vandals on art, their types and stimulus, chemical attacks

Jurate Macnoriute
Vandals On Art, Their Types and Stimulus

Word Vandal signifies a person who deliberately destroys or damages works of art... To vandalize is to cause such destruction or damage. Often vandals are ignoramus, who have no interest in safeguarding cultural heritage. The cases are known when persons from artists' sets vandalized works of other artists out of envy. Hundreds of thousands works of art are missed through fault of destroyers. On the authority of facts let us try to classify vandals on art by motives and means of damage.

War vandalism 1. The most contemporary mean of destruction used in 11 September 2001, for the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Ruined works of art can be valued to 100 million dollars.
2.Gustav Klimt, Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence - from Jewish owners by the Nazis, and all were taken to Schloss Immendorf in Lower Austria, where they were incinerated when the retreating SS set fire to the Schloss in 1945.
3. Kosovo monasteries with icons. Since June 1999 and the arrival of the international forces of UNMIK and KFOR, in Kosovo more than one hundred churches and monasteries have already been destroyed, every fifth one of them built in the 13th or 14th centuries! Approximately 10,000 icons and other items of religious significance were destroyed with them. The destruction and arson of Kosovo monasteries have continued till now. International forces are not able to bring Albanian vandals to a stop. I was right when in 1999 I created a cartoon on NATO soldiers company in Kosovo (see the cartoon).

Religiously motivated vandals 1. In the spring of 2000, Afghanistan's Taliban destroyed colossal statues of the Buddha, carved from a living rock cliff at Bamiyan, Afghanistan. One of the statues was 53 meters high and dated to the 5th century; the other was 37 meters tall and dated to the 3rd century. The Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, ordered the destruction in an edict, saying such images were contrary to Islam.
2. Leonardo da Vinci, Leda, 1506-8 has not been seen since the 18th-century.
3. Michelangelo, Leda, c1530 vanished after it was taken to France in the 16th-century.

Socially motivated The Night Watch of Rembrandt damaged in 1911, 1975, 1990. On January 13, 1911 in Amsterdam, a disgruntled Navy cook, angered by his discharge from the service, went into the Rijiks Museum and slashed the masterpiece with a knife. The man's name was Sigrist, and he said he vandalized the painting as an act of vengeance against the state for discharging him. The second and worst attack occurred In September 1975 where an unemployed teacher took to the painting with a bread knife which left strips of the canvas on the floor.

Politically motivated 1. Rokeby Venus of Velazquez was hacked by suffragette Mary Richardson in 1914.
2. Rembrandt's "Danae", the Hermitage, Leningrad was twice slashed with a knife and thrown a liter of sulfuric acid by politically motivated Lithuanian fanatic maniac and deviant in 1985.
3. In Stockholm museum two Swedish artists Gunilla Skoeld Feiler (L) and Israeli-born Dror Feiler build installation called "Snow White", a boat with portrait of Palestinian woman terrorist floating in a pool of red liquid. Israeli Ambassador Zvi Mazel vandalized an art exhibit featuring a Palestinian suicide bomber. Mr Mazel said the work, created by an Israeli-born artist, was "a call for genocide".

Destruction of stolen works of art. Jean-Antoine Watteau's "Two Men" was destroyed forever when the mother of the man who stole this work destroyed it on his arrest in 2002. It was torn up and thrown in a canal.

Sexually motivated (sexual minorities, nudists) 1. On 15 June 1985 Rembrandt's "Danae", the Hermitage, Leningrad. Maniac and deviant Bronius Maigis twice slashed Danae with a knife in the region of her lower belly and threw nearly a liter of sulfuric acid (oil of vitriol) at the surface of the masterpiece. The vandal assailant had explosives strapped to his legs under his trousers and had intended to blow himself up. He motivated his attack in this way: "...naked woman depicted lying on bed. The picture which plot I think pornographic was exhibited for public viewing. Such things wronged my sensibility." He wished to become notorious.
2. In the August 1998 Rembrandt's "Self Portrait at the Age of 63" was attacked with yellow acrylic paint at the National Gallery in London by Vincent (Michael?) Bethell, Britain's notorious nudist activist. On surface of the masterpiece of the 17th century Bethell painted the yellow pound sign. Bethell's reasoning for the attack. "I am well acquainted with Dada (anti-art) and a pound sign on Rembrandt was perhaps more courageous and skilful than a moustache on Mona Lisa. But in August 1998 when I entered the National Gallery wearing a woman’s floral dress, then took off the dress to squeeze a yellow pound sign onto a Rembrandt self-portrait, my act was not a piece of art: I was not making an art statement such as “she has a hot arse,” I was not influenced by Duchamp... I was naked when I painted the pound sign on the Rembrandt self-portrait and I was attempting to highlight the injustice of criminalizing public nakedness. I do not consider my act of painting a pound sign on Rembrandt to be a crime or vandalism. It was a naked protest that attempted to gain the right to be naked in public... The naked protest where I painted the pound sign on Rembrandt was done in an attempt to highlight the inhumanity of materialism. The inhuman materialism of art is the same inhumanity that criminalizes the human form. This inhumanity of our civilization is such that: material representations of spirituality are allowed in art (representations of the naked body), whereas actual spirituality is not allowed in real life. By ‘spiritual’ I mean spirit, the human spirit, our essential nature, our human nature, our true visual identity, our humanity, naked as the day you were born. Not all artworks portray nakedness, but I believe that, in a similar way to how psychoanalysts see an abstraction of the sexual desire in Leonardo’s artworks, all art portrays a degraded abstraction of our humanity." The man who is able only to demonstrate publicly his own nuts at crotch thinks that he has right to damage masterpieces of genius!

Execration of quackery with the most likely motivation "this is not art" were vandalized creations of modernists and postmodernists: M.Credo, M.Duchamp, N.Simons, C.Ofili, T.Emin, B.Newman, Y.Ono, A.Serrano, M.Harvey, R.Duffy, K.Malevich, D.Hirst and others. 11 December, 2001. After dreaming that she threw eggs at Martin Creed's work, The lights Going On and Off Jacqueline Crofton, after announcing her intentions to her husband went and did just that, throwing two eggs while the lights were off in the room housing the Turner Prize winning work. 52 year old Crofton, described as "a genuine artist"1, from North London was quoted saying "I have nothing against Creed, although I do not think his work can be considered as art..."

Means of vandalism and some examples
Chemical attacks 1. 1959 Rubens's The Fall Of The Damned In Munich was more or less destroyed by an acid attack.
2. German art museums serial art vandal, Hans-Joachim Bohlmann, began criminal career in 1977 when he terrorized galleries in several German cities by throwing acid on Old Master paintings, including three Rembrandts to which he caused over $20-million worth of damage. After prison he continued his escapades. In 1988 he ruined three D�rer pictures in Munich.
3. Using sulfuric acid on 15 June 1985 vandal Maigis defaced Rembrandt's "Danae", the Hermitage, Leningrad.
4. "The Night Watch" of Rembrandt. In 1990 an escaped mental patient sprayed sulphuric acid on it.

Fire In 1972, Armenian painter Minas Avetisyan's studio in Yerevan was burnt together with a large part of his pictures. Later without known reasons he was killed in a car accident. It is supposed that some of his colleagues grudged his success.

Throw out to water Watteau's "Two Men" was torn up and thrown in a canal.

Ink, eggs, paint attacks 1. Rembrandt's Self Portrait at the Age of 63 was attacked with yellow acrylic paint at the National Gallery in London by Bethell.
2. Jackson Pollock, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome 55-year-old man hurled a pot of ink at the canvas.

Knife, blade attacks, laceration 1. "The Night Watch" and the "Danae" of Rembrandt
2. Gerard Jan van Bladeren attacked Barnett Newman's "Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue" III with a blade.

Scribbling, writing, painting, spraying on work of art Graffiti -- artists or non artists damage architectural buildings writing or painting on walls.
2. The August 1998. Rembrandt's Self Portrait at the Age of 63 was attacked with yellow acrylic paint at the National Gallery in London by Bethell who n surface of the masterpiece of the 17th painted the yellow pound sign.
3. Situationists deface works of art painting on them as if creating new art. October 23, 1999. At around 1pm on a busy Saturday in the Tate London Gallery two Chinese men, Yuan Cai 43 and Jian Jun Xi ianjun 37, stripped off their shirts and proceeded to jump around and have a pillow fight on Tracy Emin's winning entry for the 1999 Turner prize My Bed. They were arrested for criminal damage and the exhibition closed for the remainder of the day. The bed was there. It was like an invitation,' explained Cai, simultaneously chain-smoking and waving his arms. 'We thought we'd make a new work, like theater.'
4. Pietro Cannata scribbled on a 15th century fresco by Filippo Lippi in Prato Cathedral.

Hammer attacks 1. In 1972 Lázslo Toth striked Michelangelo's Pietà.
2. Pietro Cannata damaged a toe of Michelangelo's David.

Urine attacks 1. Duchamp's Fountain urinated by Pierre Pinoncelli.
2. 21 May, 2000. Yuan Cai, and Jian Jun Xi ianjun pissed on Marcel Duchamp's Fountain one of the urinals he signed "R.Mutt in 1917.

Fig. 2 Burkhardt Becker, Danae

The cases of intercessors and inspiration of vandals People usually disgust at vandals on cultural heritage, but some persons, their pleaders, occur. One of such examples was found on the Web (Fig. 2). In head of html of his page only line pointing . Site's URL shows that it belongs to some German Web server. Thus we may think that the author of the image is German man Burkhardt Becker. The image wrongly perverted and mockingly depicts the attack on Rembrandt's "Danae" on 15 June 1985. Look please how ignorantly is drawn the left hand and chest of the vandal. Who himself is able to do nothing sneers at the greatest painter, Rembrandt. One ignoramus intercedes another ignoramus upraising him. Is this the apotheosis of vandal? Only one assumption we can do: Becker is unutterable envious and consequently he wantonly hates great artists, but likes ignoramus and crazies. Let him himself try to become more perfect, then his grudge shall decrease. Thus let us, with jottings on Becker, make an end of this article summing up what have cleared up above.

Conclusions We have groped and abstracted such types of vandal motivations: war vandalism; motivation religious, social, political, sexual; destruction of stolen works of art; execration of quackery with the most likely motivation "this is not art". Also we have picked such means of vandal attacks: chemical; fire; ink, eggs, paint; knife; throwing out to water; writing, painting, spraying on work of art; hammer; urine.

Besides that using research above we can separate out five stimulus (causes) of vandalism: 1) insanity is characteristic for the majority of vandals); 2) protest (social, political, sexual, execration of quackery of modernism and postmodernism); 3) hate (war, religious, political, sexual, execration of quackery of modernism and postmodernism); 4) envy Michelangelo's face was disabled by his colleague out of envy, Pietro Cannata damaged Michelangelo's David, envious colleagues of Armenian painter Minas Avetisyan fired great part of his pictures and killed him; 5) a wish to become notorious in the easiest way (the majority of vandals on art).

Main statement Any people have no any right to vandalize cultural heritage. Only artist himself/herself has right to behave with his/her own work as he/she want. We know that Paul C�zanne broke some his canvases, because he thought that they were not perfect enough.

My all articles published in the 17th issue of THE SECRETS OF PERFECTION on art and erotica:

Introduction.
What is Vandalism on Art?
Who Was Vandal on Rembrandt's "Danae", Bronius Maigis?
Is Rembrandt's "Danae" Pornography? What do Pornography, Erotica, Nude Art Mean?
Peculiarities Of Contemporary Erotica.

Copyright � 2004, Jurate Macnoriute
THE SECRETS OF PERFECTION