Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” went back on display at the Netherlands’ Mauritshuis museum Friday, a day after climate activists targeted the 17th-century masterpiece.
“We are incredibly grateful that ‘The Girl’ remained undamaged and is back in her familiar place so quickly,” the museum’s director, Martine Gosselink, said in a statement.
A video posted Thursday on Twitter showed a man pouring a red substance from a can over another protester who appeared to attempt to glue his head to the glass-protected painting. The second man stuck his hand to the panel holding the painting.
What the unholy fuck did Vermeer have to do with climate change?
I don't understand what those chuckleheads think that they are accomplishing. It makes them look like a pack of lunatics. And it brings disrepute to the cause that they espouse.
The first couple of times this happened I thought it might be because the paintings were owned by corporations, and in fact the Van Gogh Sunflowers - soup incident included a demand that the British Museum end its sponsorship from BP.
ReplyDeleteBut for the most part it's like "BOOM, now that I have your attention, may I remind you that the planet burning and melting all around us is of greater concern than an oil painting?"
So yes, obviously they got their attention but it does not make them look good... no more than it does when a hundred of them sit down in a road blocking peoples' commute in their gas-guzzlers.
I don't think it's lunacy, but it is very very impolite and indecorous (which in some societies is close-to-crazy behaviour).