January 15, 2023

"Modernist furniture was burned, portraits defaced, sculptures decapitated and ceramics smashed. Carpets were found soaked with water..."

"... from the buildings’ sprinkler systems, as well as with urine. The rioters — die-hard supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro who refuse to accept his election defeat — marred the iconic marble ramp leading up the presidential palace with scratches... Into a historic wooden table at the Supreme Court they carved 'Supreme are the people'.... Among the artworks destroyed was a 17th-century clock made by Balthazar Martinot.... A 60-year-old bronze sculpture of a flautist by Bruno Giorgi was also trashed... Vandals pitched rocks through the canvas of a mural by Emiliano Di Calvalcanti. The presidential palace said in its statement that the painting, 'As Mulatas,' is valued at some $1.5 million.... 'The damage was not random, it was obviously deliberate,' Rogerio Carvalho, the presidential palace’s curator, said in an interview while sitting before the disfigured painting. The work 'was perforated in seven places using rocks taken from the square with a pickaxe. Which is to say, there is a movement of intolerance toward what this palace represents.'"

From "Brazil rioters destroyed priceless artistic treasures in assault on capital city" (NY Post).

AND: In other attack-on-art-news: "As Russians Steal Ukraine’s Art, They Attack Its Identity, Too/Russian forces have looted tens of thousands of pieces, including avant-garde oil paintings and Scythian gold. Experts say it is the biggest art heist since the Nazis in World War II, intended to strip Ukraine of its cultural heritage" (NYT).

44 comments:

Dave Begley said...

Looks like a real insurrection. I wonder why? Mail-in ballots?

BUMBLE BEE said...

Reading the headline, my first thought was of a New York Luxury Hotel I'd seen in the news.
Not enough Corona 12 packs?

narciso said...

70 days of peaceful protests, threats to take the children from the parents of protestors,
widespread proscription of activists, online, all of this serving xis puppet

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Now word from NYT on Antifa Nazi and BLM property damage. It was billions.
It hurt black communities.

JK Brown said...

That sounds like actors in the crowd sent to create these media " reports" about the uncouth protestors. Could be honest reporting but likely not

narciso said...

how do you say ray epps in portuguese, agent provocateurs

tim in vermont said...

It really is hard to accept that almost everything the MSM, including, and possibly especially the New York Times, says about the Ukrainian war is basically lies promulgated by the Ukrainians, because it's echoed all over the media, but lie the New York Times does.

But this is a news outlet that prides itself on a Pulitzer Prize it won for lying on behalf of the FBI and CIA.

Unknown said...

'Which is to say, there is a movement of intolerance toward what this palace represents.'

Whatever the presidential palace represents, the rioters clearly don't feel that it represents them.

Roger Sweeny said...

I fear I am turning into a grumpy old man but I can't help wondering if the coverage would have been more favorable if Bolsonoro was a leftist and a leftist rioter had scratched "Supreme are the people" into a table at the Supreme Court.

Sebastian said...

"Which is to say, there is a movement of intolerance toward what this palace represents."

So, like the environmentalist attacks on Western art and "anti-racist" intolerance toward what museums represent?

Rusty said...

What would you rather have? Art or freedom?

n.n said...

Brazilian Lives Matter (BLM)

Russian, Russian-Ukrainians, Ukrainians, or Kievans in a post-coup, apartheid regime in progress?

Alexander said...

So now the NYT wants me to be against destruction of statues. Hard to keep track.

chuck said...

Russia also did well heisting art in WWII. It's an old story of genocide and theft that goes back more than 200 years. They gained their reputation honestly, as it were.

n.n said...

Over eight years since the coup in Kiev, since the government denied essential services to Crimea, since the apartheid regime assaulted Ukrainians in Donbas, since Ukrainians were disenfranchised by the Western-backed Slavic Spring, and this is the takeaway in publication.

n.n said...

So now the NYT wants me to be against destruction of statues. Hard to keep track.

NYT is a notorious publication of the Some, Select [Brazilian] Lives Matter SS BLM ethical religious order. To be fair, they're still celebrating Biden is like Obama's premature withdrawal and funding of World War Springs, shared responsibility through progressive prices, [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform, demos-cracy is aborted in darkness, etc.

gilbar said...

still, this All PALES in comparison, to what those Jan6th Insurrectionists did!
Those Jan6th Insurrectionists! They.. They.. Well, they took selfies; and almost got outside of the velvet ropes.

gilbar said...

But this is a news outlet that prides itself on a Pulitzer Prize it won for lying on behalf of the FBI and CIA.

don't forget, the NYT is ALSO (STILL) proud of getting a Pulitzer Price for lying about the Ukraine in the 30s

Michael K said...

The Brazilians know that the election was stolen for the former felon now installed. I wonder how much China had to do with our own stolen election?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

How is Russia looting when they are on the run?

Something is not adding up.

boatbuilder said...

Can anyone confirm where Ray Epps was when all of this happened?

Lurker21 said...

There is some controversy about a video showing "protestors" inside the federal buildings watching the protestors assembling and advancing outside the building, but I doubt any of us are likely to find out what the truth was.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Nations at war now are allowed to destroy infrastructure, move civilian populations, mine harbors and roads, and of course kill opposing soldiers en masse, but nations must restrain from stealing art and items of national historical interest.
Uh . . . okay.
War is not a fucking game, at least, not when played to win.
The reason that Rome had so much treasure and art was because it was looted from the nations that they conquered. Countless gold and silver statues and figurines were melted down and recast as Roman works.
It's like we are all 12 years old these days with no idea of how serious are the games that we play.

Big Mike said...

I fear I am turning into a grumpy old man but I can't help wondering if the coverage would have been more favorable if Bolsonoro was a leftist and a leftist rioter had scratched "Supreme are the people" into a table at the Supreme Court.

@Roger Sweeny, as a septuagenarian I am absolutely a grumpy old man, but I am certain that you are 100% correct.

tim maguire said...

I’ve mostly refrained from commenting on Brazil because I don’t know enough to have an opinion and have no intentions of researching the issue, but it’s obvious to me that the American media is following the January 6 template. They lied through their teeth about that and I have no reason to doubt they are lying through their teeth about this.

Lurker21 said...

Vandals pitched rocks through the canvas of a mural by Emiliano Di Calvalcanti. The presidential palace said in its statement that the painting, 'As Mulatas,' is valued at some $1.5 million.

Some of di Cavalcanti's paintings would be considered racist today. This one looks more like cultural appropriation. There doesn't seem to be anything especially "mulata" about the figures.

Jess said...

After watching how federal agencies were involved with the supposed insurrection on January 6, 2021, I'm wondering if the same thing is happening in Brazil, and the narrative created leads to the tyranny wanted.

Big Mike said...

Furniture can be repaired or replaced. Canvas paintings can be repaired and restored. Clocks can be fixed. A people’s faith in the integrity of elections will take years to be restored, if it is ever restored. Lula and the Biden administration are playing with fire, but they cannot see the flames.

Narr said...

I'm reading Sean McMeekin's book "Stalin's War." The accounts of the behavior of Russian occupiers in former Baltic, Polish, and Rumanian territories are no different.

From the high officials arriving to ship the national treasuries out and take over the banks, to the average unwilling conscript relieving citizens of their cash and valuables, it's always the same. Back then, a lot of the troops were poorly nourished and materially deprived compared to their Westerly neighbors, if that's any excuse. Every one of those offensives, whether resisted or not, also revealed glaring defects and shortcomings in Red Army operational performance.

"Nations at war are allowed" to do whatever enemies can not prevent them from doing, as it has always been. Most of what Lewis Wetzel lists as allowed are defined as war crimes in international law, but only losers are subject to legal consequence.

NATO deliberately targeted all manner of Serbian civilian infrastructure back in the '90s, but it was Serb leaders and their henchmen in legal jeopardy afterward, not NATO. Similar in Iraq at times, with the benefit of rebuilding by US firms.

Whatever else can be said about the war in Europe, it was Putin who decided to lance a boil with a chainsaw, and a Russian win seems as remote as ever.

Ambrose said...

Was there a political reason the burned "modernist" furniture?

narciso said...

Scythia was that where the Golden fleece was located, no that was Colchis, where myth and history meet, to quote nick fury

Kevin said...

Sheriff murdered, crops burned, stores looted, people stampeded, and cattle raped.

Quaestor said...

"Scythia was that where the Golden fleece was located..."

In classical times, the Scythians were Turkic nomads with no homeland, per se. Scythia was a conjectural location only -- a borderless region somewhere northwest of the Black Sea. They were like the Huns in that modern Hungary is approximately where the Hunnic nomads eventually settled, but hardly near their ancient pastures in the Asiatic steppes. There are many other examples east of the Carpathians. For example, 10th-century Bulgaria was centered on the southern half of the Volga basin 3000 miles from present-day Bulgaria.

effinayright said...

Lem Former Twitter Aficionado said...
How is Russia looting when they are on the run?

Something is not adding up.
************

Try this weird scenario:

When Russia was advancing and NOT "on the run", they stole everything they could get their hands on. After all that's what the "other" Socialists, aka the Nazis, did.

It's such a CRAZY idea, it might even be true!

Temujin said...

Well...Russians being Russians. Not a surprise.

As for the pro Bolsonaro protestors, it sounds like they have more in common with our George Floyd rioters than with the J6 protestors.

But for information going on down there, plug into Glenn Greenwald on Twitter.

Butkus51 said...

I thought it was cool to destroy things? All the cool kids do it.

Yancey Ward said...

There are no rules in war except for this- the rules only apply to the losers.

Craig Howard said...

Was there a political reason the burned "modernist" furniture?

Nah. All the furniture in Brasilia is modernist.

Craig Howard said...

Was there a political reason the burned "modernist" furniture?

Nah. All the furniture in Brasilia is modernist.

Roger Sweeny said...

@ Big Mike - So you are no longer a sexagenarian. Sildenafil can change that.

n.n said...

Black boulders.

Andrew said...

I don't understand why folks think mob riots are a threat to democracy. Riots are the purist form of democracy, see the French revolution.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

Pretty sure that's what democracy looks like. I was told this was so by the liberal media.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

I dunno, I remember when mobs tore down monuments and public memorials here in the United States not that long ago--I seem to remember most of the Good People here cheering that on. There doesn't seem to be a *principle* against mobs destroying things, just a preference for mobs whose ideology people agree with (and who target things the Good People dislike).

Madison: Protestors Explain Why They Tore Down Statues At State Capitol

I wonder how many people were arrested for those illegal acts--must have been many, huh?