Van Gogh's Sunflowers destroyed by oil protesters with soup.

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So these people vandalized and destroyed a work of one of history's most underappreciated painters just to get a message across that we should stop using and producing oil.

Do artists still use oil in paint and how often today is an oil painting made by anyone?

Destroying artwork isn't progress.

This is like burning irreplaceable books containing knowledge, history, and fantastic stories just to protest deforestation.

I'd post the evidence of what happened, but I'm on mobile and my computer is occupied. Just search it up. You'll find results.

I honestly think their protests are stupid, but so is putting an obsene price to a picture. Yes the artist was expertly skilled, but at the end of the day it is a painting so why are we putting stupid prices on paintings? I fully appreciate the atrists akills and tallents, but should we not also value the other things that tallented people do such as cleaning a room until it is spotless, or polishing a car to a standard that most people would not be able to do or servicing a bicycle in such an expert way that the bike feels better than new to ride?

Our concept of what we value and what we don't is extremely warped, and I honestly do appreciate paintings far more than a photograph though there is an art in taking that "Ideal" picture as well.
My point is that I think the cause of this protest is just absolutely stupid because oil is as natural as this earth is! But it is just as stupid to value something just because a certain painter pinted it where there are thousands of other painters alive today that can paint just like that. Some of the artwork forgeries took far more skill to paint than the origional ever took to paint and yet we do not appreciate the skills of the forger in the same way even though the forger is by far the better artist to have pulled it off so well that only a few experts were able to discover that the forgery was a copy.
I never forget a Chinese lady I knew who did not appreciate her own artist skills as she had been taught it was just playing around and she should follow a "Real" profession (Which she did with great success but that is not the point). We had a little picture on the wall that she liked a lot, so either my Mum or I said "You can have it" but she looked shocked and refused. She got her artists stuff out and within minutes had painted herself an exact replica of the picture that was so good they were hard to tell which was which. I was gobsmacked how she was able to do this and do it so quickly as well! Yet she did not think she aas tallented and did not compare herself to any of the known artists. To her, she was merely a young lady who happened to be able to paint like all the other students were taught when they were in school.

To me, anyone who can just pick uo a pencil and a few paints and come out with an exact replica of a picture on a wall in such a short time is quite an artist just to be able to do that! I would call them a great artist to do it in an evening, let alone in minutes like she was able to do! The paint was hardly wet before the next colour went down and she timed it so perfectly that one paint had dried just far enough that it would not smudge the next colournof paint. I have never seen someone paint like that with such accuracy anywhere!

No evidence exists corroborating your take on this incident. The actual painting is undamaged (it was behind glass) however the frame did get damaged. I do not agree with stupid acts of vandalism to highlight a cause.

It was protected by glass? Thank God!

Correct, the painting is alive and well. I think it's ridiculously over-valued - to me it's a good painting but not THAT good. My theory is that the wealthy buy these things because they're one of the safest investments known, a good hedge against inflation for their surplus capital, as they're one of the things least likely to depreciate in price, so they get "worth" more and more over time.

The attacker's statement ran thus:
"What is worth more? Art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?" ......she also referenced the cost of living crisis and "millions of cold, hungry families who can't even afford to heat a tin of soup"

I can follow the reasoning behind the act as a protest against inequality. They also superglued their hands to the wall, all designed to get some publicity for their cause, which appears to have been compassion, and indeed it got on the news. I doubt it will do any great good, but it doesn't seem to have done any great harm. Bit of a non-event really.

I can't help wondering whether they knew the painting was protected behind glass.

I think I'm more in favor of saving the progress of humanity than humanity itself. That includes everything from science to art to technology. I don't want us to suffer another dark age like we did after the Roman Empire collapsed and so much of our progress was lost forever.

And this will sound incredibly callous of me I know, but maybe, just maybe, all of humanity is not really worth saving? Given how cruel and selfish we are.

But our inventions could potentially outlast us and maybe contribute to saving this world if we didnt do things like destroy ancient art and artifacts because a bunch of angry humans start screaming for a revolution or some dictator trying to conquer the world rewrites history and burns books of tremendous value.

I had no idea that climate chance could be solved just by destroying property with tomato soup until those people showed up. Looks like I need some tomato soup!

The same old pattern over the years. Activatists destroy things so someone has to make things again and this creates more polution as the activists do not know how to peacefully demonstrate their cause.
Perfect example is where hundreds or even thousands of activists go out of their way to travel miles to protest in a capitol city which demonstrates ro me that their polution of travelling and breathing at a higher rate in a protest is totally ignored when they protest. So what are they protesting for when they do that as it makes no sense to their cause. Perfect example is blocking roads the same car journeys need to be made. Some drive hundreds of extra miles to avoid their protests. Others wait thus creating more polution than they would have otherwize created. The activists themselves came by polluting means or they cycles which increases their Co2 flow. I just do not get their protests.
What they are saying is to destroy humanity to save the planet. But why then save the planet at all if we have desteoyed us, as the planet is for us.
"But it is for the animals"... Then why are we demonizing their poo as if cow flops will kill the earth? It really makes no sense and this nonsence has been going on for a while. It only makes sense when one follows the money and sees how governments and already wealthy people have been programming their activists through the education system in order to help them hve a means to extract every last penny from the poor and give their recently raised taxes to the few ultra rich members that they serve.

Huh, I never thought of it like that, but you're right. What they should destroy is people's will to use those things they'd like to destroy, not damage the property itself.

The prosecutor says they did indeed know:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-63268435
Prosecutor Ola Oyedepo said the pair threw the "orange substance" knowing there was a "protective case" over the actual painting.....
Given that the prosecutor's job is to play up the harm done by the accused, Ola wouldn't have admitted that if it wasn't true. So it's beginning to look like the accused intended this to be a damage-free operation. It's even possible that they achieved that. According to the title of that article, the accused even deny damaging the frame.
Could it be that the frame was already damaged and the gallery owner is just trying it on in order to get a free repair job? I suppose if that doesn't work they could point out that the superglue left a bit of a smudge on the wall.

Being an artist myself, I find this absolutely horrible. I recently made a couple of paintings of two of the characters from Animal Crossing that I put a lot of effort into making. Of course, no one else would care if someone threw soup on them.

I had no idea I was contributing to climate change by painting. But then again what don't humans that causes climate change? But then again what do humans do these days that doesn't cause climate change?

Looks like the idiot fairy just arrived and sprinkled people with her stupid dust. Again.

Carry on painting. I was only pointing out the hypocritical efforts of the activists by the way they go about protesting.

There are respectful ways to protest or to raise awareness. When protestors turn to violence or damaging property or inconveniencing other people lives they are no longer protestors but criminals and should be dealt with accordingly.

I use acrylic paint and not oil paint, but it's still bad, right?

I think it's a matter of balance. If they're trying to mitigate some serious harm or injustice, and more benign attempts are getting nowhere, then damaging property or even doing violence might be the lesser of two evils, if such direct action is effective. But it's often hard to evaluate where the balance point is, especially as vested interests on both sides often distort the matter.

The ignorance of people never ceases to astound me. Oil Paint is made with natural oils, linseed and other seeds and nuts. Are we going to say eat margarine because olive, nut and seed oils are "oil"?

It is like the total pro-petroleum ignorance that has made many states ban "oil" house paint. Go ahead and analyze the impact of using linseed oil and turpentine, but these products are not made of petroleum. Acrylic is made of petroleum, it is plastic. It also requires about 10-1 repainting. How people could think "oil" based paint is less environmentally friendly than plastic is beyond me.

And, the Roman Empire did not fall, it converted and became Christendom. Neither the old nor the current Roman/Christian empire are worthy of calling a good idea.