Image by Catherine Fisher
Almost six months have passed since that fateful day in August, when 80-year-old Spanish woman Cecilia Giminez “restored” a 120-year-old Jesus fresco into what largely resembles a hairy primate. While at first it appeared that Giminez had absolutely no idea as to why her creation offended hundreds of Spanish parishioners, a recent clueless and remorseful statement from the ‘artist’ had some theories about her mishap (though, not quite what the public was looking for).
Apparently, Giminez believed that her modifications to Ecce Homo had gotten so much attention not for desecration reasons, but because she neglected to give credit to the artist who’s original paint-by-number was her inspiration.
“Lo siento mucho everybody; I am so very sorry. I know that my revisions to Ecce Homo have gotten a lot of recent attention. I humbly realize that most of the hype has been popularity and fan-based, I also understand that some individuals may have noticed that I failed to accredit my inspiration; the original artist of my favorite ‘Curious George’ paint-by-number.”
Ms. Giminez is not the only one who is still proud of her artwork. Giminez’s nursing-home art teacher, Paulo Pincasco, is delighted over Giminez’s artistic endeavors.
“Si, I do recognize that Ms. Cecilia failed to recognize PBS’s ‘Curious Jorge’, but she is making very much progress in her artistic skills. Particularly with working outside of the box,” said Pincaso. “I am extremely proud of her work and her ability to paint people and primates alike. And I hope that she continues exploring and improving our community as much as she already has.”
Amelia Giminez, Cecilia’s daughter, has also been very naively supportive of her mother’s creative attempts.
“Mama just needs to remember to keep her head up high, and to always recognize her inspirations. We know that she meant absolutely no harm, and probably just forgot to cite her work because of her old age. But we continue to encourage her freedom of expression. And as an enormous inspiration to the church community and our family, we hope that mama will not discontinue her art, just because of a small bump in the road. It is widely known that her apology was sincere, and we hope that the creators Margret and Hans Augusto Rey outwardly appreciate her talent.”
Despite the small supporter, the rest of the community is still largely baffled over what possibly provoked Giminez to revise a one hundred-year-old sacred artifact using a children’s coloring book, saying, “it’s dumbfounding that she, her crafts instructor and family still fail to understand why vandalism has dramatically shaken our Christian and art-loving community. If Cecilia will never truly comprehend her infamy, we hope she doesn’t plan making any future visits to the Prado with Cartoon Network’s newest issue of connect-the-dots.”
Lizzy Rosenberg is a freshman IMC major who personally thinks Jesus more closely resembles Garfield. Email her at erosenb3[at]ithaca[dot]edu