The day of the Immaculate The Macarena has returned. A major celebration in Seville, it could not have more symbolism. He did it while dressing the open wounds that unfortunate Saturday in June, when he woke up in the locker room after a procedure that significantly changed his face. That … He broke the fraternity in two and made the city international news for what happened. Yesterday, at six o’clock in the morning, when the doors of the basilica were opened so that Seville could regain its Hope, no one could hold back their tears. Those who found themselves in the huge queue, which sometimes lasted more than three hours, and those who saw it through the multiple photos distributed, declared in unison: “It’s her”.
The Virgin appeared at the foot of the main altar, dressed in the fabric cloak, the ruffled skirt, with the crown and the Golden Rose which accredit her as universal devotion. But above all, the Macarena came back being the Macarenalike his Pedro Manzano He emphasized to clarify that the footprint of Hope was found. The brotherhood had to undertake a restoration process which lasted four months to reverse the action that Francisco Arquillo, father and son, took for just one week in June, and whose result was devastating.
At this time, after having intervened apparently without effect on the Virgin of the Rosary and on the Lord of the Sentence, Arquillo retouched the Macarena as shown in scientific tests which were carried out at the Andalusian Institute of Historical Heritage (IAPH) and at the National Accelerator Center of La Cartuja. When replacing eyelashesthose he placed were of a size which modified the particular expression of the sculpture. And above all, he applied a growth on the eyelids this narrowed the Virgin’s eyes. No one who saw Macarena in person or in photos that Saturday in June could believe it, because the change in his appearance was obvious.
This was the first task Manzano undertook, eliminate traces of everything Arquillo has done. A commission of experts was created to monitor the entire process and, supervised by IAPH technicians, took on the challenge of returning one of the greatest symbols of Seville to its optimal state. For 118 days, Esperanza Macarena has been removed from the sect to face up to three main representations.
Manzano removed the wood paste that Arquillo applied to the eyelids and which distorted the print of the image
On the one hand, during these scientific examinations it was demonstrated that the interior of the image was affected by insectssomething that was not appreciated in studies prior to Arquillo’s intervention. According to Pedro Manzano, there were traces of anobides, which biologically alter the wood. And what’s more, in a piece of hip, which is not original, there was a trace of xylophages, more aggressive than the previous ones. Although no activity of these insects was detected, the Virgin spent about a month inside a room to carry out an anoxiaThat is, it was isolated with zero percent oxygen to eliminate any possible biological remains.
SO, Manzano removed the wood pulp which Arquillo applied to the eyelids and began the task of returning the Virgin’s face to what the whole city remembered. According to the technical report after the performance, there was no need to reconstruct the eyelid line nor other significant elements of the image or its polychromy “since they were in good condition at the time of the removal of the recent additions”.
Where we can now see the difference from the last view we had of the sculpture before Arquillo’s intervention is in polychromy. Arquillo acted on the incarnation and also changed the appearance it had. Until then, for years, the Virgin was blackened by candle smoke and patina that the same restorer – who since 1978 was doctor of the Macarena – until highlight a little shine they weren’t theirs.
For this reason, according to Manzano, the most delicate process was reverse “inappropriate” cleaning that Arquillo applied and, through chromatic reintegration – and not with new patinas -, consolidates the incarnation of the Virgin, respecting the evolution of the sculpture itself through the centuries and the different restorations. As reported in the aforementioned report, there have been losses of polychromy due to the passage of time and others following recent interventions, such as the eyelid colorit was therefore reinstated following the remains of the current color that remained.
Regarding the historical spot of the Virgin on the left cheekso characteristic and the very origin of legends, Manzano corrected Arquillo’s performance and maintained this “anomaly” as part of the material history of the Macarena, qualifying it to continue, but in a subtle way.
Other anomalies that the face had presented for years, such as the tear grooves, were preserved but also nuanced, to promote the formal unity of the image. The tearsIn fact, they no longer show traces of previously used glue. For eyelashesthe pattern confirmed by photographs of recent decades was followed.
Finally, the hands were treated in the same way as the face, eliminating the reinstatement of Arquillo last June and the recreation of the devotional trace that is the kisses, reintroducing the color following the original polychromy.
Two days closer
For all these reasons, when the faithful saw the image 118 days later, the general feeling was that the nightmare had already passed. This error, also considered as such by the outgoing government council, was compensated by a restoration which, if possible, leaves the Virgin of Hope in a better condition than that in which Arquillo found it.
The Macarena, as was revealed yesterday, has returned to the image it was. This could be seen on Monday, but also on Tuesday and Wednesday, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
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