On March 10, 1914, the suffragette Mary Richardson walked into the National Gallery and attacked Velázquez's canvas with a meat cleaver. Her action was ostensibly provoked by the arrest of fellow suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst the previous day, although there had been earlier warnings of a planned suffragette attack on the collection. Richardson left seven slashes on the painting, particularly causing damage to the area between the figure's shoulders. However, all were successfully repaired by the National Gallery's chief restorer Helmut Ruhemann.
Damage sustained in the attack by Mary Richardson in 1914. The canvas was later restored and the incisions repaired. The breaks visible in this photograph, above her shoulder and horizontally across the upper left of the image, were to the glass only.
Richardson was sentenced to six months' imprisonment, the maximum allowed for destruction of an artwork. In a statement to the Women's Social and Political Union shortly afterwards, Richardson explained, "I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs. Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history." She added in a 1952 interview that she didn't like "the way men visitors gaped at it all day long".
The feminist writer Lynda Nead observed, "The incident has come to symbolize a particular perception of feminist attitudes towards the female nude; in a sense, it has come to represent a specific stereotypical image of feminism more generally." Contemporary reports of the incident reveal that the picture was not widely seen as mere artwork. Journalists tended to assess the attack in terms of a murder (Richardson was nicknamed "Slasher Mary"), and used words that conjured wounds inflicted on an actual female body, rather than on a pictorial representation of a female body. The Times, in an article that contained factual inaccuracies as to the painting's provenance, described a "cruel wound in the neck", as well as incisions to the shoulders and back.
12 comments:
The suffragette was misguided. But I admire her passion.
Like the Taliban... ;)
It was a painting, not a person.
If only the Taliban limited it's destruction to art...
What is art, but an expression of passion?
In other words, one passion "creates"... the other "destroys". I admire the former. The latter, not so much. If their passions were limited to themselves, I wouldn't have an arguement with them. But they don't generally aim to act in a manner which limits their destructive passions merely to themselves so that they can re-create themselves.
Of course. I admire her conviction, but not her actions.
But it's still misdirected. I don't know if destructive activism changes anything at all. Maybe I'm a pacifist. :p. maybe I'm restless, irritable, and discontent.
I'm, most definitely, all three. ;P
...but I still prefer Mat Collinshaw's response to M.s Richardson's.
Very cool. Shattered glass and all. And nobody could arrest him!
So, he incorporated destruction into the creative process.
Warning: I'm under the influence of nyquil. During the day. Why is the common cold so wretched?
I particularly enjoyed the work's title. ;)
Yes, very clever. I read up on the artist, and the Eclipse of Venus was removed after he smashed it.
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