Hammer blows by green activists on the protective glass of a painting by Velázquez – Libération

The window of the “Venus in the Mirror” was broken. This Monday, November 6, two activists from the environmental movement Just Stop Oil struck the protective surface of the painting by Diego Velázquez with a hammer after entering the National Gallery in London.

This operation is the most spectacular of a month of mobilization that the organization launched a week ago using controversial methods. This requires an immediate halt to new oil and gas projects in the UK, contradicting the Conservative Executive’s policy of encouraging hydrocarbon production. According to the police, Monday alone was marked by around a hundred arrests of Just Stop Oil members who are now familiar with the courts. The two activists, aged 20 and 22, were arrested for criminal damage.

Velázquez’s painting from the mid-17th century is considered to be the only surviving nude by the Spanish painter. In 1914 he was slashed with a cleaver by Canadian women’s rights activist Mary Richardson. She protested against the imprisonment of another women’s suffrage activist in the United Kingdom. “Women did not have the right to vote at the ballot box. It is no longer time for words, but for actions. said the green activists after their action, according to Just Stop Oil.

The National Gallery confirmed the action and said it evacuated visitors from the room and called police while the “Venus in the Mirror” was removed for examination by museum curators.

Tomato Soup about Van Gogh

Last year, other Just Stop Oil activists targeted the National Gallery and threw tomato soup at Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers.” In the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague they were stuck to the window of “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Vermeer. In both cases the paintings were protected by glass and were not damaged.

The organization most commonly attacks motorists by blocking traffic. This drew the hostility of the British Conservative government, which tightened legislation to prevent its actions. This Monday around a hundred demonstrators were arrested for obstructing traffic near Downing Street. Twenty-five others, “Mothers and Grandmothers” applicant “A better future for your children” were arrested for the same reason between Whitehall and Trafalgar Square, an area of ​​the capital where the main government departments are located. However, Just Stop Oil denied that the protesters wanted to attack the Cenotaph – a monument erected at the end of World War I – as several elected officials had claimed.

These new measures come as the UK government has decided to award new hydrocarbon exploration and drilling licenses in the North Sea, which has led to it being accused of failing to meet its climate commitments. This Monday he announced that, in the name of energy security, he wanted to enshrine in law the annual review of possible new concessions.

However, the government assures that it will not abandon its goal of carbon neutrality in 2050, but wants to do so in some way “pragmatic” et “realistic”, He explained that the British will continue to use oil and gas in the coming years and do not want to rely on it“Hostile States” Create supplies.

This latest change of heart by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who now poses as a defender of motorists, has been commented on by many political scientists as a response to the concerns of the electorate in the run-up to next year’s election. Also the chance to stand out from the Labor opposition, which wants to invest massively in green energy.