These moral avengers risk destroying all art
Attack on BBC’s Eric Gill statue is part of a purity drive that threatens endless cultural vandalism
Last week’s acquittal of the Colston Four was not, we were reassured by one of the defendants, a green light for protesters to “start pulling down all the statues in the UK”. Nor would it set a legal precedent, declared a barrister for the defence. Jacob Rees-Mogg agreed.
Yet just days later, a man took a hammer to Eric Gill’s statue of Prospero and Ariel that adorns BBC Broadcasting House in central London. While he chipped away, another man shouted about Gill’s history of paedophilia.
Back in Bristol, those on trial claimed the real hate crime had been keeping Colston’s offensive statue in place. If offence is the criterion for removing public monuments and works of art, it is no surprise that Gill’s sculpture is in the firing line.
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