Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. His oeuvre includes landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, most of which are characterised by bold colours and dramatic brushwork that contributed to the rise of expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh's work was beginning to gain critical attention before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot at age 37. During his lifetime, only one of Van Gogh's paintings, The Red Vineyard, was sold.
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi.
Sunflowers is the title of two series of still life paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. The first series, executed in Paris in 1887, depicts the flowers lying on the ground, while the second set, made a year later in Arles, shows a bouquet of sunflowers in a vase. In the artist's mind, both sets were linked by the name of his friend Paul Gauguin, who acquired two of the Paris versions. About eight months later, van Gogh hoped to welcome and impress Gauguin again with Sunflowers, now part of the painted Décoration for the Yellow House that he prepared for the guestroom of his home in Arles, where Gauguin was supposed to stay.
Isaac Lazarus Israëls was a Dutch painter associated with the Amsterdam Impressionism movement.
Vandalism of art is intentional damage of an artwork. The object, usually exhibited in public, becomes damaged as a result of the act, and remains in place right after the act. This may distinguish it from art destruction and iconoclasm, where it may be wholly destroyed and removed, and art theft, or looting.
Poppy Flowers is a painting by Vincent van Gogh with an estimated value of US$55 million which was stolen from Cairo's Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum twice; first in 1977, then again in August 2010 and has yet to be found.
Farmhouse in Provence, also known as Entrance Gate to a Farm with Haystacks, is an oil-on-canvas painting produced in 1888 by Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh in Arles, Provence, at the height of his career. Partially due to having been inspired by painter Adolphe Monticelli, Van Gogh sought the Provence region of France to further expand his painting skill and experience. Van Gogh used several pairs of complementary colors in the Farmhouse in Provence, the color contrast bringing an intensity to his work. The painting is owned by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen, alternatively named The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring or Spring Garden, is an early oil painting by 19th-century Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh, created in May 1884 while he was living with his parents in Nuenen. Van Gogh made several drawings and oil paintings of the surrounding gardens and the garden façade of the parsonage.
Extinction Rebellion is a UK-founded global environmental movement, with the stated aim of using nonviolent civil disobedience to compel government action to avoid tipping points in the climate system, biodiversity loss, and the risk of social and ecological collapse. Extinction Rebellion was established in Stroud in May 2018 by Gail Bradbrook, Simon Bramwell, Roger Hallam, Stuart Basden, along with six other co-founders from the campaign group Rising Up!
Julian Roger Hallam is an environmental activist who co-founded Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain, the cooperative federation organisation Radical Routes, and the political party Burning Pink. In April 2024, Hallam was given a suspended two year sentence for attempting to block Heathrow Airport with drones. In July 2024, Hallam was convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for organising protests to block the M25 motorway two years prior, for which he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment.
Extinction Rebellion (XR), a 2018 UK-founded environmental movement, has since spread to the rest of Europe, the United States, and other countries, forming an international "non-violent civil disobedience" movement through mass protest. XR carries out demonstrations to highlight governments' inaction on climate change. Since 2018, Extinction Rebellion has taken a variety of actions in Europe, the US, and elsewhere in the world, to urge political and economic forces to take action amid the climate crisis. Although, their non-violent disobedience protests are an effort to generate attention around environmental issues, XR activists have become known for civil disobedience and disruptive tactics.
The year 2022 in art involves various significant events.
Just Stop Oil is a British environmental activist group primarily focused on the issue of human-caused climate change. The group aims to convince the British government to commit to ending new fossil fuel licensing and production using civil resistance, nonviolent direct action, traffic obstruction, and vandalism.
Peach Trees in Blossom is an 1889 painting by Vincent van Gogh. It is in the collection of the Courtauld Institute of Art. The painting depicts a field with peach trees on the outskirts of Arles with the Alpilles mountains in the background. The painting was intended as a homage to Japanese landscape prints which influenced Van Gogh. It was created a few months after he had severed his ear and during a mentally unstable period in which he was still a patient at the men's hospital in Arles.
Deanna Maree "Violet" Coco, usually known as Violet CoCo, is an Australian climate activist who was briefly jailed on remand for blocking the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 2022. She successfully appealed her 15-month jail sentence, with the convictions remaining, in March 2023, after the judge found that her conviction was based on false information from the police about an ambulance being blocked by her protest. She was instead put on a 12 month conditional release order.
The Last Generation is a group of climate change activists using forms of direct action which is mostly active in Germany, Italy and Poland. It describes itself as an "alliance" and was formed in 2021 from participants in the Hungerstreik der letzten Generation. The term was chosen because they considered themselves to be the last generation before tipping points in the earth's climate system would be reached. The Austria section of Last Generation announced in August 2024 that it would end its activities under that name.
The Climate Emergency Fund (CEF) is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization that supports climate change activist groups involved in civil disobedience. It was founded in 2019 by filmmaker Rory Kennedy, a member of the prominent Kennedy family, and Getty family heiress Aileen Getty.
R v Hallam was a 2024 British court case involving five activists from the climate protest group Just Stop Oil. The activists were convicted of conspiracy to cause public nuisance after they organised protests to block the M25 motorway in November 2022. Roger Hallam, co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, while his fellow activists Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin were sentenced to four years each. The activists have been collectively referred to as the "Whole Truth Five" in Just Stop Oil's social media posts.
Phoebe Plummer is a British climate activist. First inspired by a United Nations report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they joined Just Stop Oil in August 2022 and were arrested three times in their first week. An October 2022 protest in which they and Anna Holland threw tomato soup at a Vincent van Gogh painting at London's National Gallery caused worldwide outrage and £10,000 worth of damage to the frame but empowered activists to carry out similar actions. Plummer was sentenced the month after for blocking the M25 motorway. The following November, Holland and other activists caused tailbacks on multiple roads in West London with a slow march protest, for which they faced the first jury trial under section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023.
Christopher Joseph Hehir is a British judge. Called to the bar in 1990, he later sat as a judge at Southwark Crown Court and a London Nightingale Court. In July 2024, he convicted Roger Hallam to five years in prison and four other protesters to four years each for their parts in the Just Stop Oil M25 blockade case, prompting criticism from over 1,200 artists, athletes, and academics. He then sentenced Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland to 24 and 20 months over their parts in the Just Stop Oil Sunflowers protest in spite of an open letter imploring him otherwise, prompting various writers to compare their crimes to those committed by those he had previously given suspended sentences to.
