On Saturday, an environmental campaigner was held in custody after attaching a protest poster to a celebrated Monet artwork in Paris’ renowned Musee d’Orsay museum. This spectacle was the most recent in a series of demonstrations by the activist group Food Riposte, which frequently targets notable art pieces in France. The Musee d’Orsay, which is a key destination for tourists, houses a vast collection of some of the world’s most cherished Impressionist creations.
The campaigner centred their protest on “Poppy Field,” a work by Claude Monet. They placed a sticker on the painting which obscured approximately half of the artwork, substituting the covered area with a dystopian, prophetic rendition of the same landscape. According to the activist group, the manipulated image portrays a potential 2100 scenario for the field, desolated by fire and severe drought due to insufficient measures to combat climate change.
Paris police disclosed that the female activist was in custody whilst an investigation was ongoing. It remains uncertain if the protest incident caused any harm to the painting and the museum has yet to comment on the matter.