The managers of the Brotherhood of the Macarena Dimiten after the controversial restoration | Culture

After 72 hours without giving any explanation to the brothers and devotees of the Virgen de la Esperanza Macarena about the controversial restoration of the size and the successive touch -ups that happened during the afternoon and the night of Saturday, the brotherhood broke its silence around four o’clock in this morning through a statement in which, in addition to asking them for punctual, focused the weight of the responsibility of the main intervention on the professor and conservative Francisco Arquillo Torres, to whom the entity commissioned those works. The note also announced that the technicians of the Andalusian Institute of Historical Heritage (IAPH), one of the most prestigious institutions in the restoration of sacred art, who would be responsible for analyzing the “current aspect” of the image and supervising future actions, and it was reported that the main responsible for the management, conservation and care of the heritage of the brotherhood, the butler and the prios were also presented.

The reaction of the Brotherhood arrived after an extraordinary meeting of its Government Board convened urgently to respond to the outrage generated by the restoration and which lasted almost nine hours. During that crisis cabinet their members listened to half a thousand faithful – Macarena has 17,000 brothers – who congregated in front of the basilica demand explanations about what happened and the resignation for being responsible for the change in the aspect of the image.

The Brotherhood has tried to respond to these transparency demands, which had also requested the experts in conservation and restoration of sacred art of the city that agreed that what had been done on the stature of the seventeent rule that requires a way of addressing very different tasks: with a previous diagnosis, preceptive authorizations of heritage and archbishopric and a technical commission formed by professionals who supervise all the steps.

In his note, the Brotherhood continues to talk about restoration and explains that it was Professor Arquillo, to whom the entity commissioned a report on “the state of conservation” of its headlines – the lord of the sentence and the Virgen del Rosario -, who established “in a maximum of four days” the duration of the work to “undertake the necessary actions for its maintenance”. He signed last June with the University of Seville to undertake that task. Among the 11 interventions that Arquillo determined as necessary – and that the brotherhood lists – includes the actions that, a priori, They have raised greater outrage, among the Sevillians, and strange, among the experts: review of the eyelashes and tears; Elimination of the clear spot of the tear of the left eye; Superficial cleaning of the head and hands keeping the patina produced by the natural effect of time; superficial protection of the polychromy to reduce the degrading process of the environmental environment; Review of skin protection, dolls and bust, placed in the maintenance operation carried out in 2012.

Of the eyelashes to the intervention with nocturnality

The Brotherhood also addresses the relationship of events that happened throughout the weekend, since the 20th, the teacher delivers the intervened size, through the first retouching, at noon on Saturday, to cut the eyelashes, and the recovery of the pink varnish under the eyes, which took place during the night from Saturday to Sunday – and of which the brotherhood did not report. When the image was delivered on Friday, “the Board officers responsible for monitoring the tasks estimate that the appearance of the Blessed Virgin is ideal to be a response to the cult”, however, then the Virgin did not have incorporated the eyelashes, warns the brotherhood in her statement, precisely what most disgusted most at first to the faithful who went to contemplate her during the morning of Saturday. “The first impression is that the eyelashes were not correctly placed and that the length was excessive. The eyelashes are those that give expressiveness in a devotional face and their expression had been modified,” explained the restorer Ana Cordero to this newspaper.

“Despite the change of appearance caused by the new tabs and consultations with Professor Arquillo, he indicated that it was a transitory effect product of this change,” says the brotherhood in his press release, to try to respond to one of the main criticisms that have been made by experts and devotees: precipitation when restoring the cult that is not in a position to be exposed. Those responsible for the brotherhood continue to point Archillo in the story of what happened immediately after. “After placing the Virgin already in the dressing room, her appearance continued to raise doubts among the Board officers; at that time she tried to repeatedly contact in a unsuccessful way with Professor Arquillo, having already left the basilica. Since it was not possible, and a few hours of the opening to the public of the basilica, it was wrongly decided to replenish it to the cult as it was.”

Arquillo remains in the spotlight when the brotherhood recounts how throughout the morning, to try to respond to the stupor of the faithful – and magnified through social networks – it was required in the basilica along with two other experts “to analyze a possible solution” “in the face of the persistence of that unwanted aesthetic effect.” It is then that it is decided to cut the eyelashes, a retouching that the brotherhood did report throughout that day. However, at night the face of the Virgin was treated again. The entity, who did not report it on Sunday, maintains in the note that as the “aesthetic restoration work could not be completed before the opening time of the basilica in the afternoon (Saturday), they spread overnight, once the temple was closed.” This intervention, however, was executed by another imaginer, Esteban Sánchez Rosado.

During the extensive meeting of the Extraordinary Government Board, it was seen entering the Brotherhood, after 11 at night, Professor Arquillo accompanied by a voluminous briefcase. Shortly before, for one of the side exits, the prestigious restorative of the IPh Fuensanta de la Paz had abandoned the crisis conclave, as local television reported 101 TV. The entity has informed in its statement that several experts analyzed in a manner the state of the Virgin after having received the summary report from the conservation and maintenance intervention carried out by Arquillo, as part of the match that the Governing Board will now carry out with the report that was presented in May 2024 “in order to elucidate the possible origin of the alteration in the expected result and in the aim Hope ”.

It will be the IAHP – which usually directs many of the conservation and restoration tasks of the Sevillan images – who will direct the “technical supervision” of all this process and the steps to follow. When you have the result, it will be an extraordinary council – a meeting with all the brothers of the Macarena – who decides how to act.

Although the Brotherhood focuses the weight of responsibility on Professor Arquillo, it has also tried to respond to the discomfort of the faithful who demanded resignations within the Governing Board. Last night, the butler and the prioste, those responsible for the management, custody, care and preparation of the hermandy heritage and in whom it fell, together with the older brother, the ultimate decision to place the Virgin in the Camarín, that the entity itself qualifies as “erroneous” in its statement.

At four in the morning, one hour after the Macarena published that note, the archbishop of Seville, José Ángel Saiz Meneses, seemed to give the explanations with a message on social networks headed with the phrase of Alexander Pope: “Errrar is human, forgiving is divine, rectifying is wise.” The prelate also called the Macarenos unity, in an attempt to calm the spirits of the faithful, who still do not understand how it has been possible to act on a size that is part of their collective imaginary, with that apparent disapplication. There is also the circumstance, that the brotherhood is immersed in an electoral process that will culminate in November with the choice of the new older brother and that two of the three candidacies that occur are based on the bosom of the current Governing Board, indicated for being responsible for the incomprehensible change of face of the macarena.