VIDEO: Climate activists hurl pea soup at Van Gogh painting in Rome

Gulf Today Report

A group of climate activists splashed pea soup onto a Vincent van Gogh masterpiece in Rome in a protest they have warned will continue until more attention is paid to climate issues.

"The Sower", an 1888 painting by the Dutch artist representing a peasant sowing his land under a dominant sun, was exhibited under the glass and was unharmed.

Four activists have been arrested, according to media reports.

The Last Generation climate activists called their protest a "desperate, scientifically grounded cry that cannot be understood as mere vandalism."

“Nonviolent direct actions will continue until citizens receive responses from their government to requests to stop the gas and coal and to invest in at least 20 GW of renewable energy,” they said in a statement.

Video footage taken from inside a museum gallery crowded with visitors shows two young women throwing a liquid substance at the painting.

They and a third woman are then seen sticking their hands to the wall as screams erupt through the room. "Shame! someone in the crowd can be heard shouting.

Climate activists have carried out a series of attacks using soup, cake or mashed potatoes in Europe in recent weeks.

They targeted masterpieces such as Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" in Louvre Paris or "The Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Johannes Vermeer at the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague.