November 7, 2023 - 10:05am
The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square is not particularly large — a little over 2,000 paintings. But it contains a truly superlative example of almost every significant moment in European painting. You go to the Uffizi or the Prado to see the treasures of a national culture; the National Gallery shows you many of the glories of European painting, from the Middle Ages to the Great War.
It’s free to enter, a very unusual thing among world-class museums. Whoever you are, you can develop an ordinary relationship with the greatest art. It’s an enormous privilege, and there is a silent contract involved. The institution lets the ordinary person in for nothing. In return, the ordinary person undertakes to behave in an ordinarily respectful way. Mostly, it works.
On Monday morning, two members of environmental campaigning group Just Stop Oil entered the gallery. They went to room 30, seeking out Diego Velázquez’s painting The Toilet of Venus. The painting is behind glass, unlike most of the gallery’s holdings. The two campaigners, in their early twenties, produced hammers and started beating on the glass, which splintered but did not shatter. They shouted some incoherent slogans. The guards hovered. Understandably, they did not closely approach two armed and unstable people. The damage caused by the attack is not yet known.
There was an ancient Greek called Herostratus who burnt down the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, thinking it would make his name known to posterity. In the same spirit, Just Stop Oil gave a statement after yesterday’s stunt, naming the two iconoclasts. It also pointed out that the painting had been attacked before, in 1914, by a suffragette called Mary Richardson who slashed it repeatedly. (They apparently didn’t know that she went on to head the women’s section of the British Union of Fascists.) It was not, however, thought necessary to name Velázquez, who many people, including me, consider the greatest painter who ever lived.
All oil paintings are unique, but the uniqueness of the Velázquez Venus is more marked than most. There are only a hundred or so paintings by the artist in existence. One of the most breathtaking things about them is his virtuosity in painting flesh: the texture of the skin — of a face, hands, very occasionally a woman’s neck — is rapturously rendered. In Spain in the 17th century, a female nude was a rare thing, and Velázquez’s Venus is the only one he painted, as far as we know. It’s a miracle of display and concealment, of a glance caught in a mirror, of the glory of flesh. And on Monday two adolescents struck it with hammers.
While the National Gallery bravely resists calls for change, its first duty is not to the openness we all value, but instead the protection of the treasures within its walls. It might conceivably have to demonstrate to a Spanish government that Velázquez is still safe in London. In-room security might have to be beefed up. More paintings might be encased in glass. A safe distance may be necessary between the visitor and the brushwork of each painting.
Perhaps entry will only be possible with verified ID; perhaps the casual visitor will be discouraged with the imposition, as with everywhere else, of an entrance fee. It would all make perfect sense, and the long and glorious period of universal and easy access to the greatest culture would be over.
What should be done? The usual punishments would be received by these fanatics as badges of honour. Why not compel them to write 15,000 words on the circumstances in which Velázquez produced this painting between 1647 and 1650? To such ignorant people, it might act as a genuine deterrent. But we are going to have to accept that culture is vulnerable, and these acts of destruction might lead to new walls of privilege — and exclusion.
Philip Hensher is the author of eleven novels and a Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University
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SubscribeWhat utter guff! Noodly little kids wearing “Just Stop Oil” t-shirts and doing what they have often done before.
Sack the guards, and more importantly those who employed them, and recruit someone who knows what “security” means.
Very true. The guards used to be much more diligent. There was a time, following one or two acts of destructive vandalism, when museum guards would warn you to step back if you approached an exhibit too closely. It happened to me several times (I like to take a close look at paintings in particular).
The guards should have intervened immediately. Arm them with truncheons if necessary.
No need for that. You just need the other visitors to the Gallery to take the law into their own hands.
Yes, had I been there I should have intervened; but too many law abiding onlookers will have been intimidated with the thought that had they done so they might have been the ones up in court charged with assault. Attempts to uphold the law by private citizens are no longer encouraged. We are expected to be passive in the face of lawbreaking until some official can determine whether it is state approved law breaking or not -Unless perhaps it involves a knife or gun attack.
It seems to depend on the colour of the skin of the lawbreaker. If they were white, you could uphold the law, no problem. If they were non-white, just leave them to it.
Perhaps visitors to galleries should be told explicitly that they should intervene when they see vandals approach a picture. These stop-oil protestors don’t give the impression of being any good in a fight. In fact, they seem to rely on others’ good manners and passivity.
Visitors could be handed little spray bottles of mace to be handed back when they leave. Let those who appreciate art police it.
Arming them with bars of soap on sticks would probably be a better deterrent against these crusties.
I imagine the virtue-signalling management of the NG knew about it in advance and allowed it to happen.
That’s my thought as well.
For one thing, how were they able to get past the bag check?
Just Stop Oil is the wackiest organization I can think of. They specialize in protests that everyone despises; even the great majority of people who are not directly effected. And their basic demand (it’s in their name) is something that everyone knows would plunge the world into famine, disease, misery and (here’s the kicker) much higher prices for all of the devices, digital platforms and services that have become so central to our sadly degraded lives.
Just Stop Oil should be a sit-com. Goofy college kids come up with one bad idea after another only to find out, after 21 minutes, that everyone hates them. Just like the previous episode.
Not wacky. Evvvil. Their “one bad idea” is the only thing posterity will remember them for.
I see a protestor recently asked a judge to delay her trial proceedings because she had a trip planned to India.
Perhaps she could serve her jail sentence there too.
I long for the day when one of our pusillanimous TV presenters, on being told by the JSO hysteric in the studio that something terrible is going to happen if we don’t immediately stop using fossil fuels, slaps a copy of the most recent IPCC report on the table and says: ‘show me in there where it says what you’ve just claimed’.
There is absolutely no scientific basis for the nonsense that these people spout, even in the most mainstream warmist literature, and they need to be called out on it.
And they are funded by billionaires and the 1%. Ultimate irony.
One of whom,I understand, is an oil-heiress. “Pull up the ladder, I’m alright Jill.”
Ladders are fascist. Probably used by slavers.
Eco-vandals attack works of art because art is the record of who and what human societies are. Eco-vandalism is fundamentally motivated by a desire to re-order Western society to their preferences. In that sense its more than just attention seeking. Its a performative assault on everything they hate about civilisation.
Of course they won’t and indeed can’t tell us what this re-ordered society will really look like, because they have no real idea beyond an inchoate set of often unrealistic demands. But that’s usually the way with millennialist groups. Tearing it all down is the main thing after which it is assumed everything will fall naturally into place.
Regrettably, in the immediate term it may be necessary for major galleries and museums to implement stricter security on entry. Hammers, cans of spray pain etc will show up on security scanners.
Actually, woke people attack great works of art because they’re too stupid to understand and really deeply resent the humiliation they feel. They’ve experienced years of not understanding the lessons at their expensive schools and being laughed at by their teachers, and this is their revenge.
Such a terrible revenge to take on people not yet born who may never be able to see the originals of great works of art because of them. Their acts of destruction are the only thing posterity will probably remember them for.
Like Hitler and Jack the Ripper.
Literal Iconoclasts are always the vanguard of deeply intolerant, puritanical strains of religion. From early Islam, to the Byzantine Iconoclasts, to the Calvinists, to the Taliban and ISIS, to our modern woke believers. Nothing so marks a barbarous ideology as the wanton destruction of beauty.
Excellent comment.
Why should anybody be surprised at their lack of knowledge about Mary Richardson ?
Two muppets who were chanting ‘From the river to the sea’ at the weekend had, when questioned, no idea what the river was called and only managed to name the Med after several minutes (maybe they phoned a friend).
Meanwhile, Kellie-Jay Keane was ‘held to account’ by an adenoidal twerp at Waterstones for her ‘association with Fascists’ which was, naturally, the exact opposite of the truth.
Let us also not forget Sasha Johnson the ultra-privileged BLM activist (in the Che Guevara cos play outfit) who campaigned against ‘systemic racism’ only to be the victim of intra-black ghetto violence at what passes for a ‘party ‘ in Penge nowadays.
The combo of narcissism and entitlement, coupled with the superficiality and sheer historical illiteracy of them all is truly a wonder to behold.
“From The River To the Sea” is a barely disguised call to drow–n every Israeli Jew in the Mediterranean Sea. Don’t they even know they are calling for m–ss mu–der? Even if their “ignorance” is that total, it doesn’t make them any less vile. They have even less excuse than the Germans of the 1930s had for claiming ignorance. They could find out in seconds from their phones.
It is a busy life for me. One minute I am on a Just Stop Oil demo, the next I am at a protest to allow fuel into Gaza.
I need a rest, which I hope my forthcoming holiday in Thailand will provide.
This may look like the action of little Marxist-Leninist philistines but we should still remain vigilante. Recall that Chairman Mao employed vehement young men and women in a fledgeling Red Army to ensure that 50 million farmers and rural workers died of starvation.
Hit their pockets hard – and make them pay later if not in employment currently.
And their parents’ pockets.
It should be up to the parents whether to help them financially or disown them. They’re adults.
Not mentally they’re not. If we punish all their relatives, they might stop and think about what they’re doing.
I think the only loser is their cause. It simply pisses people off, and makes the cause look like it’s led by cretins. Moreover, as far as I have read, the art is not damaged and neither are visitors ‘hurt’.
Also, the author seems to have missed the point that the demonstrators attack the art (or rather its frame/case) because they know its value. They are effectively saying, ‘oil destroys what I find most precious and beautiful (the planet), so I am going to act out, through the medium of performative art, the destruction of a precious and beautiful thing, in the hope that ‘the penny will drop’. Meh.
Well said.
All woke activism – being ‘offended’ / cancelling/ whining/ marching – is wearing very very thin. The general public is repelled by the sheer solipsism and narcissism of it all.
I doubt an admission fee would stop these vandals. Although the book suggests a harsh punishment for civic transgressions, I begin to wonder whether Peter Moskos’s In Defense of Flogging shouldn’t be more widely read.
Wallop the little feral brats.
As is always the case in such stupid causes, its greatest supporters are its greatest detractors.
Maybe we should hold them financially responsible for the savage they cause.
Their punishment should be to live the rest of their lives without oil.
Obviously no cars or public transport. No plastic, or natural materials transported using oil.
Nothing produced by a factory that uses electricity that comes from fossil fuels.
No food that wasn’t farmed in the UK by men and horses.
If course, before they can be punished, they need to be arrested. The UK police need to actually do their jobs and arrest criminals.
And imprison them on an oil rig while you’re at it.
Perhaps more security checks at the entrance would help
The offence of criminal damage – where the damage value is less than £5,000 – must be tried summarily and attracts a maximum sentence of 3 months’ imprisonment and, or a fine of up to £2,500.
Sequester their possessions up to the value of the object they damage. If it’s a Velazquez, that should pretty much bankrupt them for the entirety of their lives.
I think the glass was tougher than these two jokers!
A one month holiday at His Majesty’s Pleasure would do them the world of good.
By its inaction the National Gallery has shown that it is not a competent, responsible steward for the great art on its premises.
Instead of implementing technological responses to substitute for the NG’s lack of confidence and will, all of the art collections currently housed there should be removed from it immediately.
To where?
William’s house.
Best known to many of us as The Rokeby Venus, to introduce a little historical context
Hensher is probably virtue signalling by not letting the name ‘Rokeby’ pass his lips. Probably something to do with slavery or some such.
Don’t they know that the oil paintings are made from oil from plants like flaxseed- linseed oil, or safflower oil, etc., …an oil they support I’m assuming and not from fossil fuel?