podcasts

Arts

Podcasts like The Lonely Palette

The Lonely Palette

Tamar Avishai

The Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) in the Sanctuary of Mercy church in Borja, Spain, is a fresco painted circa 1930 by the Spanish painter Elías García Martínez depicting Jesus crowned with thorns. Both the subject and style are typical of traditional Catholic art.

While press accounts agree that the original painting was artistically unremarkable, its fame derives from a good faith attempt to restore the fresco by Cecilia Giménez, an untrained amateur, in 2012. The intervention transformed the painting and made it look similar to a monkey, and for this reason it is sometimes known as Ecce Mono (Behold the Monkey).

The artist, a professor at the School of Art of Zaragoza, gave the painting to the village where he used to spend his holidays, painting it directly on the wall of the church in about 1930. He commented that "this is the result of two hours of devotion to the Virgin of Mercy". His descendants still live in Zaragoza and were aware that the painting had deteriorated seriously; his grand-daughter had made a donation toward its restoration shortly before they discovered that the work had been radically altered in an incomplete attempt to restore it.

Filter by:

Cross-category suggestions

Filter by:

Filter by:

Filter by:

Filter by:

Filter by:

Filter by:

Filter by: