Can Destroying a Work of Art Ever be Justifiable?

A work of art can offend for one reason or another, but is there ever a good reason for destroying one?

Destroying works of art

There have been many cases down the centuries of works of art being deliberately destroyed for one reason or another. Sometimes it is for ideological reasons, such as when the Taliban in Afghanistan reduced the 6th century Buddhas of Bamiyan to rubble in 2001; or it can be because someone simply abhors the work itself, an example being the burning of Graham Sutherland’s portrait of Sir Winston Churchill by Lady Churchill soon after its completion in 1954.

A more recent example of a desire to destroy a painting because of what it portrays, rather than its artistic merit, arose in Russia in 2013. Vasily Boiko-Veliky is a wealthy businessman who has the ear of senior members of the Russian Government. He is therefore the sort of man whose views tend to get taken seriously.

Ilya Repin’s portrayal of Ivan the Terrible

Vasily Boiko-Veliky took exception to a painting by Ilya Repin that dates from 1885. It depicts Tsar Ivan IV (“Ivan the Terrible”) in despair as he holds his dying son and heir, also called Ivan, after the older Ivan had attacked the younger in a rage and hit him on the head with a sceptre. The full title of the painting is: “Ivan the Terrible and his Son Ivan on November 16, 1581”.

Boiko-Veliky’s objection to the painting was that it cast a negative light on one of Russia’s greatest historical figures. He is quoted as saying that the painting “offends the patriotic feelings of Russian people who love and value their ancestors”. He wanted the painting either to be destroyed or, at the very least, removed from public display in Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery.

He claimed that the murder of one Ivan by the other is a myth that was invented by foreigners. However, the fact remains that Ivan Junior did pre-decease his father, which meant that the next tsar was Ivan the Terrible’s youngest son (the eldest had died in infancy), Fyodor, who was mentally unstable and unsuited to the role.

An interesting feature of attempts to deny that Ivan the Terrible killed his son is the fact that the event was apparently witnessed by Ivan’s chief minister Boris Godunov, who received blows from the sceptre when he tried to intervene. If the facts were incorrect, could it be that Godunov was part of a plot to hide the truth? Godunov acted as regent to Fyodor when he became tsar, and took the throne himself when Fyodor died in 1598.

Not the first time

Strange to tell, Vasily Boiko-Veliky is not the first person who has taken a profound dislike to the painting in question. The painting was attacked by a vandal in 1913 - a number of knife slashes were made and it took a great deal of careful work to restore the painting to its previous condition.

Surely there is no good reason to destroy the painting?

The point at issue is surely not one of historical accuracy but the rightness or otherwise of censoring art because it does not convey the “correct” message. One can admire a work of art from many perspectives, even if one profoundly disagrees with what it “says”.

This principle applies to all the arts. For example, Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” is widely recognised as a classic 20th century novel, despite the detestable nature of its theme. One can appreciate the music of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss even when one knows just what unpleasant people they were in terms of their anti-Semitism, which some people claim to have detected in their music.

When it comes to public art, such as paintings in a gallery, there is also the question of whether a powerful person has the right to censor what less powerful people can see. You may not like a painting, for whatever reason, but nothing can justify you seeking to prevent other people from making up their own minds.

In the case under discussion, the Russian Minister of Culture, Vladimir Medinsky, responded by saying that the painting will stay on display, whatever Vasily Boiko-Veliky says about it. This is particularly interesting in that Mr Medinsky has actually written a book in which he casts doubt on the Ivan the Terrible murder story. The two men agree with each other on the history but take a very different view when it comes to how that history is presented to people today.

There is also the complication that Ilya Repin is widely admired in Russia, being held in as much esteem as an artist as Tsar Ivan IV is as an historical character.