Posted on 10/09/2007 5:48:51 AM PDT by Schnucki
Vandals have broken into the Musée d'Orsay and punched a hole in Claude Monet's "Le Pont d'Argenteuil", in the latest in a series of attacks on artwork in France.
A surveillance camera caught a group of four to five apparently drunk people entering the Paris museum early yesterday morning.
An alarm sounded and the group fled, but not before putting a four-inch tear in the painting, Christine Albanel, the French culture minister, said. No arrests have been made so far.
After attempting to force open other doors, the intruders managed to get in through a back door, "even though it had big bolts," Ms Albanel said. The painting was hanging on the ground floor with other Impressionist masterpieces.
The painting has been left with a horizontal tear that exposes threads of canvas. It was visibly punched in, perhaps with a fist. The minister said the painting can be restored, but said she deplored the damage.
"It's always a heartbreak when an art object that is our memory, our heritage, that we love and that we are proud of, is victim of a purely criminal act," she said.
"We know there were four or five people, likely four boys and a girl, who entered around midnight to am, broke a door that was, perhaps, fragile."
Alarms went off, museum officials arrived and the group fled, the minister said.
"Le Pont d'Argenteuil" shows a view of the Seine at a rural bend, featuring a bridge and boats.
The break-in occurred as Paris held White Night, an annual all-night festival, which draws thousands into the streets for music, exhibitions and revelry.
The festive mood was particularly high on Saturday night after France advanced to the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup after beating New Zealand.
The attack was the latest in a series of acts of art vandalism.
This week Sam Rindy goes on trial for damaging a work of art after kissing an immaculate white painting by American artist Cy Twombly while wearing glossy red lipstick. The work had been on display in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Avignon.
In September thieves stole plates and chalices from a cathedral in the southern French city of Perpignan.
In August Monet's "Cliffs near Dieppe" was among four paintings stolen from a fine arts museum in Nice.
In February a court upheld a suspended prison term for a vandal who used a hammer early last year to attack Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" - a urinal - at the Pompidou Centre in Paris.
The last time Europe entered into a Dark Age, they also had problems with Vandals.
A surveillance camera caught a group of four to five apparently drunk people entering the Paris museum early yesterday morning.
You’d think they would have security to keep drunks out.
Is that Ted Kennedys oldsmobile with the gal he killed in it?
Art critics. I don’t like Monet, either........
I had the honor of viewing many of his works in Chicago and his mastery took my breath away. Compared to the crap that often passes for art these days, Monet is pure genius.
Impressionism A theory or style of painting originating and developed in France during the 1870s, characterized by concentration on the immediate visual impression produced by a scene and by the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes to simulate actual reflected light.Curious theory. Pleasant blurry painting of sailboats. No great loss, in the grand scheme of things. When did painting become a weird religion?
Imagine getting a quarter mil for this piece of art by Cy Twombly.
Friggin idiots, my kid will do it for $24.99 plus postage and handling...
When the Impressionists took over, art went downhill from there................
It’s a painting cherished by millions.
That it isn’t explicitly religious or that some cherish it as something of what you interpret as false divine inspiration, it is all right to destroy?
Do you not believe in an artistic mandate, of divine inspiration in arts that may even be secular?
Curious line from someone whose posts I usually respect.
Where’s the link to order your kid’s art??? ;)
Yeah, except this time the Vandals are part of the local population.
The Vandals were a Germanic tribe that eventually settled in Southern Spain and North Africa. They were not as barbaric as frequently painted in history.
It’s a painting cherished by millions.
So are Big Macs. OK, the painting is better, but...
That it isn’t explicitly religious or that some cherish it as something of what you interpret as false divine inspiration, it is all right to destroy?
No. My point is that the painting is greatly over-rated because it's part of a greatly over-rated movement. If the painting wasn't Impressionist, but Realist, it would be rightly regarded as mundane.
Do you not believe in an artistic mandate, of divine inspiration in arts that may even be secular?
Yes, but I don't believe that this is one of them.
I'm an illustrator by trade, and the subject matter of most of my paintings is also largely mundane, but I don't claim that it's more than what it is.
That’s a beautiful painting. They should have taken out some crap by Dali instead.
Just... don't. I can't take it.
My wife says, "why don't you do stuff that sells like that?" I try to explain to her that no one really likes this crap. The prices are driven up by investors who want to make a killing buying and selling... paint on paper. I can't bring myself to call it art.
Anyway, my explanation has never worked.
Museum investigator Lt. Bookman warned that, after the attack on the Monet, the perps may attempt to vandalize the Manet and the Tippy Tippy Day Day.
(Seinfeld ping, yada)
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