Two Belgian climate activists who glued themselves to a famous painting were sentenced to prison Wednesday by a Dutch court.
Each received sentences of two months, one of which was suspended, so the men will serve only one month. Shocking onlookers at the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague last week, the vandals targeted the Johannes Vermeer painting “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” One man glued his head to the painting as his partner poured a can of tomato soup over his head. The second man then glued his own hand to a wall mounting. A third videotaped the display.
“How do you feel when you see something beautiful and priceless being apparently destroyed before your eyes?” one of the men asked the crowd in English. “Do you feel outraged? Good. Where is that feeling when you see the planet being destroyed before our very eyes?”
Tourists yelled “obscene” and “shame on you” as the men appeared to desecrate the masterpieces, according to CNN. However, one clarified that “This painting is protected by glass, it’s just fine.”
“Vulnerable people in the Global South, they are not protected. The future of our children is not protected,” he said.
One of the three protesters is due for sentencing Friday. The court did not reveal any of their identities. The prosecutor requested four months in prison as punishment, but the judge said she was wary that too harsh of a sentence would deter future protests.
“An artwork hanging there for all, for all of us, to enjoy, has been smeared by defendants who felt their message took precedence over everything else,” the prosecutor said, according to Reuters.
The vandals represented climate group Just Stop Oil Belgium, which was founded to end the use of fossil fuels that “are killing us.” After the incident, the organization wrote in an email: “Isn’t it ironic that climate activists who nonviolently oppose the mass slaughter of life on Earth are being condemned?”
Climate protesters in October defaced Vincent Van Gogh’s famous “Sunflowers” painting, worth $84.2 million, at the National Gallery in London by throwing soup on it. In another spectacle, environmental agitators splattered mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in a German museum. In both those cases, the paintings were not damaged due to protective coverings.