Two climate activists stuck a 200-year-old masterpiece in London’s National Gallery on Monday, the latest in a series of disruptive protests by British environmental group Just Stop Oil. The pair covered John Constable’s famous landscape painting “The Hay Wain” with a modified version of the image before gluing their hands to its frame. The demonstration comes just a day after five Just Stop Oil activists disrupted the Formula 1 British Grand Prix by sitting on the Silverstone circuit. The past week has also seen team members sticking to framed paintings in London, Glasgow and Manchester, including Vincent Van Gogh’s famous ‘Peach Trees in Blossom’. Activists taped their hands to the frame of “The Hay Wain” after covering it with a virtual version of the painting. Credit: Carlos Jasso/AFP/Getty Images Completed in 1821, “The Hay Wain” is one of Britain’s best-known works of art. Depicting the River Stour, which separates the English counties of Suffolk and Essex, it is considered one of Constable’s key paintings. The protesters’ modified version saw the river replaced by a tarmac road, with factory smokestacks in the background and planes flying overhead. Just Stop Oil, which is calling on the UK government to block permits for future oil and gas extraction, has since identified the protesters as students Hannah Hunt and Eben Lazarus. London’s Metropolitan Police confirmed to CNN that two people were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and later released on bail pending further enquiries. In a video of Monday’s incident, posted on the Just Stop Oil Twitter account, Lazarus, a 22-year-old music student, can be heard telling viewers that the “reimagined” version of the painting “shows the destructive nature of our addiction in the oil. .” “I want to engage with the arts, not disrupt them,” he is heard saying. “But the situation we find ourselves in means we must do everything possible without violence to prevent the cultural collapse we are heading towards.” The National Gallery said the painting had been removed from view after the incident and had since been examined by conservators. “‘The Hay Wain’ suffered minor damage to its frame and there was also some disturbance to the varnish surface on the painting — both of which have now been successfully addressed,” the gallery said in a statement to CNN, adding that the painting will be put back on display from Tuesday morning. Climate activists from Just Stop Oil also plastered themselves over a Van Gogh painting at London’s Courtauld Gallery last week. Credit: Kristian Buus/In Pictures/Getty Images Founded in early 2022, Just Stop Oil has launched several high-profile protests in recent months. In March, a Premier League soccer match was interrupted when a protester tied himself to one of the goal posts. Last month, four of the group’s supporters covered the outside wall and steps of the UK government headquarters with red paint. In a press release issued by the group on Monday, Hunt, 23, said the protests would only end when “the UK government makes a substantive statement that they will end new oil and gas licences”. “Ultimately, new fossil fuels are a death project by our government,” the psychology student was quoted as saying. “Well, yes, there is glue on the frame of this painting, but there is blood on the hands of our government.” Top image caption: Just Stop Oil campaigners stuck to the frame of John Constable’s painting ‘The Hay Wain’ at the National Gallery, London.
