“Even Jesus did not please everyone…”
The artist who created the bust of Cristiano Ronaldo that has been mercilessly mocked around the world has had his say about an official ‘likeness’ that may go down as one of the worst in living memory.
Since it was unveiled on Wednesday to mark the renaming of Medeira airport, to be called ‘Aeroporto Cristiano Ronaldo’ from now on, the statue has attracted comparisons to various unlikely characters.
These range from Slimer from Ghostbusters, the talking head from Art Attack, Niall Quinn, Darren Gough, Raoul Moat, Paul Konchesky, Max Headroom, and basically anyone but Cristiano Ronaldo.
Emanuel Santos, who is a former airport cleaner and admits he is self-taught, says he used pictures from the internet, and in particular this photo of Ronaldo at the FIFA Football Awards in Zurich in 2016.
And although there’s no denying it still doesn’t look like him, we kind of get where he was coming from…
But it’s a bit much for Santos to compare himself to Jesus Christ, which is exactly what he did:
“Even Jesus did not please everyone. This is a matter of taste, it’s not as simple as it seems. I used photos of Cristiano Ronaldo that I searched on the internet as a base. I put the photos next to me and started working on the bust.”
Santos also claims Ronaldo asked to look different from actual reality, although the finished product probably isn’t what he had in mind:
“Cristiano saw the photos [of his sculpture]…from the messages he sent, I could tell that he liked what he saw.
“He only asked for some wrinkles to be changed, that give him a certain expression in his face when he’s about to laugh.
“He said it made him look older and asked for it to be thinned out a bit to make it smoother and more jovial. But they gave it the go-ahead before they liked what they saw.”
Alas the sculptor admits you can’t please all the people all of the time:
“Of course there’s the odd comment from someone saying there’s room for improvement here or there. But it’s complicated and the end result is never going to please everyone. Reproducing a public figure, and not just any public figure, is a complex task.”
Also, you will not be surprised to know the whole thing only took him 15 days. It shows mate, it shows.
