Is the Mona Lisa destroyed? Who was the vandal? Everything you need to know about the vandalism attempt
It's not every day that you see a 519-year-old painting get smeared with cake.
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, arguably known as the most famous painting in the world, had a field day on May 31, when a man disguised as an elderly woman smeared cake all over the masterpiece.
Social media posts went ablaze with the news, as a number of onlookers whipped out their phones to document the scene. One of the clearest videos is from Twitter user @klevisl007, who simply stated that someone had smashed a cake on the old painting.
In the video, security can be seen trying to clean up the mess, but to no avail.
Someone smashed a cake on Mona Lisa... pic.twitter.com/4NpztMCJEG
— Klevis (@klevisl007) May 29, 2022
Is the Mona Lisa now damaged?
Luckily, the painting is encased in bulletproof glass to protect it from such instances of vandalism. Though social media videos see the cake from the smeared angle, it only affected the protective layer—leaving the precious painting untouched.
An eyewitness with the username @luke_sundberg _shared that the vandal initially attempted to break through the glass.
"Can’t believe we witnessed something historic, maybe not on the right side of history however," he began.
"A man dressed as an old lady jumps out of a wheelchair and attempted to smash the bullet proof glass of the Mona Lisa. Then proceeds to smear cake on the glass, and throws roses everywhere all before being tackled by security."
His video shows the crowd gathering for the painting, with authorties escorting the vandal out of the premises of the Louvre.
Who was the perpetrator?
The vandal has been revealed as a 36-year-old climate change protestor. His identity was not revealed by authorities, however, he has apparently been arrested and placed in psychiatric care.
In one of the videos shared by @luke_sundberg_, the activist can be heard saying that he did it for more people to pay attention to the planet.
"There are people who are destroying the Earth... All artists, think about the Earth. That's why I did this. Think of the planet," he said in French.
A number of climate change activists have upped their movements in recent months, after the news that Nasa scientists are being arrested in protests warning people about the dire effects of climate change.
Is this the first time this has happened?
The Mona Lisa has been vandalized a recorded number of five times in the past. The first instance was in 1956 when its lower half was doused with acid during a tour of Montauban, France. In the same year, it was attempted to be smashed by a rock by a Bolivian man.
During a 1976 showing at the Tokyo National Museum, Mona Lisa was spray-painted by a woman in a wheelchair (a real one, this time) as a protest for accessibility in the museum.
Finally, in 2009, a Russian woman threw a mug at the painting for not being accepted as a French national. In all instances, its trusted protective glass came to the rescue to preserve the most famous painting of all time.
