Restoration Efforts Go Wrong at Historic Spanish Church

Preserving the past is no easy task. Take a work as celebrated as Michelangelo’s iconic Sistine Chapel (1512) fresco held at the Vatican. Centuries since its completion, teams of conservators have had to devise meticulous ways to remove grime that has accumulated across the mural, without compromising the artwork beneath. Sometimes this is achieved through special gels that remove the soot, without damaging the paint itself. Other times, researchers will use technology to discern what types of paints and materials Michelangelo once used to reapply his technique again.

When done right, artworks can be seen anew for generations to come, just like originally intended. When done wrong, such as in the case of an 18th century church in the Spanish city of Soria, disaster ensues. Originally built in 1725, the Ermita de Nuestra Señora del Mirón church was constructed on the ruins of an old gothic site and had been cherished for its Baroque and Rococo interior. An unauthorized restoration, however, has caused uproar in the arts community for a garish color that now dominates the once subtle features of the monument.

“We’ve ended up with the decorative elements being outlined and the cherubs—which were white before—becoming caricature-like,” said local heritage group, Soria Patrimonio, in an interview with Spanish news site El Confidential. “The repainting of a church such as this one falls outside the good intervention practices that apply to buildings with heritage value.”

It’s unclear who is to blame for this restoration. Spain’s Professional Association of Restorers and Conservators (Acre) believes this initiative did not go through the usual process of vetting to determine the teams and procedures needed. “This wasn’t a failed restoration,” said Acre president Francisco Manuel Espejo in an interview with the Guardian. “A restoration – successful or otherwise – is carried out by a qualified, official restorer. This was an attack on heritage that wasn’t carried out by a restorer or a conservator.”