Ecce Homo by Elias Garcia Martinez.

The Ecce Homo by Garcia Martinez fresco is a representation of Jesus Christ, painted directly onto a wall of the Sanctuary of Mercy church in Borja, Spain in the late 19th century. The fresco gained notoriety in 2012 since the failed restoration attempt by an an elderly parishioner of the church, dubbed by many as one of the worst art restoration attempts in history.

The Damage on the Fresco.

Before the attempted restoration, the fresco had suffered from moisture damage over the years, leading to significant deterioration. It was this damage that Cecilia Giménez sought to repair, resulting in a drastically altered image that bore little resemblance to the original painting. From a restauration viewpoint, the challenge lies in a colorization problem, where the deteriorated spots have to be filled with a matching color. An additional challenge is the blending between the hairline and the beard of the image, creating a blurred demarcation line between them.

Colorization With Artificial Intelligence

We employed artificial intelligence to simulate inpaintings of the missing portions by taking special care to follow the original work. The AI algorithm learned by itself the structure of the face and successfully identified the beard and the hair lines. The body was colorized following the remanents of the color present in the fresco, obtaining a visible upgrade from the damaged work without creating spurious artifacts.

Related Publications

The Artificial Intelligence model is described in our CVPR 2022 publication.