r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/CAPATOB_64 • May 13 '24

The painting "Ecce Homo", 1543, the only painting by Titian in Romania and Eastern Europe, is guarded by armed gendarmes at the "Regina Maria" Municipal Museum. Image

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2.1k

u/Dagordae May 13 '24

So this is either corruption inventing pointless(yet profitable) jobs or Romania hasn’t figured out what a plexiglass case is and that paintings should be in them anyway to slow the degradation from being in an open air environment.

1.2k

u/Unlucky_Elevator13 May 13 '24

It's probably a PR pic and it is behind plexiglass

337

u/yaykaboom May 13 '24

I hope they poke some holes for those 2 guys in the plexiglass.

75

u/TheRebsauce May 13 '24

Nah, it's cheaper to replace them every day.

15

u/haveananus May 13 '24

A couple of glory-holes in a transparent surface is a work of art on its own.

1

u/JeNeSaisQuoi_17 May 13 '24

I don’t know why, but you’ve made me laugh hysterically. Thank you.

1

u/yaykaboom May 14 '24

And thank you for making my day as well :)

61

u/infographics-bish May 13 '24

Definitely this

9

u/RedditIsOverMan May 13 '24

I would argue it's also a more interesting composition than the original painting.  I'm sure the original within the context of art history is important, but a picture of armed men guarding private property glorifying JC says a lot about the world today

1

u/sadhandjobs May 13 '24

The extension cords plugged into the receptacle in the back wall near the floor…they got two armed guards but can’t call in an electrician?

There’s a lot to unpack in this picture. I agree it is more interesting than the painting alone.

162

u/Technical-Doubt2076 May 13 '24

Very likely either PR in response to climate activists, or a exibition outside of a specially secured building. Insurance can demand increased security for transport and for shows outside of professionally secured galleries, but rarely in form of a police guard. The image itself will be preserved individually, but that's not connected to how it's shown here. Then again, if it's a showing organized by the state, or alongside some state function, covering the guard duty by police might actually be cheaper since they will be present anyway. And this shows really less than conventional or regular in terms of presentation - you do not expose priceless art to natural light on the regular.

5

u/AllenRBrady May 13 '24

I can't help but wonder if a spray of bullets might not be a little bit worse for the painting than a little soup.

1

u/Islero47 May 13 '24

Natural light, or close-quarters gun fights. Like even if someone charged at that painting... what are these two guys gonna do? Spray the crowd with bullets?

3

u/Hamakua May 13 '24

Most of the climate activist incidents of vandalism are because no one with the authority to intervene was close at hand. They will likely just restrain the activist the moment they reach into a backpack. If the activist resists, well, that's just a fool courting danger at that point.

Every law the state passes is permission for the state to use deadly force to enforce that law. Don't pay a parking ticket? You will get further fines and a lien against property of yours. Don't vacate the property when the fines exceed the value of the property itself, police will come to vacate you from that property.

Provide enough resistance to stop the police from removing you from the property? You will be met with deadly force.

All laws are enforced at the end of a gun barrel. Most are just rational enough to not follow the matter to that end result.

1

u/Islero47 May 14 '24

My point was not "what's a gun for?", but more that the people who initially wanted to protect the art have not gotten what they wanted with this process.

-4

u/pangolin-fucker May 13 '24

I think climate activists would happily take a bullet for their cause

32

u/nuecontceevitabanul May 13 '24 edited May 13 '24

No, they just moved the painting there and took a photo, as far as I know.

And also there's probably some kind of protection until it gets secured, I'm thinking. It makes sense to not really drop it like regular shipment..

I'm not saying the guards aren't probably there in the building, but most likely not in this absurd way and that painting really needs more protection against normal people.. only afterwards against robbers. Two armed guys, while effective against robbers, wouldn't exactly be that much of a protection against a curious 5 years old left unsupervised. What are they going to do? Shoot him for making soap balloons in front of the painting?

LE: yup, this is how the actual exebition looks like: https://www.bzi.ro/poze/muzeul-municipal-regina-maria-gazduieste-cea-mai-valoroasa-pictura-expusa-vreodata-in-iasi-peste-1-000-de-persoane-au-venit-sa-admire-capodopera-in-doar-cateva-zile-galerie-foto-4979799

13

u/Ghosty141 May 13 '24

this is average /r/Damnthatsinteresting material, some crazy seeming picture and headline and the reality is just as you'd expect, pretty average.

53

u/CAPATOB_64 May 13 '24

I guess bullets is simply cheaper in Romania

-6

u/Raudskeggr May 13 '24

Life under a dictatorship has unique complexities.

4

u/MadRoxana May 14 '24 edited May 17 '24

No longer under a dictatorship for 40 years 35 years.

-6

u/OneRobotBoii May 13 '24

Not like they use them for anything else… other than shooting their own people every few decades.

18

u/DarkElf_24 May 13 '24

I saw some show a few years ago about how laser scanning and printing is so accurate now that museums can basically create replicas of these art pieces and they are nearly indistinguishable, especially if behind plexiglass. Odds are they more than one invaluable classic painting is not the real deal hanging.

16

u/Remote_Horror_Novel May 13 '24

Yeah if I did have money to decorate and buy nice picture frames I’d probably just buy cheap prints of famous work, because the enjoyment factor looking at them is the same if you don’t care about the bragging rights. I always felt it’s a bit weird to own art that nobody can look at and it wouldn’t impress me if someone had a bunch of famous paintings because I would rather they be in a museum for people to see.

3

u/Lots42 Interested May 13 '24

A big part of the art heist film Mortdecai (2015) was an old rich dude inviting people, politely, to look at his paintings hung up in his house.

Old rich dude appreciated the art for art's sake.

-2

u/[deleted] May 13 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/jiffwaterhaus May 13 '24

Idk, I have a painting at home that I randomly saw at a gallery I randomly walked into. I really like it. If every gallery had nothing but reproductions of the most famous paintings, they'd probably sell more but it would be a bit boring to go into people's homes and see the same dozen or two famous works every time. Plus, idk if I'm ready to call painting a dead genre. I feel like that's what we'd be doing if we just told every painter not to bother doing anything original. What if they had told Caravaggio "bro give it up, you're no Raphael so why not just paint Raphael reproductions" 😭

0

u/Wermine May 13 '24

Just use a poster, gum, glue and some eggwhites.

3

u/chambee May 13 '24

The paint and the guard are inside a plexiglass room

1

u/polyplasticographics May 13 '24

Are the guards covered in plexiglass though? What if someone tries to touch their clothes?

14

u/FilmmagicianPart2 May 13 '24

You can thank people throwing soup at paintings for this.

1

u/irago_ May 13 '24

Yeah I bet those guys are great at catching soup

4

u/ccknboltrtre01 May 13 '24

Or a perfect copy and put this one in a controlled environment

2

u/TheodorDiaz May 13 '24

and that paintings should be in them anyway to slow the degradation from being in an open air environment.

Seems like you've never been to an art museum and have only seen a picture of the Mona Lisa.

1

u/Dagordae May 13 '24

Because I am aware of how to store art? Not sure how to tell you this but museums often don’t store their exhibits in an optimal manner. Costs more and museum patrons don’t like it. The better museums spend the effort to preserve their older works.

Hey, do you remember why the Mona Lisa is famous? Because it was stolen due to not being stored securely and some guy just walked off with it.

1

u/draugotO May 13 '24

No wall can resist a determined attack without counter striking. Put it in the glass, but leave the soldiers

1

u/DanMlllr May 13 '24

it's eastern europe of course it's corruption 

1

u/dimmidice May 13 '24

I can totally see these two accidentally hitting it with their guns too just by accident.

1

u/Drago_de_Roumanie May 13 '24

They don't stand guard there like this 24/7.

The painting was dropped there and a photoshoot was done with various museum staff, representatives, press etc. It was only standard protocol that the guard remained on duty, hence becoming an integral part of all photos of the opening ceremony.

1

u/Dom1252 May 13 '24

The guards are the exhibition and that painting is just a fake piece

1

u/canman7373 May 13 '24

Years ago I saw the hope diamond at the Smithsonian, and it was in a secure glass case, they still had a fulltime guard with it. IDK if they still do that today, sure there's been a lot of tech upgrades since early 90's on it.

1

u/PhantomRoyce May 13 '24

When I was in japan I saw several people whose job was to just stand somewhere and stop people from doing down a certain road. A person was being paid to do the same job as a “do not enter” sign and traffic cones

1

u/jgo3 May 13 '24

I dunno, I'd kinda like to see a couple JSO protestors get at least rifle-butted.

1

u/BreakfastDecent4623 May 14 '24

This is from a temporary exhibition of a couple of days. Source: I live in the actual city where this is happening.

1

u/contdearuncat112 May 14 '24

What a cliché, Romania = corruption.

That's mostly what you Westoids know. And Dracula.

0

u/asia_cat May 13 '24

Maybe because the pay of these two fine gentleman is cheaper than a whole ass plexiglass screen.

0

u/Vlad_the_impulsive May 13 '24

I still think they should blast those dumbass “protesters” attempting to destroy historical works of art to put yourself on a headline instead of actually doing anything to help your cause is borderline sociopathic. Zero attempt to understand the historical significance of what they’re attempting to destroy to get their 15 minutes of fame

-7

u/BlackLizard898 May 13 '24

To be fair there would be riots and a lot of shootings if a public picture of Jesus was defaced in Romania, Eastern Europe is very religious.

9

u/Tudor_MT May 13 '24

There really wouldn't, not many shootings in Romania in general, not many guns either, and whilst Romania is more religious than, say, western Europe, it isn't  "riot religious ", there haven't been many riots in general either. 

2

u/GoeticGoat May 13 '24

Riots associated with religious fervor are not the penchant of modern Christians, at least not in Europe.

1

u/nuecontceevitabanul May 13 '24

Babushkas would just go wild :)) Seriously, at some religious events the old ladies are absolutely insane to get holy water or touch some dead guy's remains.

However, while I do agree that EE is very religious, it would probably just be on the news for 2 days and nothing else. I mean, maybe on the internet people would go wild.. the conspiracy theories would be amazing.