On January 14, 1911, Rembrandt’s masterpiece The night watch at the Amsterdam Museum was slashed with a knife of shoe making by an unemployed shoemaker and former navy chef in protest that he could not find a job. This person was arrested immediately. But the masterpiece’s unfortunate fate did not end there. On September 14, 1975, it was attacked with a bread knife by an unemployed teacher, Wilhelmus de Rijk, resulting in a number of zigzag slashes up to 12 inches long. With a history of mental illness, he declared: “I did it for God.” The painting was successfully restored after four years, but traces of damage can still be seen up close. He was not charged, but committed suicide in April 1976. On April 6, 1990, an escaped mental patient sprayed acid on this ill-fated painting with a concealed pump bottle. Fortunately, the security guard was able to intervene and quickly spray water on the painting. The acid penetrated only the varnish layer of the painting and it was not long before it was completely restored. The night watch is probably the painting most hated by the unemployed and mentally ill, with it being vandalized three times. Rembrandt is also the artist with the most vandalized paintings. Some psychologists believe that the artist’s paintings cause a feeling of imbalance in some form of in-depth psychology. Some people explain that his squint created paintings with mysterious light spaces, and that mystery may have awakened aggressive instincts in some viewers.
The painting ‘The night watch’ was slashed in 1975
On January 13, 1913, at the Tretyakov Museum in Moscow, an act of vandalism occurred: Abram Balashov slashed Ilya Repin’s famous painting, Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on November 16, 1581. Abram Balashov is a lover of painting, had visited the Tretyakov Museum many times and was familiar with the staff there. That day, he bought a knife, hid it inside him and went into the museum as usual. First, he stopped in front of Surikov’s painting Ms Boyar Morozov and whispered something in front of it. Then he ran to the painting Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on November 16, 1581 with frantic cries, jumped over the fence, shouting: “Enough of death, enough of blood!” and slashed the painting three times with the knife. When another guest ran up in horror and asked Balashov: “What have you done?”, he replied: “Enough blood!”.
When Repin was invited to the scene, he considered that one of his best works had been hopelessly destroyed. “It cannot be repaired,” the artist told the museum curator, Ostroukhov. In the end, everyone came to a decision: the mechanical damage to the painting would be repaired by the restorer Bogoslovsky, and Repin himself would restore the artistic part of the painting. Basically, after restoration, the painting has returned to its original state.
Cuts inflicted by Abram Balashov in 1913
However, the tragic fate of this masterpiece happened again on May 25, 2018. 5 minutes before the end of the visit to the Tretyakov Museum, a man from the last guests returned to the Repin gallery, there was no one left, took the fence and hit the painting several times. The thick glass, which protects the painting from fluctuations in temperature and humidity, was broken. The painting was damaged in three places on the prince’s body. The vandal was Igor Podporin, a 37-year-old unemployed man living in the Voronezh region. Material damage from Podporin’s actions was at least 30 million rubles. On April 30, 2019, Igor Podporin was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. The painting is still in the process of restoration.
Damage inflicted by Igor Podporin in 2018
In February 1914 at the National Gallery in London, Mary Richardson slashed Diego Velazquez’s painting Venus with a Mirror several times with a meat cleaver. Because of the damage to the painting, Richardson was sentenced to 6 months in prison, the highest penalty at that time for the crime of destroying a work of art. The painting was successfully restored by Helmut Ruhemann.
Richardson later explained her crime: “I tried to destroy the painting of the most beautiful woman in mythological history to protest against the Government for destroying Ms Pankhurst, the most beautiful figure in modern history”. She added in a 1952 interview that she did not like “the way the men gaped all day at the painting.”
Cuts inflicted by Mary Richardson in 1914 on the painting ‘Venus with a mirror’
The painting ‘Venus with a mirror’ after restoration
In December 1956, at the Louvre museum, a young Bolivian named Hugo Ungaz Villegas, in an inexplicable fit of unconscious malice, used a stone to throw at the painting Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Since then, Mona Lisa’s left elbow has had a small scratch mark that you have to look closely to see. This masterpiece was also the subject of other attacks but failed because it was protected by sturdy bulletproof glass. In April 1974, a disabled Japanese woman, upset by the museum’s policy on people with disabilities, sprayed red paint on the painting while it was on display at the Tokyo National Museum. On August 2, 2009, a Russian woman, distraught over being denied French citizenship, threw a terracotta cup, purchased at the Louvre, towards the painting. Fortunately, the cup shattered before the protection of the glass frame.
On June 15, 1985, at the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Rembrandt’s masterpiece Danae was poured with sulfuric acid by a madman and slashed twice more. The vandal was a resident of Lithuania, Bronius Maygis, who explained his actions with political motives, wishing for Lithuania to separate from the Soviet Union (previous documents say that the vandal hated the beauty of women). According to the decision of the Dzerzhinsky Court, on August 26, 1985, Maygis was declared insane (diagnosed as schizophrenic) and sent to a psychiatric hospital in Chernyakhovsk, where he spent 6 years, then sent to another psychiatric hospital in Lithuania. Immediately after the disaster, the director of the Hermitage Museum called experts from the Leningrad Institute of Technology and the National Institute of Chemistry and received advice to flush a lot of water and keep the painting upright, then the experts arrived at the museum. Restoration began in the Small Throne Room of the Winter Palace, where the climate and lighting were suitable. Restorers Gerasimov, Rakhman, Shirokov and Alyoshina were invited to work. Traces of the acid reaction are gradually removed under a microscope. The next step is to overpaint using the artist’s oil painting technique and original painting materials. The request is to try the best to remake it exactly like the original version. New layers of paint are separated from the original surface by a thin layer of varnish. The final restoration was successfully completed after 12 years (1997). To prevent vandalism, the painting is now protected by bulletproof glass.
The painting ‘Danae’ was destroyed in 1985
The painting ‘Danae’ after restoration in 1997
In 1986, at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, a Dutch man named Gerard Jan van Bladeren used a knife to slash the abstract painting Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III by American abstract artist Barnett Newman. The vandal was arrested. When he returned, he once again cut out another painting by Newman. The reason the vandal didn’t like abstract art was that he had read a monograph critical of contemporary art. That author’s idea resonated with the vandal so much that he decided to realize it and go to the museum to commit vandalism. A special decree of the Dutch authorities prohibited Van Bladeren from entering all museums in the country. The painting Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III was restored by Daniel Goldreyer in 1991. The initial restoration cost about $400,000, but was heavily criticized by some critics who said the subtle nuances in the three monochrome colour areas were lost and that Goldreyer used house paint and a roller. According to critics, the painting was destroyed twice: first during the attack, and again during restoration. Goldreyer filed a $125 million lawsuit against the City of Amsterdam and the Museum, claiming his reputation had been damaged.
In April 2007, 21-year-old Timothy Kubena, disturbed by the violent imagery of the painting The Triumph of David (1640) by Italian artist Ottavio Vannini, punctured the painting, lifting it from the wall of the Milwaukee Art Museum (USA) and began to smash and kick at the part of Goliath’s head. He then took off his shoes and shirt and lay down on the museum floor to wait for the police to arrive. The vandal told police: “I just want Goliah gone. I am at peace.” A hole with the size of a tennis ball between Goliath’s eyes was eventually restored.
From 1977 to 2006, Hans-Joachim Bohlmann (1937-2009), a German serial vandal, damaged more than 50 paintings worth at least 270 million marks (about 138 million euros) by Rubens, Rembrandt, Dürer and other artists. Bohlmann suffered from a personality disorder and was treated in various psychiatric hospitals since childhood. In most of his acts, he sprayed the paintings with sulfuric acid, targeting the faces of the figures. Notably, on April 20, 1988, Bohlmann vandalized a trio of paintings on the Paumgartner altar in Alte Pinakothek. This case suffered losses of at least $12 million. After 21 years of restoration, it was public in 2010. Hans-Joachim Bohlmann is considered one of the most terrible art vandals of all time.
‘Self portrait’ (1654) of Rembrandt was sprayed acid in 1977
Huệ Viên (Compiled and translated from Russian documents)
