Environmentalists cling to a painting by Vermeer

Claude Monet, Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, Sandro Botticelli. And now Johannes Vermeer too. The list of paintings clung to by environmentalists adhering to the “Just Stop Oil” campaign to protest against the still widespread use of oil is growing. This time, two of them stuck to “The Girl with a Pearl Earring”, the famous painting by the Dutch master exhibited at the Mauritshius Museum in The Hague.

After sticking to the painting, fortunately protected by a glass, they threw an unknown substance against the canvas. A well-established modus operandi of ecologists who break into museums and film their actions. The three (including the one who filmed the gesture) were arrested by the Dutch police. The scene quickly went viral on social media, with activists wearing ‘Just Stop Oil’ shirts.

Environmentalists Stick to Famous Paintings: Precedents

Vermeer, we said, is only the latest in a long series. It first fell on Leonardo da Vinci with his Mona Lisa exhibited at the Louvre Museum in Paris, against which the activists threw a cake. Then it was the turn of Sandro Botticelli, at the Uffizi in Florence, where environmentalists stuck to the protective glass of the painting. In this case, it was activists from the Ultima Generazione group and not from Just Stop Oil, who nevertheless returned to action the next time to throw a soup against Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, a painting kept at the National Gallery in London. A few days ago, the return of the Last Generation, with Il Pagliaio by Monet, object of the launch of mashed potatoes at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam. In short, Jan Vermeer is the latest in a long list of provocations that are part of the environmental campaigns of environmental groups