Two young female humans today defiled Van Gogh's Sunflowers at the London National Gallery. The motive: high oil prices that are pushing people into such poverty that they can't afford a can of tomato soup… so the soup went on the Sunflowers. The question they asked: is saving art more important than saving the planet. My answer: yes, if these two stand for “the planet”. Your turn.
P.S. I am extremely partial to this painting. I saw it up close some 30 years ago. It was an epiphany.
Real activists throw things (pies, ink) at politicians in order to make a point, not at art works. These kids are imbecilic vandals and should be punished severely as such.
Yeah, how about Boris Johnson for deliberately and maliciously helping to create the Ukraine War. And all the politicians and lobbyists who led Britain's big move to Wind energy, a total failure.
"Too much of what is called education is little more than an expensive isolation from reality." - Thomas Sowell
It would appear these two young people are quite divorced from reality. There are other recent examples of young people defiling art in a gallery. Obviously the punishments meted out previously were not sufficient to deter this latest act. As a society, you get more of what you condone.
I have been to the Van Gogh musuem many times and he is my favorite artist. I don't know if I saw this actual painting, but he is by far my favorite artist, his technique is amazing. There is no reasoning with climate cultists, they need to be punished to the full extent of the law!
Yes, I certainly saw multiple paintings with Sunflowers, not sure if this one was there at the time. I was hesitant to say for sure, as if that was not the case, it was sure to be pointed out. Not by you of course :) Thanks for your great posts.
not surprised; look for more acts from senseless people. In West Virginia, US, we plan for hardships and lean times. Have little sympathy for those that do nothing and expect the 'government' to take care of them...
I fail to see how this accomplishes anything but anger in the general public. And the people that exhibit this behaviour make it abundantly clear they know nothing about “how the world really works”to quote Vaclav Smil.
Morons, taking a totally legitimate outrage, and taking out on a painting that did nothing. If anything I would say they are useful idiots and were co-opted to do something idiotic in order to discredit any authentic protests, a typical CIA tactic. If they really want to do something, how about throwing cans of tomato soup on all the greenies, i.e. Extinction Rebellion, Greta and wind turbine lobbyists who created this nightmare. And the neocons who created the Ukraine war. They are all responsible and need to be held to account.
I would imagine that the Brits would take defacing priceless works of art rather seriously, but you could be right. The left likes to coddle criminals in all countries these days.
Who says they are eco-wackos? Eco-wackos love the high oil prices and deliberately are creating energy scarcity to force obedience to the green religion. Artificial scarcity is their aim.
You know, my paranoid self noticed they squirted some glue on their palms, but did they actually glue themselves or just touched the non-glued part of the palms to the wall? That crap hurts when unglued...
There is no mention of that in the latest. But the Gallery said ""The pair appeared to glue themselves to the wall adjacent to Van Gogh's Sunflowers (1888). " They might have not even glued themselves! :D
one must excuse the exuberance of youth.. but also want to see them suffer the consequences so they can learn and grow from it. at the end of the day, 0 actual damage was caused, except maybe to the walls.
An artist friend of mine tells me the restoration of the painting will take a lot of time and money. Good to know it could be restored.
I can't excuse such a degree of exuberance but you're, we all learn from our mistakes as long as there's someone to help us with fines or community service.
It wasn't when I saw it but now I see from comments here that it is now and this is great news. Still, I wouldn't want these particular exuberant youths around my child or cat. :)
Doesn't sound like they are the extinction rebellion types, those guys want high energy prices. Protesting high energy prices is totally legit since the crisis was deliberately created by evil people. Seems like a diversion or a "poisoning the well" type strategy. There are going to be major protests when the repercussions of this energy scarcity/Great Reset agenda come to fruition this winter.
Protesting that high oil prices are pushing people into poverty and they are a group "Just Stop Oil". That doesn't make any sense. High oil prices are their agenda?!?
They were totally incoherent, which makes the attention-seeking explanation all the more plausible. Here's what one said:
"Videos of Friday's incident showed a protester shouting: "What is worth more? Art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?"
She also referenced the cost of living crisis and "millions of cold, hungry families" who "can't even afford to heat a tin of soup".
They couldn't even put together an argument that made an ounce of sense but glueing your hands to walls gets you attention, so you glue your hands to walls and throw soupe at paintings.
Yes, I seen the video, scatterbrained. The sad fact is they may have been pushed into this by nefarious actors who have an agenda and lots of funding. They look too dumb to have planned this themselves.
They should really take their protest Brussels and demand the end to fracking bans and throw soup on some politicians (i have Habeck in mind :) ) Vincent cannot hear them!
As someone on the thread noted earlier, once upon a time activists threw things at politicians as is right and proper. Now... too scared? Activists today, eh! :D
this was well thought out and yet devoid of any sign of a functioning intellect- well thought out because by using two females ( females are a protected class in the media) and projecting it as a expect "moral" act there will be zero punishment - there will be substantial rewards - status - paid speaking engagements - lots of breathless articles - yada -yada-yada - expect more of this behavior - LOTS more coming to a neighborhood near you soon!
I don't understand how this action will in any way advanced their goal of ending fossil fuels. This isn't some niche topic. We're all painfully aware of the climate emergency theory. At this point people either buy into it or don't. These types of actions seem more about how important the actor is then the action. (Pure Narcism)
People like making lots of false comparisons like “saving art vs saving the planet,” but that doesn’t make sense as a choice.
Budget battles do this all the time - like what if we abandon Afghanistan and spend the money on the poor? Of course we abandoned the area at great loss of life, liberty and infrastructure that merely led to embolden Russian ideas of reclaiming the old Soviet republics. Where did the money go? Not to the poor. We didn’t fire all those soldiers or redeploy infrastructure spending into local energy or food production, we just destroyed something that was already in place.
I digress a bit, but think of the many other false choices you have seen presented where irreversible change was made and losses incurred for little or no gain.
The French power grid of 20 years ago is a prime example. The Germans are doing this not only with their nuclear plants but with their entire industrial sector, and you have to wonder how much permanent loss of infrastructure and human capital (trained and well paid skilled employees) that they’re tossing in the recycle bin right now.
Good point. The money never goes to the poor, just like when a smoker tries to motivate himself to quit because this will save him a tonne of money. It never does, the money just gets spent on other unnecessary things.
Partly that. Also partly that the money was never really saved.
A common energy example … France uses most of its energy in the winter, and they had excess capacity in the summer. They installed a lot of solar plants, which mainly provided energy in the summer. What was really saved?
With the painting, does damaging it save any oil? How much oil would be saved if they banned future paints with oils? What would be used to replace those paints, and what would that byproduct from oil production be used for? Would it just reduce the cost of oil paints and shift demand elsewhere? It’s not quite that simple.
People and politicians like to break everything into dollars and cents, as if everything’s fungible. The real world isn’t fungible at all though - real things take time and investment just to reach a point of productivity.
Wow, do they even know why the oil prices are high or are they just plain high 24/7 and thought their cause was just? As a 15 year old I spent a very long summer living in a tribe 200 miles from Nairobi. While my friend and I had to hike 7 miles over rough terrain to reach his father's "farm", there was no electricity, no running water, no cars, no stores, and no tomato soup! There are people in the world that would dream to have tomato soup, the opportunity to see a Master Piece, but to blame oil for their ignorance is beyond me; I'm sure they don't understand Supply and Demand, they don't understand War and Peace, but I will assume they will understand one meal a day and the true meaning of The Miserables!
This sort of behaviour does tend to manifest in upper middle class offspring, indeed. Not a lot of hardship in their lives, probably. Also, they could've given that soup to poor people if they wanted to make a point AND make a tiny difference.
Irina, while my father had enough money to be considered upper middle class, he lived a life as if he was poor, even though he had a Master's in Accounting from the university of California Berkeley. He spent his career working for the IRS (google Samuel Mayall, or Mayall mills). Even though I have a degree in Business, I started working for hi tech companies in technical roles once I graduated in 1982. I had been supporting my father the last 20 years only to find out he was rich. I am glad he didn't give me money, I had to learn life's lessons on my own raising 3 incredibly talented children, now in their 30's. I would be embarrassed if they were my children. If you hung in here reading this, I take offense with everyone blaming oil companies for the price of oil, or that fossil fuel is evil and the Global warming nut cases out there. Ask yourself, of the millions of meteors passing by the earth, we are just one hit away from an ice age, one large volcano going off (I live 50 miles from Mt. St. Helens). Like my father, I live a simple life, I have been married 41 years, live in Portland, Oregon, in the same house the last 30 years (across the street from where I went to high school) and still work as a Principal Software Engineer for Wasabi Technologies out of Boston. In closing, IF every tiny difference went directly where it was needed, it would make a huge difference, the sad part is everyone has their paw out, and there is nothing to give to the ones that need tomato soup, but committing a crime with tomato soup is NOT the answer, and for gawd's sake it wasn't Mulligatawny or they would have committed 2 crimes!
I was raised in a very similar way and am grateful for it. Our foundations are indeed laid over the first few years of our lives by our parents or guardians and it is kind of unfortunate the stability of these foundations does not reveal itself until much later in life.
I believe they should be sentenced to 3 years without the benefit of fossil fuels. Being realistic this would be impossible to do but I would like to see it tried. For example: Heating and cooling generated without any fossil fuel; no transportation any part of which has any fossil fuel element including propulsion, vehicle structure, etc.; no apparel any part of which has any fossil fuel element; no medical treatment which has any fossil fuel element; no computers, audio or video devices, phones or other communications devices which have any fossil fuel element. I think you get the idea; and for every violation add another year to their sentence. My epiphany was Renoir and I have a very low tolerance for these cretins.
This is actually a very good idea, a Black Mirror-esque idea. The new punishment: life in the pre-industrial age. See how you like it. What a pity no one would invest in it.
It seems the people who claimed to be the most tolerant and loudly preached tolerance a few years ago are the most intolerant people in the world right now.
Absolutely. In fact I remember one online acquaintance sporting a banner in her profile saying "Zero tolerance for intolerance." I think it sums it all up pretty neatly, if inadvertently. :D
We had two idiots from XT glue themselves to a Picasso that was on loan to the National Gallery here in Australia. Thankfully the painting was behind glass security screen
They really don't have a clue, the only message they got across to the public is they are senseless idiots.
"Activists Say The Outrage At Them Gluing Their Hands To Famous Paintings Is Nothing Compared To What Climate Change Will Do To Art." what a load of complete BS.
Why now? According to their predecessors the planet has already gone, it's already too late. Don't they realise the death of the planet was predicted back in the early 70s and almost every Yr since. Perhaps we can take some confidence from this?
Cognitive dissonance is such a great thing. You can both blame everyone for damaging the planet beyond saving and playing the saviour at the same time.
I saw the photo of those two. There was a cluelessness in their eyes.
And an aggressive unwillingness to accept a clue.
Real activists throw things (pies, ink) at politicians in order to make a point, not at art works. These kids are imbecilic vandals and should be punished severely as such.
They are both legal adults. I would not call them kids because it suggest mental inability to take responsibility for their actions.
Yeah, how about Boris Johnson for deliberately and maliciously helping to create the Ukraine War. And all the politicians and lobbyists who led Britain's big move to Wind energy, a total failure.
Good point
"Too much of what is called education is little more than an expensive isolation from reality." - Thomas Sowell
It would appear these two young people are quite divorced from reality. There are other recent examples of young people defiling art in a gallery. Obviously the punishments meted out previously were not sufficient to deter this latest act. As a society, you get more of what you condone.
Not to mention the protesters blocking traffic, including ambulances. What'a random life when you're saving the planet?
"education" in the usa is nothing more than an extraordinarily expense indoctrination
I saw it. This makes my blood boil.
My 11-year-old daughter cried when she saw the video. That kind of savagery was incomprehensible to her.
I have been to the Van Gogh musuem many times and he is my favorite artist. I don't know if I saw this actual painting, but he is by far my favorite artist, his technique is amazing. There is no reasoning with climate cultists, they need to be punished to the full extent of the law!
You've no doubt seen some Sunflowers, he painted a few different ones. Brilliant in every way, all of his works.
Yes, I certainly saw multiple paintings with Sunflowers, not sure if this one was there at the time. I was hesitant to say for sure, as if that was not the case, it was sure to be pointed out. Not by you of course :) Thanks for your great posts.
not surprised; look for more acts from senseless people. In West Virginia, US, we plan for hardships and lean times. Have little sympathy for those that do nothing and expect the 'government' to take care of them...
That's what we're doing down here, too. Lean times are coming.
More weirdness. Why tomato soup?
No idea. Maybe it's cheap and kind of red?
I fail to see how this accomplishes anything but anger in the general public. And the people that exhibit this behaviour make it abundantly clear they know nothing about “how the world really works”to quote Vaclav Smil.
So do I. So do a lot of people, dare I say most.
Morons, taking a totally legitimate outrage, and taking out on a painting that did nothing. If anything I would say they are useful idiots and were co-opted to do something idiotic in order to discredit any authentic protests, a typical CIA tactic. If they really want to do something, how about throwing cans of tomato soup on all the greenies, i.e. Extinction Rebellion, Greta and wind turbine lobbyists who created this nightmare. And the neocons who created the Ukraine war. They are all responsible and need to be held to account.
I saw that they glued themselves to the wall under the painting as well.
I rest easy knowing that these two eco-wackos will soon find themselves glued to a stainless steel cot in a room with iron bars.
Probably haven’t/wont spend/spent time in jail. Surely would not in. NYC, LA, OR Chicago.
I would imagine that the Brits would take defacing priceless works of art rather seriously, but you could be right. The left likes to coddle criminals in all countries these days.
Yes, that was in the bad old times. Now, their hands are tied by various PC regulations.
Who says they are eco-wackos? Eco-wackos love the high oil prices and deliberately are creating energy scarcity to force obedience to the green religion. Artificial scarcity is their aim.
You know, my paranoid self noticed they squirted some glue on their palms, but did they actually glue themselves or just touched the non-glued part of the palms to the wall? That crap hurts when unglued...
I hope their entire palms were stuck, and that the Bobbies employed the "rip-the-bandaid-off-quickly" approach!
There is no mention of that in the latest. But the Gallery said ""The pair appeared to glue themselves to the wall adjacent to Van Gogh's Sunflowers (1888). " They might have not even glued themselves! :D
one must excuse the exuberance of youth.. but also want to see them suffer the consequences so they can learn and grow from it. at the end of the day, 0 actual damage was caused, except maybe to the walls.
An artist friend of mine tells me the restoration of the painting will take a lot of time and money. Good to know it could be restored.
I can't excuse such a degree of exuberance but you're, we all learn from our mistakes as long as there's someone to help us with fines or community service.
i thought that all paintings in museums are protected by a glass, like in the louvre?
It wasn't when I saw it but now I see from comments here that it is now and this is great news. Still, I wouldn't want these particular exuberant youths around my child or cat. :)
Painting was protected by glass I understand
Yes! https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-63254878
I was unable to see a connection between tomato soup and sunflowers. The ink used on the T-shirts the young ones wore was probably oil based though.
The glue also probably has some petrochemical or other in it, not to mention the hair dye and so on, and so forth but who cares.
As for the choice of soup -- maybe they thought it looks like blood?
I guess.
Those two need to attend "message school" if their intent is a specific message.
Or perhaps it's attention with a fill-in-the-blank message.
The latter, probably, judging by the self-contradictory things one of them said upon their arrest.
They were aiming at getting attention, and they succeeded. What they did has no relationship to environment or climate, but hey, it got attention.
By hitting a well-loved painting, they made sure to be on the evening news.
Spoiled, destructive idiots.
Doesn't sound like they are the extinction rebellion types, those guys want high energy prices. Protesting high energy prices is totally legit since the crisis was deliberately created by evil people. Seems like a diversion or a "poisoning the well" type strategy. There are going to be major protests when the repercussions of this energy scarcity/Great Reset agenda come to fruition this winter.
I hadn't looked at this angle but it does strongly suggest attention-seeking. What a pity.
They were part of a group called “Just Stop Oil” so I guess they were mad that it is an oil painting?
Unfortunately I think we will be seeing a lot more of this...
Protesting that high oil prices are pushing people into poverty and they are a group "Just Stop Oil". That doesn't make any sense. High oil prices are their agenda?!?
Looking for logic in a death cult is not worth the mental effort.
If they ever come for Bob Ross, then I will get really angry...
They were totally incoherent, which makes the attention-seeking explanation all the more plausible. Here's what one said:
"Videos of Friday's incident showed a protester shouting: "What is worth more? Art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?"
She also referenced the cost of living crisis and "millions of cold, hungry families" who "can't even afford to heat a tin of soup".
They couldn't even put together an argument that made an ounce of sense but glueing your hands to walls gets you attention, so you glue your hands to walls and throw soupe at paintings.
Yes, I seen the video, scatterbrained. The sad fact is they may have been pushed into this by nefarious actors who have an agenda and lots of funding. They look too dumb to have planned this themselves.
But... It's not that oil in the paints... Unless all oils are bad, which would be bad news for anyone using any food, I guess.
They should really take their protest Brussels and demand the end to fracking bans and throw soup on some politicians (i have Habeck in mind :) ) Vincent cannot hear them!
As someone on the thread noted earlier, once upon a time activists threw things at politicians as is right and proper. Now... too scared? Activists today, eh! :D
This is tragic and a result of decades of green brainwashing! Art is essential for survival of human civility!
this was well thought out and yet devoid of any sign of a functioning intellect- well thought out because by using two females ( females are a protected class in the media) and projecting it as a expect "moral" act there will be zero punishment - there will be substantial rewards - status - paid speaking engagements - lots of breathless articles - yada -yada-yada - expect more of this behavior - LOTS more coming to a neighborhood near you soon!
This sounds really tragic.
I wonder if th eglue they used, was "oil free". It was just stupid. They should spend one night in jail, without cell phone, just to think.
I don't understand how this action will in any way advanced their goal of ending fossil fuels. This isn't some niche topic. We're all painfully aware of the climate emergency theory. At this point people either buy into it or don't. These types of actions seem more about how important the actor is then the action. (Pure Narcism)
Nobody does. Even the performers can't explain their actions coherently.
It’s merely an act of anger and frustration.
People like making lots of false comparisons like “saving art vs saving the planet,” but that doesn’t make sense as a choice.
Budget battles do this all the time - like what if we abandon Afghanistan and spend the money on the poor? Of course we abandoned the area at great loss of life, liberty and infrastructure that merely led to embolden Russian ideas of reclaiming the old Soviet republics. Where did the money go? Not to the poor. We didn’t fire all those soldiers or redeploy infrastructure spending into local energy or food production, we just destroyed something that was already in place.
I digress a bit, but think of the many other false choices you have seen presented where irreversible change was made and losses incurred for little or no gain.
The French power grid of 20 years ago is a prime example. The Germans are doing this not only with their nuclear plants but with their entire industrial sector, and you have to wonder how much permanent loss of infrastructure and human capital (trained and well paid skilled employees) that they’re tossing in the recycle bin right now.
Good point. The money never goes to the poor, just like when a smoker tries to motivate himself to quit because this will save him a tonne of money. It never does, the money just gets spent on other unnecessary things.
Partly that. Also partly that the money was never really saved.
A common energy example … France uses most of its energy in the winter, and they had excess capacity in the summer. They installed a lot of solar plants, which mainly provided energy in the summer. What was really saved?
With the painting, does damaging it save any oil? How much oil would be saved if they banned future paints with oils? What would be used to replace those paints, and what would that byproduct from oil production be used for? Would it just reduce the cost of oil paints and shift demand elsewhere? It’s not quite that simple.
People and politicians like to break everything into dollars and cents, as if everything’s fungible. The real world isn’t fungible at all though - real things take time and investment just to reach a point of productivity.
Supergluing their ears to the frame might have been more appropriate, and just.
Yet what has the painting done to deserve this? I suggest they glue themselves to King Charles' ears. This would be stylistically consistent, I think.
Ha! You win!
I will bet the glue they used was petroleum based -
Wow, do they even know why the oil prices are high or are they just plain high 24/7 and thought their cause was just? As a 15 year old I spent a very long summer living in a tribe 200 miles from Nairobi. While my friend and I had to hike 7 miles over rough terrain to reach his father's "farm", there was no electricity, no running water, no cars, no stores, and no tomato soup! There are people in the world that would dream to have tomato soup, the opportunity to see a Master Piece, but to blame oil for their ignorance is beyond me; I'm sure they don't understand Supply and Demand, they don't understand War and Peace, but I will assume they will understand one meal a day and the true meaning of The Miserables!
This sort of behaviour does tend to manifest in upper middle class offspring, indeed. Not a lot of hardship in their lives, probably. Also, they could've given that soup to poor people if they wanted to make a point AND make a tiny difference.
Irina, while my father had enough money to be considered upper middle class, he lived a life as if he was poor, even though he had a Master's in Accounting from the university of California Berkeley. He spent his career working for the IRS (google Samuel Mayall, or Mayall mills). Even though I have a degree in Business, I started working for hi tech companies in technical roles once I graduated in 1982. I had been supporting my father the last 20 years only to find out he was rich. I am glad he didn't give me money, I had to learn life's lessons on my own raising 3 incredibly talented children, now in their 30's. I would be embarrassed if they were my children. If you hung in here reading this, I take offense with everyone blaming oil companies for the price of oil, or that fossil fuel is evil and the Global warming nut cases out there. Ask yourself, of the millions of meteors passing by the earth, we are just one hit away from an ice age, one large volcano going off (I live 50 miles from Mt. St. Helens). Like my father, I live a simple life, I have been married 41 years, live in Portland, Oregon, in the same house the last 30 years (across the street from where I went to high school) and still work as a Principal Software Engineer for Wasabi Technologies out of Boston. In closing, IF every tiny difference went directly where it was needed, it would make a huge difference, the sad part is everyone has their paw out, and there is nothing to give to the ones that need tomato soup, but committing a crime with tomato soup is NOT the answer, and for gawd's sake it wasn't Mulligatawny or they would have committed 2 crimes!
I was raised in a very similar way and am grateful for it. Our foundations are indeed laid over the first few years of our lives by our parents or guardians and it is kind of unfortunate the stability of these foundations does not reveal itself until much later in life.
Clueless is too kind. These are the dregs of humanity.
I believe they should be sentenced to 3 years without the benefit of fossil fuels. Being realistic this would be impossible to do but I would like to see it tried. For example: Heating and cooling generated without any fossil fuel; no transportation any part of which has any fossil fuel element including propulsion, vehicle structure, etc.; no apparel any part of which has any fossil fuel element; no medical treatment which has any fossil fuel element; no computers, audio or video devices, phones or other communications devices which have any fossil fuel element. I think you get the idea; and for every violation add another year to their sentence. My epiphany was Renoir and I have a very low tolerance for these cretins.
So do I and it's becoming lower every year.
This is actually a very good idea, a Black Mirror-esque idea. The new punishment: life in the pre-industrial age. See how you like it. What a pity no one would invest in it.
Sentenced to the pre-industrial age. I like it…
It seems the people who claimed to be the most tolerant and loudly preached tolerance a few years ago are the most intolerant people in the world right now.
Absolutely. In fact I remember one online acquaintance sporting a banner in her profile saying "Zero tolerance for intolerance." I think it sums it all up pretty neatly, if inadvertently. :D
We had two idiots from XT glue themselves to a Picasso that was on loan to the National Gallery here in Australia. Thankfully the painting was behind glass security screen
They really don't have a clue, the only message they got across to the public is they are senseless idiots.
"Activists Say The Outrage At Them Gluing Their Hands To Famous Paintings Is Nothing Compared To What Climate Change Will Do To Art." what a load of complete BS.
Um, what will climate change do to art?
I guess that's something that XT only knows, they certainly haven't given the reasons.
Why unglue them?
The planet needs to pull a few weeds so that sunflowers can better blossom.
Why now? According to their predecessors the planet has already gone, it's already too late. Don't they realise the death of the planet was predicted back in the early 70s and almost every Yr since. Perhaps we can take some confidence from this?
Cognitive dissonance is such a great thing. You can both blame everyone for damaging the planet beyond saving and playing the saviour at the same time.