The alternate vision of the rural Suffolk farm featured an old car dumped in front of the mill, two airplanes and a washing machine on the back of the cart. Just Stop Oil (JSO) protesters targeted the National Gallery in London on Monday afternoon, forcing the evacuation of visitors, including a class of 11-year-old students, from the room where the painting hangs. The JSO identified them as music student Eben Lazarus, 22, and psychology student Hannah Hunt, 23, both from Brighton. They called for a halt to new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea. Wearing matching branded T-shirts, the two fighters crossed a rope barrier and affixed the alternate printed image over the top of the board. Each then placed one hand on the frame and bent down, voicing their concerns about the climate aloud, before security staff cleared the room. Mr Lazarus, who described himself as an art lover, said: “Art is important. It needs to be seen by future generations, but what good is art when there is no food? “When there is no water, what is the use of art? When billions of people are in pain and suffering, what is the use of art?” Hay Wain, painted in 1821, is one of the gallery’s most popular paintings and shows a rural Suffolk scene of a waggon returning across the fields on a shallow course for another load. :: Subscribe to ClimateCast on Spotify, Apple Podcast or Spreaker Lazarus said: “We’re stuck with a redesigned version of Hay Wain pointing our way to destruction.” Hunt later said that “the disruption will end when the UK government makes a substantive statement that it will end new oil and gas licences”. He added: “I am here because our government plans to license 40 new oil and gas projects in the UK over the next few years. “This makes them complicit in pushing the world towards an unsustainable climate and the deaths of billions of people in the coming decades. “You can forget about our ‘green and pleasant earth’ when further oil extraction will lead to widespread crop failures meaning we will struggle for food. Ultimately, new fossil fuels are a death project by our government.” “Well, yes, there is glue on the frame of this painting, but there is blood on the hands of our government.” A spokesman for the National Gallery said the conservation team found minor damage to the frame and disruption to the varnish surface on the painting, which have now been repaired. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “At approximately 2.25pm on Monday officers were called to a protest which took place inside the National Gallery involving two people.” It is the latest demonstration by the group which last week reportedly targeted a Scottish art gallery and Sunday’s British Grand Prix. Watch the Daily Climate Show at 3.30pm. Monday to Friday and The Climate Show with Tom Heap on Saturday and Sunday at 3.30pm and 7.30pm. All on Sky News, the Sky News website and app, YouTube and Twitter. The show explores how global warming is changing our landscape and highlights solutions to the crisis.
