Let's talk about activists trying to deface priceless pieces of art.

Climate change activists took severe action on Friday and during an act of protest threw two cans of tomato soup on Vincent Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting in London’s National Gallery and I think we need to talk about it.

As someone who feels strongly about preventing further damage to our planet, I believe there should be more protests and I do think that we should be taking our planet's current climate crisis way more seriously than we have- However, There is a right way to do things and this was definitely not one of them.

The state of our climate should be a serious concern to anyone who values their life and the way they live it, Considering if we keep going at this rate; Our time on this earth will be extremely limited- Still, the ignorance of these activists is extremely blatant and they should be reprimanded accordingly considering they clearly didn’t take stock of the damage they would be doing or the consequences they could potentially face.

This was the most recent protest in an attempt to damage influential and historical paintings with the hope to bring attention to the harmful uses of fossil fuel. The “Just Stop Oil” Activist group has been responsible for the attempt at defacing the oil paintings of “Sunflowers” by Vincent Van Gogh, An early copy of “The Last Supper” by Leonardo Da Vinci, and “The Hay Wain” by John Constable.

With all three pieces being painted completely in Oil paint, The objective of the protest had been a clear objection to the use and extraction of oil with the goal of lessening the widespread usage of fossil fuels and the eventual halting of its production. However, It was clearly an ignorant and misguided attempt.

There are plenty of places and people that openly support and fund the usage of fossil fuels that they could’ve staged a large and much less harmful protest and may have made a much larger impact without painting such a negative light on not only the generation of Gen Z, But everyone who supports making changes to fight our climate crisis.

One of the things that happens to bother me the most about this protest was how severely misguided it was. All three paintings were made long before the extraction and production of fossil fuels and for reference, I’ll list the years below;

The Sunflowers - 1888

The Last Supper - 1496

The Hay Wain - 1821

With a little bit of research (and the easy access of google) any of these protestors could have found out what each painting had been made from and even more importantly; What the oil paints of the time had been made from.

The history of oil paint (aside from being very interesting) is easy to follow. Oil paint was first used in 7th Century Asia made with drying oils such as linseed and tung oil and had been used to paint on the walls of caves. After that, Oil paint hadn’t become the popular go-to medium until the 15th Century when painter Jan van Eyck figured out the proper pigment-to-oil ratio which resulted in its long-term popularity.

Even in the modern day, Oil paint is still created by mixing pigment powder with drying oils including; Linseed, Poppy, and Safflower oils. The only thing any of those oil paintings had in common with the issue of Fossil fuels had been word association- Nothing more and nothing less.

As I stated before, The ignorance of these protestors is extremely profound and saddening. Their utterly misguided attempt brought more attention to the idiocy of their actions than the cause.

They not only risked the safety of beautiful pieces of history and the movement for action against our climate crisis but they also risked their futures for something that had been completely fruitless.

I myself am an artist and after hearing the news of their intended destruction of priceless pieces of art, I had been beyond disheartened. I’ve painted with oil paint on multiple occasions and although I'm more skilled in acrylic, I can safely say that using oil paint and successfully creating a beautiful and moving piece is an achievement that takes years to master.

These artists spent years of their lives dedicating themselves to their craft, They put their heart and soul into every brush stroke and their lives' work had been put in jeopardy by the rage of activists riddled with ignorance.

It's times like these that people should learn to take a moment to educate themselves and ruminate on why they're doing something and how their actions will affect not just them but the people they surround themselves with. In the end, They only harmed the movement and disregarded great pieces of history.