The origin of the worlda work from 1866 by the French painter Gustave Courbet which explicitly portrays a female sex, has been sprayed with red paint in the Pompidou museum in Metz. A total of five works were marked with the words “MeToo” at the museum, which added that all “are being examined.”
Local media indicated that the work, which had been lent by the Orsay’s Museum from Paris to this city in northeastern France for an exhibition dedicated to the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacanwas protected by a glass screen when it was attacked.
The newspaper L’Est Republicain indicated that two young people who claimed responsibility for the movement Me Too, were arrested as soon as they completed their action. The artist Deborah DeRobertis has been the one that has publicly vindicated the action. De Robertis, who was convicted of having appeared naked in 2018 at the Sanctuary of Lourdes, He explained that he wanted to “challenge art history”writing “MeToo” about Courbet’s famous painting, “because women are the origin of the world.”
The origin of the world It is one of the most emblematic paintings in the history of painting, both for its artistic value and for the controversy it has generated, accused by some of indecent and “outrageous to religious morality”.
Acquired in 1866 by an Ottoman diplomat named Khalil-Bey, after an unclear journey, Jacques Lacan bought it in 1955, although he did not make it public. The work passed into the hands of the French State after the death of the thinker, in 1981, in payment of taxes for his succession.
Even when it began to be exhibited in the Orsay Museum in 1995, that gallery placed it in a separate room and subjected him to intensive surveillance, as the management feared the reactions he might provoke.
The work continues to scandalize in the 21st century, as demonstrated by the fact that The social network Facebook canceled without prior notice the profile of a French Internet user who had used that image as profile photo.
