“An unspeakable event.”
Thus began an August 7, 2012 post from the blog dedicated to the culture of the small Spanish town of Borja with just 5,000 inhabitants.
The post explained that an inventory of religious art in the region revealed that the fresco Ecce Homo made by painter Elias García Martínez on the walls of the Sanctuary of Mercy in Borja was poorly preserved.
“But to our astonishment we can note that in the short time that has passed since then, an ‘intervention’ has taken place, the result of which is what is offered in this image.”
1 of 5 The “Ecce Homo” by Elias García Martínez and modified by Cecilia Giménez at the Shrine of Mercy in Borja, Spain — Photo: GETTY IMAGES/via BBC
The “Ecce Homo” by Elias García Martínez and modified by Cecilia Giménez at the Shrine of Mercy in Borja, Spain — Photo: GETTY IMAGES/via BBC
“We are not aware of the circumstances [a intervenção] took place.”
It didn’t take long for them to be revealed.
A parishioner at the Borja Sanctuary named Cecilia Giménez, then 81 years old, was identified as the perpetrator of the clumsy intervention. Armed with “good faith” she tried to solve the problems of painting restoration even without mastering the necessary techniques.
The rest is history: a tsunami of ridicule swept through social media, fueling the news, comedy shows and discussion circles around the world in the weeks that followed, reverberating with such force that it turned Dona Cecilia’s work into one of the largest memes of all time. created over the internet.
Faced with the sudden interest of a new audience in the local sacred art, the priest of the sanctuary even asked the mayor to cover the painting to avoid jokes. The request was rejected.
The elderly woman, who was threatened with legal action for an act deemed “vandalism,” slid into depression. He cried for several days.
However, she soon regained her spirits. He noticed that his work was “turning around”: little by little, mockery gave way to often ironic appreciation in a phenomenon typical of web culture.
In a short time, the image became a range of merchandising products such as keychains, Tshirts and fridge magnets, and even an opera composed by American Andrew Flack in 2015.
Ten years later, without any embarrassment, Borja celebrates the Ecce Homo transformed by the hands of the Spaniard, now at the age of 91, living in poor health in a nursing home.
“Her situation has deteriorated a lot but she is still aware of the phenomenon and lives here in Borja in a residence maintained by the Aragon government. She is with her son, who also has a serious health problem,” the Spanish municipality’s current mayor, Eduardo Arilla Pablo, told BBC News Brasil. Jose Antonio has a brain injury and lives in a wheelchair. Dona Cecilia’s other son, Jesusín, died at the age of 20 from a rare muscle disease. He told a newspaper in the Basque Country, another Spanish region, that he had always liked to paint and had good memories of the restoration because “he did it with love”.
The Mayor of Borja says that on September 10th there will be “a ceremony of recognition for Cecilia Giménez and Elias García Martínez” which will be broadcast live on YouTube.
It is also an acknowledgment of the great impact that has been made in this small town, located 60km from Zaragoza and part of the Spanish Autonomous Region of Aragon.
“In terms of tourism, we are a global product. We welcome visitors from 110 countries around the world,” says Arilla.
2 of 5 tourists at the Sanctuary of Mercy in Borja to see the modified Ecce Homo up close — Photo: GETTY IMAGES/via BBC
Tourists at the Sanctuary of Mercy in Borja to see the modified Ecce Homo up close — Photo: GETTY IMAGES/via BBC
In the first year after the case became known, there was an explosion in tourist numbers with 40,000 visitors in Borja.
“Now it’s stabilized. But we are working to ensure that this chain in the city’s hotels never breaks,” says Arilla. The influx is now between 10,000 and 11,000 visitors a year who experience live what has become famous online.
But what does the mayor think of what Dona Cecilia did?
“As an institution, we cannot allow such things to happen. We have a great monumental and artistic heritage and we are committed to restoring it. What happened was a mistake. But it’s also true that once it happened, that’s the pop phenomenon.” , the pop icon,” he says.
“With all due respect to the original painting by Elias García, the most important work is now defined in the manner of Cecilia Giménez.”
3 of 5 Dona Cecilia Giménez at the time of restoration — Photo: BBC
Dona Cecilia Giménez at the time of the restoration — Photo: BBC
The original: “Little artistic value”
The fresco by García Martínez (18581934) is a reproduction of another Ecce Homo (“Behold the man” in Latin) from the past. A common theme in European art between the 15th and 17th centuries, its title alludes to the phrase used by Pontius Pilate as he presents the tormented Jesus Christ to the crowd.
García Martínez was a professor at the School of Fine Arts in Zaragoza and also the patriarch of a family of artists of which his son Honorio García Condoy, an avantgarde sculptor, stood out.
4 of 5 The original 1930 painting was restored in 2012 with both tragic and ridiculous consequences — Photo: CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS BORJANOS/via BBC
The original 1930 painting was restored in 2012 with both tragic and ridiculous consequences — Photo: CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS BORJANOS/via BBC
The family used to spend summers in the Borja region, which led Garcia Martínez to paint the fresco inside the sanctuary in 1930.
The prestigious Spanish newspaper El País described the original painting as “of little artistic merit”. The work has not been cataloged by Organ’s cultural institutions of Aragon.
Did Dona Cecilia make art after all?
“Cecilia Giménez has created something completely different, with much more impact than the original painting, which will not be forgotten because you have not even remembered it before,” says Nathalia Lavigne, curator and researcher in digital culture.
“But everything there is context, meme is context. The image permeated contemporary visual culture because it had all the qualities of a meme: something casual, amateurish, and a little bit anarchic. It was never her intention to do what happened.”
The case of the relaunched Ecce Homo, according to Lavigne, relates to a contemporary question: now it’s less about what art is and more about where art is.
“In the context in which she undertook the restoration, it certainly wasn’t art. But it can be seen as such when one reflects on the idea of the longevity of image circulation, which will determine the meaning of the object’s life.”
During the “rehabilitation” of Dona Cecilia, unexpected visions appeared. Spanish filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia, who directed films such as The Bar and The Day of the Beast, tweeted that the image is “an icon of our way of seeing the world. It means a lot.”
American art critic Ben Davis even named the restoration among the 100 pieces that defined the 2010s (“a beloved masterpiece of unintentional surrealism”).
Indeed, for Rob Horning, editor of electronic internet technology and culture magazine Real Life, the meme offered “a chance to simultaneously persify the piety of religion and the pseudoreligion of art.”
The disastrous result also “released viewers with a sense of superiority,” something this lady had the courage to do.
5 of 5 The team that will restore “Ecce Homo” wants to save the “work” of an elderly Spanish woman Photo: Cesar Manso/AFP
Team that will restore “Ecce Homo” wants to save “work” of an elderly Spaniard Photo: Cesar Manso/AFP
Horning observes that the success of tourist visits to Borja also reveals a curious relationship between the offline world and the online world: it’s as if the wall bearing Dona Cecilia’s Ecce Homo is telling the viewer, “Here is the Internet.”
“The feeling must be pretty strong,” says Horning.
There are a few ways in the Dona Cecilia 2012 meme that should become distinctive across the internet over the years. The case suggested, for example, that for someone who goes viral, even in a context of ridiculousness, the consequences may not be that severe — and a big impact can even be “monetized.”
Owner Cecilia received 49% of the image rights to her Ecce Homo, which she invests in a fund to support patients facing the same illness as her son.
But the main lesson of the meme, says the journalist, is that the internet “exploits phenomena and reverses them.” In the end, the game turned.
Even Dona Cecilia seems more confident in her work. In 2016, during the opening ceremony of an “interpretation center” of his work in Borja, he stated: “Sometimes, when I see you so often, I think: ‘My son, you are not as ugly as you seemed to me at the beginning’.” .