After an 83-year-old widow and amateur painter tried her hand at restoring a nearly century-old fresco of Jesus crowned with thorns in her local church here, she faced nothing but scorn and ridicule.
西班牙博尔哈——一位83岁的寡妇和业余画家试图修复本地教堂一幅拥有将近百年历史的荆冠基督壁画，其后面临了种种讥笑和奚落。
News of the earnest, if utterly failed, restoration in 2012 rocketed around the globe on Twitter and Facebook — the image likened variously to a monkey or hedgehog, and superimposed in memes and parodies on the “Mona Lisa” and a Campbell’s soup can.
2012年，她的修复成果通过Twitter和Facebook飞速传遍全球——这项工作充满热情，不过却是完全失败的，人们把她修复的图像比作猴子和刺猬，还把它与《蒙娜丽莎》或者坎贝尔(Campbell)汤罐头的图案恶搞到一起。

But these days, people in this village of medieval palaces and winding lanes in northeast Spain are giving the artist, Cecilia Giménez, and her work a miraculous reassessment.
博尔哈位于西班牙东北部，拥有中世纪的大厦和蜿蜒小路，如今，它对这位艺术家塞西莉亚·西门尼斯(Cecilia Giménez)和她的作品给予了奇迹般的重新评估。
Grief has turned to gratitude for divine intervention — the blessing of free publicity — that has made Borja, a town of just 5,000, a magnet for thousands of curious tourists eager to see her handiwork, resurrecting the local economy.
悲伤的情绪变成了对天赐恩典的感激——由于免费宣传的效应，只有5000人口的博尔哈小镇吸引了成千上万想看她作品的好奇游客，从而振兴了当地经济。
Nearby vineyards are squabbling over rights to splash the image on their wine labels. Her smudgy rendering is now held up as a profound pop art icon.
附近的葡萄园主们正在争夺把她的作品印上酒标的权利，吵得不可开交。她那拙劣的修复画作如今成了涵义深远的流行艺术符号。
Mrs. Giménez — known, Madonna-like, simply as Cecilia — is celebrated each year by residents on Aug. 25, the day of her transfiguration. A comic opera is in the works in the United States, the story of how a woman ruined a fresco and saved a town.
人们都只用西门尼斯女士的名字塞西莉亚来称呼她——就像圣母一样。如今，每年8月25日她都会接受居民的庆贺，这一天也是她“变容”（暗指基督的登山变容——译注）的日子。目前，一部关于她的喜剧歌剧正在美国筹备上演，讲述一个女人如何毁掉了一幅壁画，却拯救了一座小镇。
“For me, it’s a story of faith,” said Andrew Flack, the opera’s librettist who traveled to Borja for research on the production, which is still in the works. “It’s a miracle how it has boosted tourism.”
“我觉得这是一个关于信念的故事，”歌剧的剧本作者安德鲁·弗拉克(Andrew Flack)说，他曾到博尔哈为这部歌剧进行研究，歌剧目前在筹备过程中。“它推动了旅游业，这是一个奇迹。”
“Why are people coming to see it if it is such a terrible work of art?” he added. “It’s a pilgrimage of sorts, driven by the media into a phenomenon. God works in mysterious ways. Your disaster could be my miracle.”
“如果它是一件糟糕的艺术品，人们又为什么来看它？”他补充。“这在某种程度上是一种朝圣，被媒体推动，成为一种现象。上帝以各种奇迹般的方式起作用。灾难也可以化为奇迹。”
Since the makeover, the image has attracted more than 150,000 tourists from around the world — Japan, Brazil, the United States — to the gothic 16th century Sanctuary of Our Lady of Mercy on a mountain overlooking Borja.
自从这次修复工作完成后，这幅壁画吸引了全世界超过15万名游客——有的来自日本、巴西和美国——他们登上这座可以俯瞰博尔哈的山峰，参观这所16世纪哥特式仁慈圣母圣所。
Visitors pay one euro, or about $1.25, to study the fresco, encased on a flaking wall behind a clear, bolted cover worthy of the Louvre’s Mona Lisa.
参观者们付一欧元（约合1.25美元），便可参观这幅壁画，它绘在一面斑驳的墙壁上，其待遇同卢浮宫的《蒙娜丽莎》一样，被带有螺栓，清澈透亮的罩子罩着。
The church’s original “Ecce Homo” (“Behold the Man”) portrait of a mournful Jesus dated to the 1930s, when Elías Garcia Martínez, a Zaragoza art professor, painted it on the church wall.
这幅壁画名为《看这个人》（Ecce Homo，彼拉多将戴荆冠的耶稣交给众人时所说的话——译注），描绘了悲哀的耶稣形象，其历史可以追溯到20世纪30年代，作者是萨拉戈萨的艺术教授伊利亚斯·加西亚·马丁内斯(Elías Garcia Martínez)，他在教堂墙壁上绘下了这幅图案。
Borja residents did not much notice the painting because the church is dominated by a gilded 18th century baroque altar. But over the years, it bothered Mrs. Giménez to see the bottom third of the fresco vanish, crumbling in the humidity of the dank church.
博尔哈的居民们起先并没怎么注意到这幅壁画，因为这座教堂的主要部分是一座镀金的18世纪巴洛克式圣坛。但是多年来，西门尼斯女士却注意到壁画的底部三分之一由于教堂的阴冷潮湿而消失，损坏了。
Today, in her home in Borja — in a living room lined with landscapes she has painted — Mrs. Giménez recounted that she spent her summers in an apartment by the church.
西门尼斯位于博尔哈家中的起居室内装点着她亲手绘制的风景画，她在家中接受采访，回忆自己曾经在教堂旁边的公寓里度过的那些夏日时光。
She said she touched up the portrait repeatedly over the years — with the knowledge of the parish priest and the caretakers, a family that has lived there for generations.
她说，自己多年来一直在对那副壁画进行润色，教区教士和教堂看管者们都知道这件事，那些看管者是一个世代居住在教堂的家庭。
But eventually, she said, it required major work, which was abruptly halted after someone complained after the first stage of her brushwork. The story appeared in a local newspaper, then all over the world.
她说，最后壁画需要进行大修，然而当她完成了绘画的第一阶段，有人抱怨她的画技，修缮工作也就戛然而止。这个故事先是被刊登在当地报纸上，之后传遍了世界。
In the beginning, after the news broke, her relatives said she cried and refused to eat.
这则新闻刚开始爆出来的时候，亲属们说她大哭，拒绝进食。
“I felt devastated,” Mrs. Giménez said. “They said it was a crazy, old woman who destroyed a portrait that was worth a lot of money.”
“我觉得自己完蛋了，”西门尼斯说，“他们说这太疯狂，一个老太太毁了一幅值钱的名画。”
Today her celebrity has grown. She hands out prizes for a competition of young artists, who paint their own “Ecce Homo” portraits. Children, she said, come by her apartment near the medieval arch of San Francisco and cry: “Look, Cecilia. That’s Cecilia!”
如今，她的名气日渐增长。她拿出奖金资助一个青年艺术家竞赛，让他们画出自己的《看这个人》油画。她说，孩子们来到她位于圣弗朗西斯科中世纪拱门附近的寓所旁边，叫着：“看啊，塞西莉亚，是塞西莉亚！”
Meanwhile, the longtime parish priest, who insisted that he did not formally authorize the touch-up, has been exiled to Zaragoza.
与此同时，在此地任职甚久，并坚称自己没有正式授权西门尼斯修缮壁画的教区牧师如今已被逐出萨拉戈萨。
In an unrelated case, he has been accused of embezzling 168,000 euros in church funds in a criminal investigation that alleges he was the target of an extortion plot by a Roma clan. In recent months, the judge in charge of the case appealed to the pope to intercede, with the Vatican conducting its own civil investigation.
在一桩与此无关的案件中，他被指控贪污了16.8万欧元教堂资金，刑事罪案调查称他被一个罗马黑帮敲诈勒索。在最近几个月里，此案法官诉诸教皇出面斡旋，梵蒂冈也就此案展开了自己的民事调查。
This Christmas, the image of her “Ecce Homo” is stamped on the town’s lottery tickets. The portrait also plays a bit part in a popular Spanish movie, with a couple of thieves trying to steal it.
今年圣诞节，西门尼斯的《看这个人》图像将印在镇子的彩票上。它还出现在一部流行的西班牙电影里，片中有几个贼想来偷窃它。
“I can’t explain the reaction. I went to see ‘Ecce Homo’ myself, and still I don’t understand it,” said Borja’s mayor, Miguel Arilla, from his art-filled office.
“我没法解释这种反应，回过头去重新看着《看这个人》，我还是没法理解，”博尔哈的市长米格尔·阿利拉(Miguel Arilla)在充满艺术气息的办公室接受采访时说。
In the economic crisis of the last six years, 300 jobs vanished, he said, but with the tourism boom, restaurants remained stable. Local museums, he added, also benefited. The nearby Museum of Colegiata, housed in a 16th century Renaissance mansion, experienced a rise in annual visits to 70,000 from 7,000 for its religious, medieval art.
他说，过去六年间，受经济危机影响，镇上丧失了300个工作机会，但随着旅游业的增长，餐饮业一直很稳定。他还说，本地的博物馆也在盈利。附近的克莱吉亚塔博物馆坐落在一栋16世纪的文艺复兴建筑之中，展览中世纪宗教艺术，年度参观人次从7000人增长到了七万人。
But fame has also provoked bickering. The grandchildren of the original artist ceded any share of their rights to benefit a hospital foundation that manages the church, the mayor said.
但是名声也引发了争议。市长说，《看这个人》原作者的孙辈们把原本他们从壁画中获益的份额全部捐献给了管理这座教堂的一个医疗基金会。
But, he said, the great-grandchildren sent a letter through a Valencia lawyer seeking to erase the portrait entirely because the work “damages the honor of the family.”
但是，他说，这位艺术家的重孙辈们通过一位巴伦西亚律师写来一封信，要求彻底清除这幅经修缮的壁画，因为它“有损家族荣誉”。
The city already commissioned a professional study that concluded it was impossible to restore the piece.
博尔哈市曾委任专家进行研究，结论是这幅壁画已经无法恢复原状。
As president of the hospital foundation, Mr. Arilla is also involved in final negotiations to sell the rights for the exact image to the Aragonesas winery in neighboring Magallón.
阿利拉亦是这个医疗基金会的董事长，他正在参与一项最终谈判，把这幅画的使用权卖给附近马加利翁的阿拉冈尼萨斯葡萄酒厂。
The winery moved within hours after the news of the failed restoration broke to secure rights to the image, according to Fernando Cura, commercial director for Aragonesas winery. “The opportunity is that suddenly there is this news that marks this region on the map for the entire world,” he said.
这家葡萄酒厂的商业主管费南多·库拉(Fernando Cura)说，酒厂听说这则新闻之后几小时内就行动起来，想获得这幅画像的使用权。“我们面临的机遇是，突然之间这则新闻就让这个地区为整个世界所知。”
But four hours later, the Ruberte Brothers winery also tried to register the mark, provoking a legal struggle.
但是四小时后，鲁伯特兄弟酒厂也试图注册这一商标，从而引发了法律诉讼。
To settle it, Susana Ruberte said her company commissioned an original work by Mrs. Giménez for their special label that finally allowed her to create her own version of “Ecce Homo,” demonstrating that she could actually paint.
苏珊娜·鲁伯特(Susanna Rubert)说，最终解决方案是，她的公司委托西门尼斯绘制一幅原创作品，作为该公司的特别酒标，这样，西门尼斯最终可以绘制自己版本的《看这个人》，展示真正由她自己绘制的图案。
José M. Baya, the owner of La Bóveda, in Borja’s market plaza, freely credits her artistry for helping his business flourish.
博维达餐馆位于博尔哈的购物中心，餐馆主人何塞·M·巴亚(José M. Baya)认为正是西门尼斯的艺术才华令自己生意兴隆。
His restaurant in an old stone cellar attracts high-spending tourists, including, he said, a Japanese film crew that ordered the entire two-page menu to sample dishes like rabbit and morcilla.
他的饭馆坐落在一个古老的石头地下室里，吸引高消费的游客，他说，曾有一个日本电影摄制组把两页菜单上的菜全点了，包括兔肉和西班牙血肠之类。
“The impact of ‘Ecce Homo’ has been really great for businesses,” said Mr. Baya, who fared well enough to open a second restaurant. “Sadly, everyone heads to look at a painting that, frankly, is ugly.”
“《看那个人》真的为商业带来了很大影响，”巴亚说，现在他的生意已经非常成功，足以再开一家分店。“可悲的是，所有人都去看那副画，但实话说，它真的很丑。”