Two environmental activists have smeared this Wednesday red paint on the glass that protects a painting by Claude Monet that is exhibited in the National Museum of Stockholm. This has been reported by the police, who have added that the two women, between the ages of 25 and 30, have been arrested.
The work in question is The Artist’s Garden in Giverny, from 1900. The painting is being “examined by the museum’s conservation team to see if it has been damaged,” the institution noted. According to its spokesperson, Hanna Tottmar, the team hopes to have “more information” about what happened this Thursday.
For its part, the organization Återställ Våtmarker (‘Restore wet areas’) has published a video in which two women can be seen -a nurse and a student- painting the glass behind which the work is located with red paint. In addition, they sing: “The weather situation is urgent!” and “our health is threatened!”.
In an interview with AFP, the organization has accused the Swedish government of not respecting its international commitments regarding environmental policy.
“We should reduce our emissions by 31%. But our emissions continue to rise. It’s outrageous,” said Helen Wahlgren, a spokeswoman for the group.
The artist’s garden in Giverny is not the first painting by the French painter to have come under attack from climate activists. Something similar to what happened this Wednesday in Stockholm happened at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam, near Berlin, last October.
Then it was two supporters of the climate activist group Letzte Generation (‘Last Generation’) who threw mashed potatoes at Claude Monet’s painting Les meules.
After their action, the same activists stuck to a wall in the exhibition hall, but they were separated and later temporarily detained.
