Environmental activists decided to stage a protest in one of the most famous museums: it was closed

Isabella Stewart Gardner Gallery staff reacted to protesters’ plans

Environmental activists from the Extinction Rebellion movement decided to make themselves known on the day of a free tour at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. They were going to come wearing T-shirts with images of paintings that had once been stolen from the museum, which reported that since the theft of 13 masterpieces on Earth, more than 1 million animals and plants were on the verge of extinction. They planned to paste something with the same message into the empty frames. Museum employees, having seen a call for action on the organization’s website, closed the halls.

Isabella Stewart Gardner had a passion for art and flowers. So when she founded her own museum in Boston in 1903, housing her collection of 2,500 works (among them masterpieces by Titian and Raphael), she arranged the exhibition so that the four floors of the gallery’s museum overlooked an internal garden with floral treasures. The museum is currently hosting a wonderful exhibition called “In the Presence of Plants.” The project is dedicated precisely to the fragility of nature: instead of depicting plants, the artists created living installations with their participation. And the museum itself, stylized as a Venetian palazzo, was initially designed for natural conditions: paintings hang without the usual labels or barriers, and the courtyard with garden is renewed every 4-6 weeks. At the beginning of the year, white azaleas and cyclamens appear there. In March they are replaced by cineraria, callas and orange trees. And every April 14, Isabella’s birthday, the balconies are decorated with nasturtiums. The museum supports landscape architects and regularly conducts environmental projects. There is a special landscape curator there. In short, this is a real oasis with an art gallery.

The Isabella Gardner Museum is also famous for the fact that in 1990 the largest robbery in US history took place there. Disguised as police officers, the robbers misled the guards by saying that they were catching criminals and asked for help. As a result, 13 paintings were quietly removed, including “The Concert” by Jan Vermeer, three canvases by Rembrandt, paintings by Manet and Degas. The memory of the incident was preserved: 13 empty frames still hang in the museum. These frames, empty for more than 30 years, were supposed to be the target of environmental activists from the Extinction Rebellion movement. But the museum staff acted proactively and closed the gallery, considering that irreparable damage could be caused to the exhibits and plants. Activists were going to come wearing T-shirts with images of stolen paintings, which reported that since the theft of 13 masterpieces on Earth, more than 1 million animals and plants were on the verge of extinction. They were going to glue something into the empty frames with the same message: each of the endangered species of plants or animals is a real and priceless work of art created by nature.

But their seemingly noble message has so far only led to the frightening of museum staff and visitors who did not get into the oasis gallery. And museum workers around the world began to carefully study the schedules of numerous eco-groups. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that never before has the environmental agenda appeared so often in the news.