Why slash a painting?
An art historian looks at a recent Palestine Action protest
On 8 March 2024, a Cambridge university student and campaigner with Palestine Action spray painted and slashed a painting of Lord Balfour, a British politician remembered today for his 1917 declaration that signed off the lands of Palestine to the colonial Zionist project. Like most people, I wasn’t familiar with the painting until I saw the viral video of it being defaced. I quickly went into art historian mode, and set out to learn more about the painting, the artist behind it, and in particular the historical context around its sitter.
The basics
It was painted in 1914 by Philip Alexius de László, and it hung in Trinity College, University of Cambridge. It is one of Trinity College’s 240 oil paintings, the majority of which are portraits.
The artist: Philip Alexius de László
Philip Alexius de László (1869–1937) was an Anglo-Hungarian painter known primarily for his portraits of royal and aristocratic figures. He was born in Budapest to a family of humble means, and as a young man he earned a place at the National Academy of Art. After years of studying in Munich and Paris, his portrait of Pope Leo XIII won first prize at the Paris International Exhibition in 1900. From 1907, he moved to England and lived in London for the rest of his life. Although his reputation is still largely as a society portrait painter, his sitters included scientists, politicians, painters, scholars and ordinary people. Today, almost 4,000 works by de László (including drawings) survive.
De László made two paintings of Lord Balfour: the first in June 1908 (at the National Gallery — see below) and the second in 1914 (Trinity College, Cambridge).
The sitter: Lord Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour — known as Lord Balfour — was a Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 1902–1905. From 1916 to 1919, Balfour was foreign secretary in David Lloyd George’s coalition. Although he was frequently excluded from inner government meetings, it was as foreign secretary that Balfour wrote the Balfour Declaration in 1917 that signed off Palestine as the official “national home for the Jewish people”. It is this document for which Balfour is most widely remembered today —and it is for this reason that his portrait was targeted by Palestine Action (more on this below).
The National Portrait Gallery alone has 140 portraits (ranging across drawings, photographs, paintings and political cartoons) depicting Balfour. He was painted by many artists, including John Singer Sargent, Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Sydney Prior Hall.
The declaration: Balfour as colonial administrator
The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British Government announcing its support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. At the time, Palestine was an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. The declaration was sent in the form of a letter to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, intended to be sent to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. Essentially, the Balfour Declaration was a colonial document. Palestine Action explains:
“[Balfour] gave away the Palestinians homeland — a land that wasn’t his to give away. After the Declaration, until 1948, the British burnt down indigenous villages to prepare the way; with this came arbitrary killings, arrests, torture, sexual violence including rape against women and men, the use of human shields and the introduction of home demolitions as collective punishment to repress Palestinian resistance.”
There is so much to learn about the declaration and its consequences — and I am very much still learning about it myself. Here are a couple of accessible and engaging resources which I have found extremely useful:
- This 5-minute video explaining the Balfour Declaration:
2. Crash Course podcast episode: Why Britain Backs Israel. Hosted by Novara Media editor Michael Walker, this episode dives into the history of British involvement in Palestine, explained by author and lecturer David Wearing. Although the Balfour declaration is now hailed by Zionists as a sympathetic move from the British, there is a shocking history of how the British treated Jews who were seeking refuge to Israel to flee the horrors of Nazism throughout the 1930s. LISTEN HERE
The campaign: why Balfour?
I’m sure that some people will feel that, by slashing the portrait of Lord Balfour, the message from Palestine Action seems to be: Balfour the individual is responsible for every atrocity in Palestine since 1917. It is safe to say that no one is arguing that. No one is placing the blame on Balfour alone — campaigners for Palestinian freedom and sovereignty will know that better than anyone.
So why target an image of an individual? Because Balfour is a symbol. He is a symbol of British colonialism — and of the violence and arrogance with which that system has, for centuries, signed off the fates of entire countries without consent. Today the British government continues the Western imperial project in Palestine — personified in Balfour — through continuing to shamelessly provide Israel with diplomatic and military cover. This continues even when the world’s highest court of justice has ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide.
No, Balfour as an individual is not responsible — but Balfour as the declaration, Balfour as the symbol of Western colonialism in Palestine, is responsible. And so destroying that symbol is symbolic in itself. If anything, the slashing of Balfour’s portrait should make us want to learn more about the man, and the colonial histories he has come to embody. This is why I think it’s so important to learn more about Balfour in the historical context of Palestine, and the wider history of the Israeli occupation.
Expect more…
Finally, the gap between what British public opinion and British political actions is ludicrous — and will only lead to more extreme non-violent direct actions being taken, in desperate attempts to be heard. As early on as 20th October 2023, 76% of the British public wanted a ceasefire. By 30 October, peaceful protests calling for a ceasefire were dubbed ‘hate marches’ by the home secretary. By February 2024, the new home secretary James Cleverly asked the regular marches to stop because ‘you’ve made your point’. What do our politicians expect us to do if we are watching genocide in Palestine live-streamed to our screens — carried out by our political ally Israel — and writing to our MPs, signing petitions, and peacefully protesting is consistently ignored, and criminalised.
So unless politicians act on behalf of the people and planet (and by that I mean all living beings’ right to life and dignity), it is clear that we can only expect to see more direct actions — and this includes attacks on cultural significant artefacts and sites. Although these actions are often particularly emotive and polarising, it is important to remember that the activists are human beings calling for justice in this confusing age of ecological, social and political instability. We don’t need to agree with their actions, but we can all do our best to understand.
“The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.” — Maya Angelou
