Kirsty Mckenzie
THE Spanish are renowned world over for their incredible works of art – from Segrada Familia to the works of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.
But not everything can be heralded as a masterpiece, and for every Francisco Zurbarán there are some serious fails.
The most recently culture blunder was spotted in the Spanish city of Palencia, with a repair job on a statute being slammed as ‘cartoon-like’ by locals.
The figure on the Unicaja bank has stirred up a storm of disapproval because of its flattened features and drooping eyes.
It is unclear who is responsible for the restoration, which has been likened to children’s sand sculptures and play dough models.
“It’s more like a cartoon head than the artistic head of one of Palencia’s most emblematic buildings,” local painter Antonio Guzman wrote in a Facebook post alongside before and after shots of the statue.
Another social media user compared the new sculpture to ‘sand sculptures kids do on the beach’ while another said her ‘granddaughter could do better with play dough’.
It’s not the first time an unorthodox redesign has stirred up artistic controversy.
In 2012 a elderly churchgoer in Borja attempted an unauthorised restoration of a fresco of Christ.
Her dubious daubing of the prized Ecce Homo became a global laughing stock, with critics comparing the touch up of the 1930s painting by Elías García Martínez to a blurry potato and a monkey.
But Cecilia Giménez, the 85-year-old amateur art restorer, had the last laugh. Her interpretation of the Ecce Homo has attracted thousands of visitors from around the world, bringing unexpected wealth and fame to the church and now counts itself as a protected site.
