Depraved Activism

The latest in a bizarre trend of performative fake vandalism of great works of art happened in the Hague on October 27, when a climate activist glued his own head to Johannes Vermeer’s priceless “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” completed in 1665. This came four days after German police arrested two environmental activists for throwing mashed potatoes at Claude Monet’s “Grainstacks,” completed in 1890, which sold for $110.7 million at a 2019 auction. All suffered no damage, because, like Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” which suffered an attack of tomato soup in London on October 14, they were all behind protective glass.