Sir, – Una Mullally’s column (“At least the activists ‘desecrating’ art works are doing something. What are you doing?” Opinion, October 31st) was a masterpiece of illogical arguments, false comparisons and non sequiturs, the most glaring (and pretentious) being her apparent approval of “...launching spectacles of desecration on art works... to condemn the insane profits oil and fossil fuel companies are making at the cost of the future of the planet...”.
She, like the protesters, gives no reason why Van Gogh’s Sunflowers deserves this ‘“desecration”. She claims successful activism is about “clarity” – the very quality missing from the recent attacks. Protest stunts should raise consciousness, not confuse it or set it back.
Those opposed to oil companies have every right to “police” or criticise actions supposedly in their cause which are stupid, pointless or aimed at the wrong, irrelevant targets. And lovers of art have every right to defend some of the most powerful and moving works of human creativity.
Ms Mullally claims successful activists use “whatever is in front of them and around them to take their action and make their point”. This echoes the Minister of State Ossian Smyth who encourages “throwing tins of beans at paintings with glass on them or whatever” as “really effective”. Anything will do. The Book of Kells, perhaps? Or our Caravaggio painting. Whatever.
Shooting the breeze with trailblazer chemists
Kamala Harris is a descendant of an Irish slave owner in Jamaica
Tactical analysis: Clare got their numbers right, but it’s hard to measure sheer magic
Artist and shepherd Orla Barry: ‘Breeding animals is like making an artwork. You’re putting certain animals together’
There is supposedly a choice between saving art works and saving the planet – according to the activists and several correspondents here. It is a contrived and non-existent one.
Over the past century, works of art have been attacked or destroyed by individuals and by states, by Nazis, socialists, Christians, feminists, racists and anti-racists, and now a few climate activists.
Philistines are a diverse bunch. What unites them is their failure to understand art and why others love and defend it.
– Yours, etc,
PAUL DILLON,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.