Paint your Own Religious Masterpiece. It Won't Work

Art is one of the most important things in the world. Celebrated artists such as Picasso and Van Gogh have had their work adored for years. Millions of people across the world have their famous pieces displayed in their homes, on their mobile phones and even placed permanently onto their skin as tattoos. Art is genuinely one of the most respected forms of expression. Therefore it is unsurprising that many people look to enter the world of art for themselves by creating their own pieces of ‘art’.

In 2012, a religious masterpiece in a small town towards the French border of Spain was ‘improved’ by an old lady who wanted to renovate it. The painting was done in the 1930s and is titled Ecce Homo (behold the man) and was considered a local masterpiece with the artist, Elias Garcia Martinez coming from the close by town.

The painting is now known as ‘Beast Jesus’ to the locals and thousands of tourists who arrive. Originally, Cecilia Gimenez, the 81 year old responsible for the upgrade didn’t own up to the changes, as the locals saw it as horrific, however, it soon became a valuable tourist incentive for the town. Not too bad for a picture that the locals deemed as horrific.

Photo was taken from "The Week" website

A new wave of tourism

Since the change made to the painting, the small town of Borja has now seen over 40k visitors, all coming to see what the hell happened, which means that over fifty thousand Euros have been donated to the church’s charity, which then goes on to the elderly.

Make your own bodged religious masterpiece

If you want to make your own home a tourist attraction capable of bringing thousands of people to it in the year, you might want to consider painting your own terrible religious masterpiece, just like the one above. Printing onto canvas is a good option once you have your original image as you’ll be able to sell it to all the churches in your local area, who will no doubt be begging to showcase your shoddy attempt at pious art. There’s literally nothing wrong with this idea at all.

Making sure it lasts

Your painting will be so bad that people will come from all over the world to see it for hundreds of years. For this reason you will need to protect it to prevent wear and tear that will generally mean the canvas only lasts up to 20 years. The two main ways of doing this are either framing the print with a UV protected glass front or getting a laminate spray to coat the front of the canvas.

Disclaimer

Painting a picture that is purposefully bad is, without a doubt, a ridiculous idea and should never seriously be tried. At best you can hope that you’re bad and just don’t notice your lack of skill. A great alternative to painting utter rubbish is to try and paint something that is aesthetically pleasing, high quality and, well, nice. That would be crazy.

Art lover David enjoys spending his time writing or discussing art of all types.