The potato head of Palencia: defaced Spanish statue latest victim of botched restoration
— Mark Rees (@reviewwales) November 11, 2020
"Conservation professionals have questioned why Spain's heritage is continually handed over to those with no formal training."https://t.co/O4b2lvxwkP pic.twitter.com/RZI3AI4go9
If I wanted to create a conspiracy theory, I would say that there's a secret sect that worships a god that looks like that — one eye up, the other eye down, mouth like a sucker (or sex doll).It's a botch-up! Monkey Christ and the worst art repairs of all time
— Mark Rees (@reviewwales) November 11, 2020
"As another religious painting restoration goes horribly wrong, we take a look at some of the finest examples of butchered statues, art installations and frescoes."https://t.co/aZy3QEwcNU pic.twitter.com/cLmUhi1J93
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35 comments:
Look at "primitive" art, from stone age cave murals to Appalachian folk paintings. There is your basis for these restoration calamities. People untrained in art, i.e., untrained in perspective, unable to perform realistic reproduction of faces, doing restoration work make stuff that looks like this. It isn't a mystery, except as to why the untrained restorers were allowed to proceed with the attempts to fix artworks.
Some of my favorite paintings hang framed on my walls. They were done by my kids in elementary school, and include portraits of pets, landscapes, animals, and even my wife and I on our wedding day (done from a photo, with good line drawings of my tux and her gown, but very little in the way of faces).
Here's the real issue: Who hired these people?
Didn't they look at their prior restorations?
Seinfeld!
It looks like the picture Of George in the skin cancer episode.
John Henry
Experts!
They are all around us.
Amazing! Looks like a character on Gumby and Pokey.
Nothing brings me more joy than these two things.
The sculpture, at least, looks like it can be rescued. Based on the picture, the new mortar is slapped on top of the old so it might be possible to chip off and start over (if it really needs to be restored at all).
Did the person doing the restoration think they did a good job? Are they proud of their work and deeply hurt by the reaction?
I would say it is a conspiracy to get Brian Stelter's face onto works of art.
If Joe Biden did that, the media would insist those restorations are amazing and saying otherwise is disinformation.
I still laugh out loud over Monkey Christ. But Monkey Christ was understandable.It was just a woman in a tiny village doing her best to maintain her church.The city hired someone do do that to the statue.
If you click on the link in the twitter post, they claim the botched statue head resembles Trump.Trump is a God to them, a terrible omnipresence that can not be escaped.
That's the view of humanity through the eyes of the Left.
Another conspiracy theory is that it was done on purpose to attract tourists to the town. That worked in the "Monkey Christ" case, by accident, so why not try it again? Just because you have to sacrifice a seemingly worthy item of art? They may need the money.
Madonna and Son now resemble each other, in the Spanish Cult of Grandma Moses.
Birkel at 8:17 - LOLOLOLOLOL! You win the internet today.
They should have hired Gabriel Allon.
You forgot the "Picasso" tag.
That's honestly the name that came to mind with the statue photo. Or perhaps Miro. This is Spain, after all.
It wasn't a botch, it was a modernization.
There are a bunch of trickster gods, maybe they got together in retirement.
The botched art restorations are nothing compared to the global cabal of 'journalists' trying their damnedest to crown Joe Biden the emperor of America. I foolishly clicked over to the Guardian article linked in the tweet, and at the bottom of the article (like a last paragraph of the article instead of a separate item), there is a statement that Joe Biden is the new President and Orange Man very bad for challenging that. Incredible what a snow job we are under now!
I'm also seeing this on YouTube videos on any subject that could be peripherally related to the election... a statement that AP had declared Biden the winner an a button to click to see more. Don't listen to these experts on YouTube - just click over to our coronation article on Joe!!
This never would have happened under Franco.
Portlandia: We have the best restoration artists in the World. Because of jail.
I've got one for you: doesn't this remind you of Picasso a little? Without his skill, obviously, but in his distortions of humans there is an echo in the work of these amateurs.
Frankly, Althouse, with your taste for what is bad, I wonder you don't like these. Maybe you do and we're not parsing you hard enough.
"We always liked Picasso anyway."
These restorations make the features more rounded whereas Picasso seems to prefer angularity and sharpness perhaps related to and influenced by his dabbling in Cubism.
I attend mass at the church of Monkey Christ. Instead of communion hosts, the priest, Father Zippy, hands out slices of banana. "Do this in memory of Cheetah."
Oh no, Mr Bill!
Dave Begley said...
Didn't they look at their prior restorations?
Having worked very closely with a group of Spaniards I can authoritatively say; "No".
Don't forget that Spanish Leftists murdered 10,000 Priests, Nuns, and other clergy in the Spanish Civil war. The Spanish "Republicans" destroyed every Church in their zone. So, if some leftist Government is deliberately botching the restorations, I wouldn't be surprised.
Both my wife and I have worked in Conservation Labs, her in a Textile lab working on Civil War Flags, myself in an Objects lab that handled 3-D items mostly. Competent conservation services are expensive. I bought two 17th C Dutch paintings at auction recently, and I expect my conservation costs to be either as much as their cost or slightly above. Maybe not, as I'm still friends with the conservator I worked with. I can easily see a cash strapped town rolling the dice on a local mason rather than going with an AIC (or whatever it is there) conservator and paying that bill.
I suspect the restoration "artist" knew some very well connected individuals.
"I would say that there's a secret sect that worships a god that looks like that — one eye up, the other eye down, mouth like a sucker (or sex doll)."
Project much? : )
On the flip side... my church held icon-painting workshops for several years, led by a skilled iconographer. Under her brush, any amateur's mistakes could be fixed - usually with just a stroke or two. It was amazing. And because she was also deeply Christian, she expressed this almost-magic touch as "You see, all things can be redeemed through Christ."
We need to turn all the statues into
People of Color
Raggedy Andy
It's just some plaster crap on top of a bank building built in 1923.
Too bad the restorer didn't give her a gigantic, projecting muffin to match the man spreader on her left.
Now that would be a work of art.
It’s part of the war on western art. Defacing and destroying art is en vogue.
The Goddess of Liberty atop the Texas capitol dome, seen up close, is also amazingly rough and odd looking. The statue was restored a few decades back, and the restoration regained the original rough and odd looking face. Sometimes you just go with what worked before.
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