the road to hell

                  

So often we try to do the right thing and it just doesn’t work; something

goes wrong and we realize (far too late) that so many problems could have been avoided if only we’d stopped to think.

Good intentions gone awry-

Such as, for example the attempted restoration and botched repair of a 19th century Spanish fresco (some say masterpiece) in the church of Santuario de Misericordia, by an elderly church volunteer in 2012 where, unbeknownst to anyone within the church, the 80 year old amateur had been quietly and disastrously ‘repairing’ the painting (known as”Ecce Homo” by Elias Garcia Martinez) over a span of years. (see third photo from the left, above)

The ‘refurbished’piece is a far cry from the original expression of depth and detail conveyed in the original artist’s calculated, intricate incarnation of the subject and though the would-be good-samaritan suggested she had undertaken the project “with good intentions”, culture councillor Juan Maria de Ojeda noted that the project (and she) “had gotten out of hand”.

 Alarming, intriguing, troubling, amusing.

Will people travel en masse and from afar to see this new work, as they may have travelled to see the last?