THE HAGUE (Netherlands): After a series of attacks on art and famous paintings by climate activists across Europe, a Dutch court on Wednesday sent two protesters to prison for vandalising Johannes Vermeer’s painting ‘Girl with a pearl earring’.
According to CNN, the demonstrators, who are part of the campaign group Just Stop Oil Belgium, were each given sentences of two months, one of which was suspended.
Three climate activists, on October 27, targeted famous Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer’s masterpiece ‘Girl with a pearl earring’ with glue and other kinds of liquid.
In a video posted on Twitter, a man could be seen pouring red tomato salsa-like liquid over the other protester in the frame who tried gluing his head to the wall before being escorted out of the premises by the authorities. A third person filmed the entire stunt.
The man could be heard screaming, “How do you feel when you see something beautiful and priceless being apparently destroyed before your eyes? Do you feel outrage? Good. That is the feeling when you see the planet being destroyed before our very eyes.”
As per CNN, in a press release announcing the ruling, the prosecutors said they had wanted to “send out a signal” to activists, adding, “An artwork hanging there for everyone, all of us to enjoy, has been smeared by (defendants) who felt their message took precedence over everything else.”
Prosecutors had initially asked for four months, with two suspended, but the judge said she did not want her sentence to discourage other people from demonstrating. The two men faced charges of destruction and open violence against the painting in a fast-track trial.
The third activist, who objected to the trial being expedited, will appear in court on Friday. According to prosecutors, the three are “jointly accountable” for the act, CNN reported quoting Reuters.
The ‘Girl with a pearl earring’ is often called the ‘Mona Lisa’ of the North’. Since 1902, the work has been in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague and has been the subject of numerous literary and cinematic adaptations. It was oil-painted by Vermeer in 1665.
The men in the video wore T-shirts that read ‘Just Stop Oil’, the same group whose members spilt soup over Van Gogh’s world famous ‘Sunflowers’ painting in London, and vandalised King Charles III’s wax statue in Madame Tussauds. (ANI)