News broke that environmental activists from the group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup over the Vincent Van Gogh painting “Sunflowers” that is hanging in the National Gallery in London. Van Gogh is one of the most famous artists in history for works like like “Starry Night,” which is hanging in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, as well as his sunflowers studies (there are eleven paintings with sunflowers as their focus). He did many different versions of them, one of which was featured heavily in the Doctor Who episode “Vincent and the Doctor” where Amy Pond jokingly hints that Van Gogh should draw them.

Van Gogh’s sunflowers are some of the most instantly recognizable art, people love his work, and making an environmental plea in a museum using a Vincent Van Gogh painting is … a choice! It’s not that I don’t understand the motivation. What happened was two activists entered the museum, threw the soup at the painting (which was protected by glass) and shared their message. They pointed out that families cannot afford soup or to heat up the can and the cost of living crisis is horrendous. The activists then appeared to glue themselves to the wall.