Spanish churches have a heritage of centuries-old art and history. But when restoration of that heritage becomes inevitable, troubles may begin.

The changes made to a 16th-century polychrome statue of San Jorge (St George) in the Church of St. Michael in Estella, a town in the Navarre region, provoked anger among art experts and inevitable comparisons to another botched restoration -- the infamous Ecce Homo fresco of Jesus.

The statue in Estella, portraying St. George charging the dragon, had turned a dark brown with age. After the restoration, photos of a pink-faced St. George wearing a flashy red and gray armor suit made the rounds on social media.

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Oh this is a toss up. It doesn’t take a brilliant art critic to look at these restorations and know that somebody, aka the guy holding the brush, fucked up. I mean we should be talking relatively simple restoration stuff here. It was not a complicated job: make sure there’s no more rust, try and throw a little color here and there, and basically make sure this thing isn’t going to disintegrate when some Portuguese five-year-old sneezes on it. It could have been that easy, but no. No, somebody had to go color way outside the lines in the coloring book this time. In fact, whoever did this deserves some sort of award, because St. George has never looked more like a bitch than right now. To all the folks who thought the rusty, decrepit knight riding on to fight a dragon couldn’t look any worse, think again. At least that knight didn’t have the lazy eye of the century. 

Here’s a curveball for you though, I think the big question here is was art in the Medieval Ages just bad? The answer is most definitely yes. Art was shit back then. Everybody knows this. People’s faces were square, people’s bodies were square, everything was a fucking square. In fact, the one thing that made all of that okay is that it look really fucking old. Obviously if you make that thing look brand spankin’ new, the terrible quality of workmanship is going to come to light. Now Ecce Homo, they turned Jesus into an ape, is one thing; that fresco was painted about 120 years ago and they had art all figured out by then. There was a tangible drop in quality. This lazy eyed paper-mache  St. George though, is a very different story. We’re talking the 16th Century here, guys- not necessarily the golden years for art. Some things are better left unknown, such as what St. George’s rosy cheeks looked like the second they were unveiled in the 1500’s. Hey Spain, next time leave the rust on.