Pensioner Fúcks Up Fresco

brummytom

An elderly parishioner has stunned Spanish cultural officials with an alarming and unauthorised attempt to restore a prized Jesus Christ fresco.

Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) by Elias Garcia Martinez has held pride of place in the Sanctuary of Mercy Church near Zaragoza for more than 100 years.

The woman took her brush to it after years of deterioration due to moisture.

Cultural officials said she had the best intentions and hoped it could be properly restored.

Cecilia Gimenez, who is in her 80s, was reportedly upset at the way the fresco had deteriorated and took it on herself to "restore" the image.

She claimed to have had the permission of the priest to carry out the job.

"(The) priest knew it! He did! How could you do something like that without permission? He knew it!"

BBC Europe correspondent Christian Fraser says the delicate brush strokes of Elias Garcia Martinez have been buried under a haphazard splattering of paint.

The once-dignified portrait now resembles a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic, he says.

Before and After


Apologies if this has been posted.
But my God, why try and paint over a historic fresco if you can't do faces?

pablomakaveli

It's both awful and hilarious at the same time.

kfallon

Can't believe she didn't paint a little Sun in the corner, I know I used to do that whenever I painted as a kid

Mam of 4

Oh my god,don't mean to laugh but wtf??!!Does not resemble what it should look like at all!!! Remind me never to try painting...:)

FloatingVoter

So the one on the right is the original, correct ?

Shameful. Turning a drunken monkey into the messiah.

MagicMarker

So "prized" they allow people to paint over it.

Daisy M

I thought you were on about the supermarket in coronation street.

What doesnt make sense is why she kept going? From the picture it would be quiet apparent that more harm than good was been done as soon as she cleaned one part of it. It looks nothing like it was, I wonder was it stolen and is this a cover up??

christmas2012

at least he wasnt al fresco

meoklmrk91

From the passion of the christ to planet of the apes.

**** me that is funny.

ScumLord

My name is URL wrote: »

How did she manage to do it without anyone stopping her? Was the painting just left somewhere that any mad auld randomer could get to it? Amazing that it hadn't been stolen or defaced before now.

Google fresco.

minidazzler

Mam of 4 wrote: »

Oh my god,don't mean to laugh but wtf??!!Does not resemble what it should look like at all!!! Remind me never to try painting...:)

She saw she was getting it wrong so kept trying to correct herself to leave it a little better than it was, but kept failing and eventually she was in so deep she said **** it.

hal9000

maybe she thought it was one of those fresco by numbers

DEFTLEFTHAND

minidazzler wrote: »

She saw she was getting it wrong so kept trying to correct herself to leave it a little better than it was, but kept failing and eventually she was in so deep she said **** it.

Reminds me of the scene in The Mr Bean movie.:pac:

Captain Graphite

minidazzler wrote: »

She saw she was getting it wrong so kept trying to correct herself to leave it a little better than it was

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IL22sLF25s

Where To

Looks like the beaver in this classic cartoon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZY6tO97qj0

*took me fooking ages to find this.

edit; and here he is in real life

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/VINTAGE-VERY-RARE-KISSYFUR-PEDIGREE-BEAVER-SOFT-TOY-/220620633855

CavanCrew

I showed the before and after to my mates and they thought she did a good ****ing job.

My name is URL

ScumLord wrote: »

Google fresco.

Yeah, completely missed that part =p I read about it earlier somewhere else and they just had it down as a painting. Frecoes have been stolen in the past though.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1948&dat=19891026&id=469JAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9RwNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1589,3884619

le la rat

They should hire Don Conroy to restore it

PinkFly

Girl done gOod

Yellowblackbird

She'll be a hero in the bingo hall this weekend.

It'll be her turn to dare someone else this time
Who knows what antics and japes the pensioners will get up to next week.

Suceed

I quite like what she's done. Looks fresh and modern.

Here are a few more re-imagined beast-Jesuses...

Oh great, even Jesus is doing a damned Duckface.

fran17

looks better than a picasso and they go for sh1t loads

Captain Graphite

le la rat wrote: »

They should hire Don Conroy to restore it

He'd just turn it into an owl.

policarp

Sure nobody knows what Jesus looked like.
Maybe she's closer to the mark than others. . .

CavanCrew

policarp wrote: »

Sure nobody knows what Jesus looked like.
Maybe she's closer to the mark than others. . .

Well everyone paints him as if he was one of the Bee Gees.

kincsem

That could be a good "SPOT THE DIFFERENCE" competition.

charlemont

That's hilarious, I saw the woman whom I wouldn't describe as an artist on the telly and she seemed freaked over it, Its a mad mental drawing I think they should keep it, Its like an ancient drawing you would see in an old Aboriginal cave.

hunter164

Reminds me of the Mr.Bean movie! http://www.flickr.com/photos/frankreichow/5643142350/

NegativeCreep

Don't see why everyone is going mad over this. I find it hilarious. It looks like dolan :pac:

kincsem

brummytom wrote: »

Apologies if this has been posted.
But my God, why try and paint over a historic fresco if you can't do faces?

Pensioner Fúcks Up Fresco
An elderly parishioner

Enough of this pensioner bashing already.

Red Hand

The second Jesus looks a bit like an alien. Maybe that's what he'll look like when in the second coming...as he descends from Neptune in his silver star cruiser.

Pompey Magnus

Looks like an eskimo with the mumps pretending to be Dramatic Chipmunk.

TheBeach

Who would have thought a face could look so, well, bald...

girl in the striped socks

I'd like to meet that woman & shake her hand.
She's a legend!

ejmaztec

girl in the striped socks wrote: »

I'd like to meet that woman & shake her hand.
She's a legend!

Make sure she's not holding the paint brush if you do, or you won't just have striped socks.

anewme

As someone said, last seen heading towards the Shroud of Turin with a packet of Daz..........

panda100

Saw this earlier on Sky news.Has to be the funniest news story in a while. The reporter was pissing himself laughing!

Shryke

A professional couldn't have done something as funny if they tried. I had to go back and look at it again for another laugh. Good on her I guess.

ScumLord

CavanCrew wrote: »

Well everyone paints him as if he was one of the Bee Gees.

Maybe he was one of the Bee gees, because if Jesus wants to be a member of the Bee gees then Jesus is a member of the bee gees.

Solair

Should have gone to Specsavers!

Or, as they say in Spain : ¡¡ Tendría que haber ido a los Specsavers !! (not quite as catchy!)

languagenerd

Anyone who can read Spanish, there's an article here where her family try to defend her: http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2012/08/23/actualidad/1345709139_149007.html/.

That link also has a sliding picture of the fresco (in better quality than the one in the OP) down at the bottom of the article so you can roll the new version over the old one :P

Translated quotes for people who don't speak Spanish:
"One of her grand-daughters [...] knew that Cecilia Jimenez has spent years retouching the painting. 'Until now, she only painted over the tunic, the problem is that now she's got involved with the face, and obviously, destroyed the painting.'"

"She only wanted to give it a bit of colour"

"She's always had a passion for painting. And she did it to make the church prettier, to help them"

I feel sorry for her though. She clearly didn't mean to destroy it and she thought she was doing good...

kingtiger

http://static.stuff.co.nz/1345781220/437/7543437.jpg

Kintarō Hattori

This type of old biddy annoys me. They think they have the right to swan in and do whatever the hell they see fit. Opinionated, self-righteous and annoying.

ScumLord

My name is URL wrote: »

Yeah, completely missed that part =p I read about it earlier somewhere else and they just had it down as a painting.

sure, sure..

Well she's turned some unknown half fecked wall painting into an international sensation. I bet it get's tourists.

working fool

Who's to say jeasus dident look like that ?
Zack dingle might sue though

Boombastic

This is brilliant. Everytime I look at it I laugh. The old one was the same crap we've seen a 1000 times before. Give this woman her own show

Duggy747

That's made the picture more memorable than Jesus painting no. 1,023,739

The face just doesn't make sense no matter how often I look at it, like some deformed old Soviet freedom fighter

Quorum

brummytom wrote: »

Before and After


Apologies if this has been posted.
But my God, why try and paint over a historic fresco if you can't do faces?

Possible mitheredness going on?

pablomakaveli wrote: »

It's both awful and hilarious at the same time.

Yup.

Quorum

MagicMarker wrote: »

So "prized" they allow people to paint over it.

Well, presumably she didn't have permission.