Art
The Journal puzzles out recurrence of hilarious art restoration fails | The Journal – Queen's Journal
Eight years ago, in Spain, a well-meaning elderly lady made a disastrous decision to paint over a beloved painting of the son of God, transforming the work into what’s been dubbed Potato Jesus by some, Monkey Christ by others.
The Monkey Christ fiasco drew international attention to Borja, the small town in Spain where it all went down, and Cecilia Giménez, the would-be restorer, faced ire, derision, and mockery from the global community.
But the original 19th century work, Ecce Homo, which Giménez painted over, was never a priceless artefact as the media frenzy suggested. Rather, it held sentimental value to parishioners of the church it resided in. Ironically, Monkey Jesus has drawn more tourism to Borja than ever before, boosting the town’s fledgling economy, and making the botched version far more valuable than the original hidden beneath it.
While all’s well that ends well in this case, the fable of Monkey Christ calls into question how Giménez’s blunder was allowed to happen in the first place. One might assume there’d be strict protocols when it comes to restoring centuries-old artworks—the kind of protocols that’d prevent a random local from taking their best crack at it.
In Giménez’s case, she had permission from the priest and conducted her work in the open with witnesses. According to her, she wasn’t finished the restoration job yet when the media uproar began, but, looking at the two images side-by-side, it’s hard to imagine more time would’ve yielded a better result.
Besides, serious art conservators insist completely painting over an original work is never the goal of restoration, no matter what state of disrepair it’s in. Instead, they carefully clean grime off old works and meticulously fill in cracks if need be. When handled by a trained professional, art restorations are typically successful at preserving the work and bringing it close to its original appearance.
Yet, botched art restorations are alarmingly common. In 2018, more misguided restorers at the San Miguel de Estella church in Navarra, Spain degraded a 16th century wooden carving of a knight into a wonky cartoon character. As with the Jesus Monkey, this restoration was undertaken by a local craftsperson with good intentions instead of an expert.
More recently, in the Northern Spanish city of Palencia, a botched statue restoration has gone viral. In this case, an alleged professional was hired to retouch a smiling woman’s face on the side of a building which had suffered from erosion. The result took the realistic carving style of the original and turned it into what looks like a playdough face molded by a really talented toddler.
While the trend would make it seem like some group of people is pulling an elaborate prank on the art community of Spain, these isolated events each happened as a result of poor planning and a lack of care.
Perhaps it would be best to change our approach to art conservatism and add a lot more oversight and community decision-making to the process. In addition, we ought to put a greater emphasis on preserving old art and sculptures to prevent damage from occurring.
Alternatively, we could be a lot more restrictive when it comes to selecting ancient artworks for remastering. You may know that ancient marble statues crafted by Roman societies were originally painted over. But today, these sculptures are recognized the world over for their iconic pale marble appearance and lifeless eyes.
While experts might see these statues as being ravaged by time, others regard their current state as more beautiful than the originals. Would we ever dare to repaint these sculptures, rebuild the colosseum or realign the Leaning Tower of Pisa? After all, there is a haunting beauty to old and damaged things.
What’s the deal with Leonardo’s harpsichord-viola? Why were Impressionists obsessed with the color purple? Art Bites brings you a surprising fact, lesser-known anecdote, or curious event from art history. These delightful nuggets shed light on the lives of famed artists and decode their practices, while adding new layers of intrigue to celebrated masterpieces.
Beauty is pain. Elizabeth Siddal, one of art history’s most famous muses, had intimate experience with this adage. Siddal first met artist Walter Deverell in 1849, the year she turned 20, while working for a London milliner and soon became a favored model of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood artists. She was featured in William Holman Hunt’s A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids (1849–50) and most famously in John Everett Millais’s Ophelia (1851–52). It was during her contribution to the latter painting, that she fell ill.
Beauty was a matter of pain for Millais, too. In a rare move for artists of the era, he spent five months painting scenery for Ophelia in a hut along Surrey’s Hogsmill River. “My martyrdom is more trying than any I have hitherto experienced,” Millais remarked, describing “muscular” flies and powerful winds. “The painting of a picture under such circumstances would be a greater punishment to a murderer than hanging.”
The Tate notes that Millais devoted only four months to portraying Ophelia herself. Siddal agreed to stand in for the doomed beauty. She spent long hours in a bathtub at the artist’s Gower Street studio, wearing a cheap gown Millais acquired. “Today I have purchased a really splendid lady’s ancient dress—all flowered over in silver embroidery,” he wrote. “It cost me, old and dirty as it is, four pounds.” The dress is still in the Tate.
Millais arranged oil lamps beneath Siddall’s tub to keep her bathwater warm. One of those lamps went out. Millais didn’t notice, and Siddal didn’t complain—by then she knew that beauty means pain. The water grew so frigid that Siddall fell ill with pneumonia. Siddall’s father ordered Millais to cover her extensive medical bills. The artist allegedly made off paying the least possible amount.
Siddal in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Lady Lilith (1866–68; 1872–73). Collection of the Delaware Art Museum.
Siddal made a full recovery from her Ophelia-induced illness, but the bout proved foreshadowing. Siddall likely met Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti while they both sat for Deverell’s massive oil painting Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene IV (1850). Siddall fell for Rossetti, who made her his sole model. In 1853, Rossetti took Siddall on as an art student. He taught her to draw, and advised her to drop the last letter from her surname. By 1857, Siddal became one of the only women to exhibit alongside the Pre-Raphaelites. Over the next 15 years, she produced numerous drawings, paintings, and poems, often inspired by Lord Tennyson, her favorite poet since discovering his verses on a butter wrapping as a kid.
As time wore on, Siddal grew fearful that her philandering beau would abandon her for a younger muse. While Rossetti resisted their marriage due to Siddal’s working class background, the two wed in 1860. It wasn’t enough to stave off her consumptive melancholy. Siddal died from a laudanum overdose, a rumored suicide, in 1862—decades before 1894, when Ophelia was included the original Henry Tate gift. It’s one of the museum’s most popular paintings today, due in no small part to Siddal’s sublime beauty, the pain it brought her.
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TORONTO – The union representing hundreds of striking Art Gallery of Ontario workers says it’s reached a tentative deal with the museum.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union says they reached the deal late last night, after 16 hours of bargaining.
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The union representing hundreds of striking Art Gallery of Ontario workers says it’s reached a tentative deal with the museum.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union says they reached the deal late last night, after 16 hours of bargaining.
The downtown Toronto museum has been closed for a month while more than 400 workers represented by OPSEU – including assistant curators, archivists and food and hospitality staff – were on strike.
They walked off the job after rejecting an offer from the AGO, which the union said failed to address key issues such as wage increases, protections for part-time workers and contracting out positions.
The union didn’t share details about their new tentative deal, which will soon go to a vote among the members, and the AGO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
No information was immediately available about when the AGO would reopen.
The union has previously said that part-time employees make up more than 60 per cent of the AGO’s work force, and they earn an average of $34,380 per year.
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Striking Art Gallery of Ontario workers reach tentative deal with museum – Toronto Star
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