“The origin of the world”, painting by the French painter Gustave Courbet painted in 1866, which has generated controversy since then for explicitly portraying a female sex, has been defaced in the Pompidou museum in Metz.
Local media reported that the work, which had been loaned by the Orsay Museum in 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 ‘Metoo’ movement, arrested as soon as they completed their action, are the alleged perpetrators. The Franco-Luxembourg artist Deborah Robertis He was the one who mainly carried out this “action”, called “The woman is not separated from the artist.”
She had the desire to join a “worldwide movement” of “young women artists of all disciplines,” indicated a lawyer for one of the participants in the action.
“What was allowed in another era, young people no longer want now,” he continued. “Deborah de Robertis is a great artist who questions us, makes us reflect and makes us uncomfortable,” according to the lawyer.
A work of Deborah Robertis, called “Mirror of the Origin of the World” is exhibited near “The Origin of the World” at the Pompidou-Metz. In it you can see the artist posing, naked, under the work of Gustave Courbet, a performance carried out on May 29, 2014 at the Orsay Museum.
Deborah de Robertis was sentenced in August 2020 by French justice to a fine of 2,000 euros ($2,155) for having appeared naked in 2018 during one of her performances in front of the grotto of the Sanctuary of Lourdes, in the southwest of the country.
She was also released on several occasions after similar actions, especially in 2017 after she showed her sex in the Louvre Museum in front of the painting of The Mona Lisain Paris.
For its part, “The Origin of the World” 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 being indecent and “outraging religious morality.” ”.
Acquired in 1866 by an Ottoman diplomat named Khalil BeyAfter an unclear journey, Jacques Lacan He 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 inheritance.
Even when it began to be exhibited at the Orsay Museum in 1995, that gallery placed it in a separate room and subjected it to intensive surveillance, as the management feared the reactions it 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 a profile photo.
Source: EFE and AFP
