activism
Soup for environmental protection: activists throw things at Mona Lisa in the Louvre
For the second time, the Mona Lisa was the target of controversial actions by environmental activists.
Activists threw soup on the Mona Lisa on Sunday. The picture has been protected behind a large pane of glass for a long time.
AP
The Mona Lisa has once again become the target of vandalism. On Sunday, two environmental activists spilled soup on the world-famous picture of Leonardo da Vinci, which was protected by bulletproof glass in the Louvre in Paris. As can be seen in a video from the independent press agency CL Press on the X platform (formerly Twitter), two women threw things at the painting and demanded the right to a healthy and sustainable diet. The name of their movement “Riposte alimentaire” was written on the women’s white T-shirts. This can be roughly translated as “food counter-strike”.
No reason could justify using the picture as a target, reacted France’s new culture minister Rachida Dati on her X account. The Mona Lisa, like France’s entire cultural heritage, belongs to future generations.
As seen on the video, the room where the portrait hangs was immediately evacuated. According to the media, it was cleaned and reopened to visitors after around an hour. The two activists were taken into police custody. “Riposte alimentaire” is a collective that emerged from the French movement “Dernière Renovation” (German: “Last Renovation”). With their actions they aim for a radical change in society on a climatic and social level.
Mona Lisa frequent target of vandalism
The most famous painting in the world, which has been presented behind protective glass since 2005, has been the victim of vandalism several times. In 1956, even twice: First, a man sprayed the painting with acid paint, causing serious damage to the canvas. A few months later, a young man from Bolivia threw a stone at the painting. The protective glass broke and the splinters caused damage to the beautiful Italian woman’s left arm, which then had to be restored.
Since March 2005, the Mona Lisa has been protected by armored glass around four meters high and two meters wide in a hall specially designed for the painting. The additional protection proved very useful in 2009: a woman of Russian origin threw an empty cup at the picture because, as she justified, she had not received French citizenship. The Mona Lisa escaped unscathed.
In May 2022 she was thrown a cream cake. A young man who was arrested immediately after the incident spoke of a gesture in support of environmental protection.
King Francis I, who invited Leonardo da Vinci to France, bought the painting from him in 1518. In this way the work ended up in the royal collections, which have been on display in the Louvre since the Revolution. The picture’s eventful history also includes its theft in 1911. It was only two years later that it was found again and returned to its place in the museum.