Andy Menzel Blog #2 The Loney Palette: Behold the Monkey

 



For my second blog post I wanted to do a bit on art restoration and what can happen if it’s done wrong. Episode 36 of the Lonely Palette Podcast titled “Behold the Monkey” talks about a painting of Jesus done in the nineteenth century and how it was restored by a woman named Cecilia Gimenez who eventually became a laughingstock.

For decades, people have claimed to have seen Jesus in various different media. There was grilled cheese Jesus, cloud Jesus and even dog’s anus Jesus, now we have monkey Jesus. This poor piece was the result of a restoration by someone completely unqualified to try and recreate something that she was passionate about. Cecilia Gimenez was concerned that this piece from her church was fading away into obscurity as well as degradation, so she took it upon herself to fix the piece. What ensued would go on to not only affect her life and reputation, but also the reputation of her small town as well as the art world.

It’s not as if art restoration hasn’t happened before. Many ancient pieces have been restored by modern experts often times in an excellent fashion that shows the paintings ancient glory, but alas Gimenez was not one of these experts. The ecce homo has been described as looking like “if Chewbacca was an American girl doll”, it’s been described as a howler monkey and other bizarre things. Gimenez herself even claimed that Jesus himself came to her in a dream and asked her to fix his painting. In the dream, Gimenez claimed that Jesus had a round monkey face which she describes at one point as being “handsome” and beautiful.  Of course, the internet completely roasted the shit out of her and her restoration, however there is somewhat of a silver lining in this story.

After the piece was discovered, tourists flocked to the small town and church to see it. Thousands of euros put into the towns economy which greatly helped it as well as the church. Gimenez has even acknowledged the fact that she will most likely die before the internet meme potential of her restoration dies, but that she has made peace with it and no longer suffers as much anxiety as she once did. To many of us on the outside this painting is just further proof that restorations shouldn’t be done by just any one and that only trained professionals as well as historians should restore such pieces.

Questions to think about?

Do you think anyone should be allowed to restore any famous art?

Should the artwork be properly restored by a professional or left in its current state?

Episode 36: Behold the Monkey - YouTube

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