Two Swedish women were seen on video gluing themselves to a Monet painting at the National Museum in Stockholm and smearing it with red paint Wednesday.
The women were both from the environmental activist group, Restore Wetlands. The group said the women’s actions were intended to pressure the Swedish government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"The situation is urgent. As a nurse, I refuse to watch. The pandemic was nothing compared to the climate collapse. It's about life or death," one of the women, identified in a news release as Emma Johanna Fritzdotter, shouts in the video.
"People won't just die from heat stroke. New diseases will spread, and we cannot even imagine the extent of this," she said.
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The museum told Fox News Digital that police were called after the two women glued themselves to Monet’s "The Artist's Garden at Giverny." The painting, encased in glass, was on display as part of an exhibition, "The Garden – Six Centuries of Art and Nature."
"We distance ourselves from actions where art or cultural heritage are put at risk of damage," Per Hedström, the museum’s acting director general, said in a statement. "Cultural heritage has great symbolic value and it is unacceptable to attack or destroy it, for any purpose whatsoever."
Display Spokesperson Hanna Tottmar said the artwork was encased in glass and "is now being examined by the museum's conservators to see if any damage has occurred."
"The Artist's Garden at Giverny," which Monet painted in 1900, is the latest artwork in a museum to be targeted by climate activists to draw attention to global warming.
The British group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers" in London's National Gallery in October.
Just Stop Oil activists also glued themselves to the frame of an early copy of Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" at London's Royal Academy of Arts, and to John Constable's "The Hay Wain" in the National Gallery.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
