An eco-activist was detained in Paris for vandalizing a Monet painting
According to a police source who spoke to AFP, a climate activist was detained on Saturday for adhering a poster to a Monet painting at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris in an effort to raise awareness of global warming.
The woman’s action, which is part of a series of protests aimed at using art to draw attention to global warming, is the most recent. “Riposte Alimentaire” (Food Response) is a group of environmental activists and supporters of sustainable food production.
The woman, identifying herself as a “concerned citizen,” is seen covering the Coquelicots (Poppy Field) painting by French Impressionist Claude Monet with a blood-red poster in a video that was uploaded on X.
Regarding the poster showcasing Monet’s artwork, she stated in the video that “this nightmare image awaits us if no alternative is put in place.” Referring to projections indicating that Earth’s temperature may increase by 4 Celsius over pre-industrial levels by 2050, she continued, “At four degrees, we can expect hell.”
Completed in 1873, Monet’s painting depicts people strolling in a blooming poppy field while carrying an umbrella. It is a part of a special exhibition at the Musee d’Orsay called “Paris 1874, Inventing Impressionism,” which includes 130 pieces by 31 artists.
The painting was inspected by a restoration specialist and found to have no lasting damage, the Musee d’Orsay told AFP. It has since been rehung. A spokesman declared, “The exhibition is fully accessible to the public again.” The spokesman went on, “The museum would file a criminal complaint.”
A few of Monet’s pieces have brought in tens of millions of dollars at auction; his 2019 painting Meules (Haystacks) sold for more than $110 million, including fees. To highlight the climate crisis and declining food quality, Riposte Alimentaire has taken credit for a number of attacks on artwork in France.
Among them was the January assault on the most well-known portrait in the world, the Mona Lisa, at the Louvre, where two demonstrators threw soup at the bulletproof glass enclosing Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, claiming they were entitled to “healthy and sustainable food.”
A man had already thrown a custard pie at the Mona Lisa in 2022, claiming that the artwork was not paying enough attention to “the planet.” Protesters against the Riposte Alimentaire movement threw soup at a painting in February, this time in Lyon, southeast France, aimed at Springtime, another painting by Monet.
Members of the group’s activists also hung flyers around the Louvre’s Liberty Leading the People, an artwork by Eugene Delacroix, last month. Two of its members were detained in April at the 19th-century art museum Musee d’Orsay on suspicion of organizing an event there.
“A French civil resistance movement which aims to spur a radical societal change for the environment and society,” is how Riposte Alimentaire describes themselves.
The movement has declared, “We love art, but if the planet burns, there will be nothing for future artists to paint.”
Monet seems to be a favourite target for climate activists elsewhere, as evidenced by the attacks on Impressionist paintings in Stockholm and Potsdam, Germany.
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