In Paris, tomato soup was splattered across a van Gogh in London, and then mashed potatoes were thrown at a Monet in a museum in Germany.

The intentions of the protesters behind them were what were shared. They said they had to resort to high profile tactics because little else has worked in their favor.

All of the paintings were encased in glass. The actions went global and caused an uproar. The climate movement was harmed by misguided attention-seekers who didn't help the Earth. If climate action isn't taken fast, did they force a spotlight on everything?

It is not clear whether throwing food at art was a success.

The climate activists got a lot of attention because of the protests. The window to avert further climate catastrophe is closing despite decades of lobbying, petitions, marches and civil disobedience.

"We tried sitting in the roads, we tried blocking oil terminals, and we got virtually zero press coverage, but the thing that gets the most press is chucking some tomato soup on a piece of glass covering a masterpiece." Two Just Stop Oil activists put their hands to the wall after tossing soup. One asked, "what is worth more, art or life?"

ImageTwo people wearing white T-shirts that say
Protesters glued themselves to the frame of “The Hay Wain” by John Constable at the National Gallery in London in July.Credit...Kristian Buus/InPictures, via Getty Images
Two people wearing white T-shirts that say

Ms. Carrington said the act was intended to make people emotional about the loss of a masterpiece. This is what we face with climate collapse. Everything we love is gone.

An episode in May at the Louvre Museum in which a protester creamed the glass covering of theMona Lisa with cake inspired the soup action. Activists smashed chocolate cake onto a waxwork figure of King Charles III on Monday.

We want to talk about what we need to do to prevent climate breakdown and collapse.

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The area is facing a shortage of water. The story of the Netherlands has been told all over its boggy landscape. The Dutch are trying to engineer once again their way to safety by figuring out how to hold onto water instead of throwing it out.

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Climate activists in Germany paid attention. Just Stop Oil was using the moment to highlight the planned expansion of oil and gas exploration off England's coast.

Ms. Hinrichs thought it was genius. People are shocked and a window opens where they can listen.

Two activists with Last Generation threw potatoes on the glass front of Monet's "Grainstacks" in a nod to Germany's penchant for spuds. When politicians respond to the climate crisis is when we win. It is not ignorable that people talk about this step on the way.

The museums said the paintings were undamaged except for minor damage to one of the frames. One Spanish museum director said staff would be keeping an eye out for food when X-raying backpacks were used, and the Barberini temporarily closed due to lack of funds. A potential art protection crisis could see works being hidden away or ruined.

ImageA security guard in dark sleeves wipes white cream from just below the shoulder of Mona Lisa in the famous Rembrandt painting, as museum goers hold up their phones to take pictures.
A museum worker cleaned cream from the glass protecting the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in May.Credit...@Klevisl007, via Associated Press
A security guard in dark sleeves wipes white cream from just below the shoulder of Mona Lisa in the famous Rembrandt painting, as museum goers hold up their phones to take pictures.

Protesters have attacked art before. Diego Velzquez's "The Toilet of Venus" was slashed with a meat cleaver and lashed for it in the press by suffragists 100 years ago.

The soup and potato museum protests caused a lot of confusion. Did not know that climate change was caused by French impressionists. The Climate Emergency Fund, a nonprofit organization that gave backing to both groups, has been the subject of conspiracy theories.

The focus of commentary made Stephen Duncombe question the effectiveness of the protests.

Are they talking about food being thrown at art or about how carbon-based fuels are going to kill the planet? Dr. Duncombe spoke. Is the message helping the cause or not?

Heather Alberro, a lecturer in global sustainable development atNottingham Trent University, said that attention- grabbing actions were all but inevitable given that conventional means of protest have largely failed. The link between wealth and economies built on fossil fuels made targeting high- value art logical. Dr. Alberro said that they needed every tool in the shed. It says a lot if you throw soup on a painting than you invest in fossil fuels.

The most potent protests tend to have obvious connections with the targets. Protesters broke segregation laws to raise awareness. Activists from the environmental group went after whaling ships. Paint was thrown on fur. A series of high profile disruptive actions, including staging mass "die-ins" and "kiss-ins", interrupted scientific conferences and political events with foghorns and fake blood, and parading an effigy, resulted in the approval of innovative medicines by the FDA.

He said linking climate change to a van Gogh felt like a stretch. He said that criticism spikes with more protests and that it isn't the best measure of success. Thirty years ago, its tactics were excoriated.

Benjamin Sovacool, a professor of earth and the environment at Boston University, said that the most effective social movements used sustained and intense pressure for long periods of time, and that one measure of an action's success was how much it builds a coalition. He said that at least they are talking about it.

Anna Holland, one of the Just Stop Oil soup throwers, wrote in an email to The Times that she hoped people would extend the sense of protectiveness and defensiveness they felt towards the van Gogh painting. There is a quote from van Gogh in a letter to his brother.

It isn't the language of painters that one should listen to, it's the language of nature. Feelings of reality are more important than feelings of painting at least more productive and life-giving.