A young man sticks his head on the glass protecting The Girl with a Pearl Earring, a famous painting by Vermeer, while another pours what appears to be tomato sauce into his shirt collar. The scene, filmed Thursday October 27 at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, in the Netherlands, quickly went viral on social networks before being taken up by all the media. This is exactly what these two protagonists were looking for, wearing a t-shirt bearing the message “Just Stop Oil”named after a British collective of environmental activists whose methods have been controversial in recent weeks.
BREEK – Meisje met de parel van Johannes Vermeer besmeurd in #Mauritshuis. pic.twitter.com/XzAZTOoBv9
—Steven Bakker (@Kolpen) October 27, 2022
On its website, Just Stop Oil presents itself as “a coalition of groups” forming a “nonviolent resistance movement” and civil disobedience. In the United Kingdom, its activists, mostly young adults, are calling on the government to “terminate all new licenses and authorizations for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels”. They underline the significant impact of oil and gas projects on the environment and insist on the need for rapid changes to combat global warming.
To publicize their claims, the members of Just Stop Oil have been carrying out symbolic, pacifist and very visual actions in recent weeks, with their faces uncovered. Since October 1 in the United Kingdom, these activists have regularly blocked roads. They also painted the windows of major brands, such as that of an Aston Martin car dealership in central London, or that of the watchmaker Rolex, smeared on Friday, October 28.
BREAKING: ROLEX STORE SPRAY-PAINTED ORANGE
⌚️ At 8:30am today, two Just Stop Oil supporters sprayed orange paint from a fire extinguisher over the premises of @ROLEX in Knightsbridge, demanding that the government halts all new oil and gas consents and licences. #FreeLouis pic.twitter.com/iBoNlQwTmc
— Just Stop Oil ⚖️ (@JustStop_Oil) October 28, 2022
But the actions that are most talked about are those aimed at works of art. The one conducted on The Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer is not a first attempt. On October 14, two activists had already thrown soup on The sunflowers, a Van Gogh masterpiece painted in 1888 and exhibited at the National Gallery in London. In Germany, on October 23, two other activists threw mashed potatoes at Millstonesmasterpiece of the French impressionist Claude Monet. “We are living in a climate catastrophe, and you are scared for mashed potatoes on a painting”, then denounced one of the protagonists.
Protected by glass, all the works concerned are intact. The collective does not fail to underline this on its site. However, this was not the case with the wax statue of King Charles III, entarred on October 24 at Madame Tussauds in London.
The soup throw on The sunflowers by Van Gogh marked the beginning of the controversy. Many critics, including environmental activists, do not understand the meaning of the action of the members of Just Stop Oil, pointing in particular to the lack of legibility of the gesture and regretting to see works of art targeted in this way.
Thursday, the action of the two militants in front The Girl with a Pearl Earring de Vermeer once again created the debate. On Twitter, under posts relaying imagesthe majority of comments objected to the method used, often describing it as“useless”or even “dumb”. Some, however, point out that they share the activists’ environmental concerns. “I care about the climate too, but that’s not a good way to protest,” deplores for example a user.
The defenders of these militant acts insist for their part on the presence of protective panes and call to relativize the gravity of the gesture, with regard to the cause carried. “The worldwide notoriety of the work ensures the action a worldwide influence. (…) We are in a society where pacifist actions that bother no one no longer make people react”, tries to explain a user.
Although no study or poll has yet measured public perception of these militant gestures, there may be “clearly (…), including in the environmental community, a great questioning about the counter-productive effect of these actions which refer to radicalism, to non-dialogue”, estimates on franceinfo the sociologist Sylvie Ollitrault, specialist in activism.
In the United Kingdom, the controversy swelled until the government reacted. Former Interior Minister Suella Braverman published on October 15 in the Mail on Sunday (in English) a platform where she denounces the actions “guerrilla” environmental activists. “Getting in the way of ambulances, fire engines and cars carrying babies to hospital is not only illegal, it’s also monstrously selfish,” she writes in particular, referring above all to the blocking actions of the collective and promising greater severity from the authorities.
Another reason could also have maintained or swelled distrust of Just Stop Oil: after the emotion aroused by the action on The sunflowers n October 14, a rumor of a set-up in the oil industry began to circulate on the web, as noted by the Arte channel. False information aimed to make believe that the environmental collective would be financed by the heiress of the oil company Getty Oil, in order to discredit the activists and their actions.
Arte specifies that if the collective receives money from a climate fund created by the granddaughter of the founder of Getty Oil (Climate Emergency Fund)no manipulation can be demonstrated, this fund financing many other organizations acting for the climate.