Italian protestors: Don’t loan Da Vinci Painting to Japan!
Certain groups in Italy are outraged over the proposed loan of Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting “Annunciation” to the Tokyo National Museum:
An Italian senator chained himself to a column near the gates of the Uffizi museum Monday to protest the loan of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Annunciation” for a show at Japan’s National Museum in Tokyo.
The “Annunciation” is one of Leonardo’s early works, painted between 1472-1475 when the master was in his early 20s. It depicts the archangel Gabriel revealing to the Virgin Mary that she is pregnant.
The 15th-century masterpiece will be shown in Tokyo from March 20 through June 17 as part of “Italian Spring,” a series of events promoting Italian culture and products.
In protesting the loan, Sen. Paolo Amato said it exposes a priceless masterpiece to unnecessary risk and belittles its significance by using it in a commercial event.
Inside the museum, the 6-1/2-foot-by-3-foot painting was being bundled in three protective crates filled with shock-absorbers and high-tech sensors to monitor humidity, temperatures and stress levels in preparation for departure Tuesday.
Central to their opposition seems to be the fact that the painting’s absense from the Uffizi gallery would deprive the site of its main tourist attraction, which is a pretty weak argument considering the fact that the painting will only be absent from the museum for a few months. Their position that the painting should not be used for a “commercial event” is similarly weak, since the painting will be displayed in the Tokyo Museum as a means of promoting Italy’s culture, and while there may be blatantly commercial parts of Primavera Italiana 2007, this art exihibition is not one of them. Its display in the National Museum will allow thousands of Japanese people to see a great work of Italian art, and it might even encourage more Japanese people to travel to Italy and admire the art there (while helping the tourism industry). I don’t see anything wrong with that.
