It is quite possible that at the time of writing, climate change activists have once again managed to douse or smear another Renaissance masterpiece and glued themselves to it with superglue. The acts of vandalism committed by climate activist groups, which have damaged works by Van Gogh, Vermeer, Monet and other immeasurably significant artists, have become so intense in recent months and even days. The deliberate damaging and destruction of artworks has a long history, and political motives are one of the most frequent reasons. However, while no one doubts that, say, the "degenerate art" campaign once carried out by the Nazis deserves only contempt, the expressions of ecology campaigners deserve more careful analysis.

Despite the extremely broad scope of interests in art history, researchers have rarely focused in-depth on the phenomenon of vandalism. An exception is the Italian historian Dario Gamboni, who, in his extensive work "The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution", examines art vandalism in the context of the artistic, theoretical or political movements current to the era, emphasising that even behind seemingly senseless attacks, it is sometimes possible to discern a justified and even meaningful motivation – political, feminist, theological, aesthetic, pathological or otherwise. (...)