an act of vandalism against the heritage. National newspapers covered the story and the rest is history. The Internet was filled with memes and humorous videos. A phenomenon emerged that even appeared in a BBC report.

The musical duo Las Bistecs made Cecilia and Ecce Homo one of the main references of their musical genre, called electro-disgusting, in the song Historia del arte, whose lyrics say: «The phallus is in fashion in all museums. I no longer have euros to see something so ugly (…) A woman got up and planted a pine tree, Cecilia is a man, Ecce homo, he is divine».

This theme is a critique of the history of art told from a male point of view and justifies Cecilia's action as a way of giving new meaning, in today's world, to a work that would otherwise have been ignored.

Cecilia even opened an exhibition of her paintings, this time original and unrestored. The truth is that this made Borja’s Ecce Homo famous and she became a pop phenomenon. She also set a precedent in the field of failed restorations, as all subsequent restorations were labeled as “another Ecce Homo”.

Sculptures of Saint George – Navarra

In 2018, the parish priest of the church of San Miguel de Estella in Navarra commissioned a local craft teacher, with no technical knowledge, to restore this statuette of Saint George. The colours used on an image that already looks naive gave an even more comical result and, of course, social media was the first to express this, along with the BBC.

Saint George's acrylic facelift sparked outrage from the Association of Conservators and Restorers of Spain (Acre), until, a year later, a proper conservation intervention restored the saint to a shape closer to the one he should have had when he was created.

Sculptures of Saint Anne – Asturias

Roñadorio, a village with less than 20 inhabitants in Asturias, will probably never again experience an episode as exciting as appearing in the news thanks to the creativity of one of its neighbors.

For María Luisa Menéndez, the tobacconist from this small town, three of the sculptures in the church were “horrible”, so she decided to color them in her free time.

A figure of Saint Anne, accompanied by the Virgin and Child, a maternity ward representing Mary and Jesus and an image of Saint Peter, all dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, were modified with the permission of the parish priest of the village hermitage. The reaction of the Directorate General of Heritage of the Principality of Asturias was not so colourful.

The altarpiece of the church of San Xoán – Galicia

Two residents of Alto, in Lugo, found an old abandoned altarpiece belonging to the church of San Xoán. Without any knowledge of crafts or restoration, they decided to investigate and, using old photographs, transformed the piece for a total cost of €600. To decide on the colours they would use to paint the work, they also took inspiration from an old altarpiece in a nearby church.

When José Rozas and Manuel Tejeiro presented the result in the church and the new appearance of the altarpiece was made public, the head of the bishopric's heritage department rejected the initiative.

After the bishopric's reaction, the neighbors defended their initiative and declared that the bishopric did not want the church's years of neglect of a valuable work of art to come to light.

The cherub of the parish of San Sebastián – Cantabria

One of the relief figures of the eight angels on the main altarpiece of the parish church of San Sebastián de Reinosa, in Cantabria, no longer exists and, instead of a statuette or a box, there is a two-dimensional smiling monkey. The imitation cherub, with a triangular nose and a black spot instead of hair, could be the result of a school exercise in an art class.

In reality, it is a guide placed so as not to leave blank the plaster space that the original would have occupied. At least, that is how the parish priest of the church, Eduardo Guardiola, defended the existence of the caricature because, according to him, "it was nothing special", since "it could only be seen with binoculars".

Matrera Castle in Villamartín – Cádiz

Although the restoration project for Matrera Castle, in the town of Villamartín, in Cádiz, was carried out by the architect Carlos Quevedo, as an expert supported by the Junta de Andalusia, the result was not without controversy.

The public was not convinced by the new aesthetic destination of this 9th century castle, which was even published in The Guardian and The Times and was criticized by several cultural heritage organizations.

However, it later received international awards such as the Architizer A+ award in the Preservation category and the American Architecture Award in the Heritage or Architecture category. It is clear that restoration is not to everyone's taste.

Figure of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela – Galicia

This latest example is not a failed restoration, but a gratuitous transformation. It occurred to someone in 2018 that a figure on the facade of the 12th-century cathedral in Santiago de Compostela might look like a member of the rock band Kiss, and they had the saint travel to the future in permanent marker.

In addition to being an intentional act on heritage, it demonstrates once again the inevitable impulse to think about the legacy of the past under the references and codes of today.