Art attack: masterpieces targeted by activists

This image grab taken from AFPTV footage shows two environmental activists from the collective dubbed “Riposte Alimentaire” (Food Retaliation) gesturing as they stand in front of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” (La Joconde) painting after hurling soup at the artwork, at the Louvre museum in Paris, on January 28, 2024. – Two protesters on January 28, 2024 hurled soup at the bullet-proof glass protecting Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” in Paris, demanding the right to “healthy and sustainable food”, an AFP journalist said. It is the latest attack on the masterpiece in the French capital’s Louvre museum, after someone threw a custard pie at it in May 2022, but it’s thick glass casing ensured it came to no harm. (Photo by David CANTINIAUX / AFPTV / AFP)

The dousing of a glass-covered Mona Lisa in pumpkin soup is the latest in a string of cases of priceless artworks being targeted by environmental activists.

Here are some of the other cases that have made headlines in the past two years:

– Soup for “Sunflowers” –
In October 2022, two activists from the Just Stop Oil group emptied cans of tomato soup over the glass protecting Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in London’s National Gallery.

The pair, who complained that art lovers were more concerned with paintings than the planet, were arrested and charged with damaging the frame.

A month later, activists from the Last Generation group splashed pea soup onto another Van Gogh — “The Sower” — in Rome.

The painting, exhibited behind glass, was also undamaged.

– Mash for Monet –
In October 2022, protesters from the German branch of Last Generation flung mash at a Claude Monet, “Les Meules” (The Haystacks), hanging in a museum in Potsdam. It too was protected by glass.

In June 2023, activists in Stockholm smeared red paint and glued their hands to the glass covering another of the French impressionist’s works, “The Artist’s Garden at Giverny”, in a Swedish museum.

– Glued to Vermeer –
In October 2022, a man in Dutch city of The Hague glued his head to the glass protecting Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring” in the Mauritshuis museum.

A second activist poured tomato soup on it.

– Hands-on with Goya –
In November 2022, two Extinction Rebellion activists each glued a hand to the frames of two paintings by Spanish master Francisco Goya in the Prado museum in Madrid.

The protest did not damage either painting.

– Painting Degas –
In April 2023, climate activists attacked a famous Degas wax sculpture — “La petite danseuse de quatorze ans” (Little Dancer, 14 years old) — in a Washington museum, smearing its Plexiglas enclosure with red and black paint.

“Today, through nonviolent rebellion, we temporarily defiled a work of art to evoke the very real children whose suffering is certain if deadly fossil fuel companies continue to mine coal, oil and gas from the soil”, the group which claimed the action, which called itself Declare Emergency, wrote on Instagram.

– Taking a hammer to Velasquez –
In November 2023, Just Stop Oil protesters smashed the glass cover of a Diego Velazquez painting, “The Rokeby Venus” at the National Gallery in London with hammers.

They said they were inspired by the work of a suffragette who slashed the painting in the early 20th century during a campaign for the right to vote.

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