The faithful committed to the family of this college located in front of the basilica gathered, shortly before five o’clock in the morning, into a group of more than a hundred people, which has continued to grow since. The Virgin of La Macarena returned to worship this month in the last six months in Seville, after on August 12 she was removed from her lodge to undergo a restoration of the image after the fiasco that resulted in the intervention ordered by the Brotherhood last June and which disfigured the face of its icon. city, which transcends a strictly devotional framework. The wait and the desire to prove that the heyday of the 17th century has regained its expression, compensating for the hours of waiting and alleviating the cold that crosses the Spanish coast.
It was he who was responsible for the restoration, the expert Pedro Manzano, last week he was responsible for informing the faithful and devotees that his work to restore sight and reverse the changes caused by the intervention of Professor Francisco Arquillo was finished. “Each journey before the image has been an act of profound engagement. He has sought, with the greatest possible sensitivity, to restore its devotional integrity and to return that gaze which so many recognize as refuge, consolation and promise. My brothers have been guided always keeping in mind the deep reverence of their faithful and the duty to safely preserve that which generations have cherished,” he wrote in a letter.
“¡Esperanza, guapa!”; “Alive!”. The spontaneous cries of the faithful inside the temple while contemplating the image testify to the intention that guided Manzano’s work during these three months of activity that rendered the illusion. The faces that leave the basilica, illuminated, relieved, have nothing to do with the despair and despair, often bathed in tears of incomprehension, which haunt the faces of the faithful who, last month, abandoned the temple, without giving credit to the transformation of the virgin’s face. “Ha, come back!” ”, is what they repeated today with relief.
The Brotherhood was responsible for Arquillo, professor of conservation and restoration of works of art at the University of Seville and responsible for the restoration of the Macarena since the 1800s, with a “maintenance intervention” due to “superficial elements”. But the image presented during the June 21 sect went beyond the limits of a simple intervention. Too long eyelashes, which distorted his characteristic tired look, and too light polychromy, completely altered the expression of his face. The steps that will die to those responsible for the entity in the next 24 hours will trigger the indignation of the faithful and the brothers. That same Saturday, around noon, he cut his eyelashes and gave them back to the public. When he was unable to calm his morale, during the night from Saturday to Sunday, he called on a young imagineer who restored part of the red patina that covered the eyes of the image. It was even worse.
On successive days the divisions of those responsible for the heritage of the brotherhood took place, and the Instituto Andaluz de Patrimonio Histórico (IAPH) took charge of an analysis of the state of the height of the Manzano which led to its restoration. The IAPH report drew very worrying conclusions that left behind the failure of Arquillo’s intervention. In addition to confirming that the image has undergone alterations in the eyes which have modified the original shape of the eyes due to the use of inappropriate techniques which have modified the original morphology of the image; that changes also occurred in the hands and tears, experts denounced the presence of xylophages and a cry that crossed the entire face of the virgin.
With all this damage and deterioration, they had to deal with Manzano in a process that, unlike the opacity that maintained the Brotherhood during the frantic 24 hours of last June 21 and 22, when the virgin intervened three times without technical supervision, the monthly payments were made through videos in which the prestigious restorer explained all the activity that takes place on the ground and which was supervised by an advisory committee formed by experts. From the treatment to treat anoxia – which involves the collaboration of the Samitech company and which involves the image remaining in a processing burst for 24 days with an oxygen concentration of 0’00% -, to chromatic reintegration, through the removal of some forge keys that affected a bare wood and eyelashes and tears and mush that covered the eyebrows, to proceed with cleaning.
The care taken in this new return to worship was such that, in the days preceding its final exhibition, the virgin was placed in places where she can be observed by the faithful ―in their traditional lodge at the height of the faithful when they are in bed― to recreate the light and refine all the details as much as possible. During these last tests it was possible to prove that “the right eye presents a slightly larger opening compared to the photographs before the intervention”, a disagreement that was resolved by eliminating a regression that occurred in this area of the park.
The Brotherhood, which has just voted for a new Board of Directors, does not want to defraud its faithful again. It seems he succeeded this time.
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