The two environmental activists who attacked the most famous painting in the world, the “Mona Lisa”,
by Leonardo da Vinci, in the Louvre Museum
over the weekend , received a proposal from French justice: they can
pay a “citizen contribution ”
for the case to be filed.
The two women
sprinkled pumpkin soup on the painting
, after entering it hidden in a coffee thermos.
Members of the collective “Riposte Alimentaire” (Food Response) stated that they “defend the right to healthy and sustainable food” and denounce a “sick agricultural system.”
The painting, protected by glass,
did not suffer any damage
.
But this action
was one of the most audacious
in the series of environmental attacks against works of art in the main galleries of the world.
It is not understood how this series of acts of vandalism can benefit the ecology or cause changes in eating habits
, as they postulate.
But they are still there.
In October 2022, they had attacked Van Gogh's “Sunflowers”
with tomato soup
, in the National Gallery in London, for example.
Magnet.
Visitors to the Louvre, in front of the Mona Lisa.
Photo: AP
"The Mona Lisa, like our heritage, belongs to future generations.
No cause can justify attacking it
," denounced the French Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, on her X social network account.
The painting already
suffered a stone hit in 1956,
which almost managed to go through the glass.
And another attack in
2009
, when a Russian tourist threw a cup at him: she was protesting because she was denied French citizenship.
Two years ago, a man threw a cake.
But beyond these attacks, the real concern about the painting focuses on its
deterioration
.
The original work has been obscured but the Louvre does not want a restoration process, given the risks involved.
One day a year, in the museum, the pride of France, the glass is removed, but simply for inspection.
As Vincent Delieuvin, former curator of the work, described in Walter Isaacson's biography of Da Vinci, “it has become a
symbol so adored, even with its dark varnish
, that even the slightest cleaning would spark great controversy.
In France, governments have fallen for much less.”
Selfies.
With the Mona Lisa.
Photo: archive
With the passage of time – and the “Mona Lisa” is now more than five centuries old –
the pigments degrade
, causing a change in color.
It is a process that can be accelerated by exposure to light and by the eventual dirt produced by hundreds of thousands of visitors, even with the extreme care that the Louvre attempts.
The Prado Museum, in Madrid, has a copy of the painting, which was made by a disciple of Da Vinci (scholars attribute it to Gian Giacomo Caprotti or Giovan Francesco Melzi).
There they did decide to restore it, a decade ago and it can be seen now in its original colors.
The story outside the box
Known as “Mona Lisa” (a contraction of Madonna Lisa) and also as “La Gioconda” (this is how she appears in the inventory of Leonardo's assets, from 1525, in allusion to Lisa, the wife of the silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo), Leonardo began this work in 1503, upon returning to Florence.
By heading again to Milan in 1506, he had not finished it, nor by settling in Rome.
And until the last stretch of his life, he continued adding touches to it.
According to Isaacson, “what began as a portrait of
a merchant's young wife
became an attempt to
portray the complexities of human emotions
– unforgettable thanks to a hint of an enigmatic smile – and to link our nature with that of the universe.
The landscapes of the soul of the model and the soul of nature are intertwined”
At the Louvre.
Employees with the masterpiece.
Photo: AP
An expert like Kenneth Clark defined it like this: “Leonardo's insatiable curiosity, his restless jumps from one subject to another, have been harmonized in a single work.
Science,
pictorial skill, obsession with nature, psychological perception: everything is there
, and in such a balanced way that at first we hardly notice it.”
This refers to one of the most impressive geniuses that humanity has produced -perhaps the greatest- and his masterpiece.
Vasari, Vasari's first biographer in 1550, wrote that the work was commissioned by Francesco del Giocondo from Leonardo as a tribute to his wife:
Lisa was 24 years old
at the time.
But Leonardo was focused on his scientific research and did not want to accept any more commissions for paintings, not even from the nobles he served.
In this case he accepted due to a family request: his family and that of the merchant had strong ties since the genius' childhood.
However, Isaacson points out that “I sense that the main reason why Leonardo decided to paint Lisa del Giocondo is because he wanted to.
Since she was a little-known woman, instead of a famous aristocrat or a nobleman's mistress,
he could represent her however she wanted.
He was not forced to attend to or follow the instructions of a powerful patron.
And most importantly, Lisa was beautiful and attractive, she wore a seductive smile.”
Despite all the legends, which attributed the image to different women, the truth is that Vasari's version is always the most recognized.
And Vasari himself wrote that “in that work of Leonardo there was
a smile so pleasant that it seems more divine
than human.”
“The painting,” Isaacson added, “became something more than a portrait of a silk merchant's wife and certainly went beyond being a mere commission.
After several years and perhaps from the beginning, Leonardo considered it his own and universal work that he bequeathed to posterity, instead of a painting that he had to give to Francesco del Giocondo.
He never did and judging by Leonardo's bank documentation
he did not charge
a single cent for it.
He kept it with him in Florence, Milan, Rome and France until he died
16 years after starting it.
During those years he added brushstroke after brushstroke, layer after layer of oil paint to perfect it, retouch it and imbue it with an original and deep knowledge of human beings and nature.
Just like Leonardo, he gained depth at each stage of his career, the same thing happened with the Mona Lisa.”
Throughout those five centuries, it went through multiple vicissitudes.
The best known, when
she disappeared from the Louvre on August 22, 1911
.
It was found some time later when the thief - who had worked at the museum, his name was Vincenzo Peruggia - naively tried to sell it in Florence.
That episode, on the other hand, was the basis for an award-winning novel by Martín Caparros, “Valfierno”, in whose version the Louvre thief is… an Argentine.
It was also almost novel how it was protected from Nazi plunder during the occupation of Paris.
And at the same time, when the British needed to contact the
French resistance in the middle of the World War
, their code phrase was: “La Joconde garde son rourire” (The Mona Lisa keeps her smile.)
“As Leonardo worked on it, for most of his last 16 years, it became more than just a portrait.
It became something universal, a distillation of his accumulated wisdom about the external manifestations of our inner lives and about the links between us and the world.
The Mona Lisa, sitting in his gallery is
Leonardo's deepest meditation on what it means to be human
,” concluded Walter Isaacson.
On top of that wonder, two almost deranged women tried to convey a supposedly environmentalist message.
Current issues that, there, will be defined in Justice.
J.S.