By Dale McFeatters
In 1891 Paul Gauguin abandoned his wife and five children in Europe and left for the tropics to pursue a life of painting and dissipation. He left behind a legacy of paintings and little else.
In marked contrast to his lifetime, the paintings are now recognized as masterpieces. He died of syphilis and alcoholism at age 54, almost the exact age of Sarah Burns, 53, when she tried to destroy one of his paintings in the elegant marble confines of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
The painting titled "Two Tahitian Women," appropriately enough depicts two topless Tahitian women, one holding a tray of fruit, the other a small bouquet of flowers. Frankly, it is not a terribly sexy picture ― the most exciting thing about it is its $80 million price tag ― but it was enough to send museum-goer Burns into a rage.
Shouting, "This is evil!" she tried to wrench the painting off the wall and failing that began beating on it with her fists. Fortunately the Gauguin was on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where they are used to overly expressive art lovers and the painting was protected by a Plexiglas shield and so escaped unscathed.
Burns blamed the incident on a common Washington problem ― the CIA was beaming thoughts into her head. She told police, who arrested her on charges of attempted theft and destruction of property: "I feel that Gauguin is evil. He has nudity and is bad for children. He has two women in the painting and it's very homosexual. I was trying to remove it. I think it should be burned. I am from the American CIA and I have a radio in my head. I am going to kill you."
According to the Washington Post, this is not Burns' first acquaintance with law enforcement. Her rap sheet goes back to 1996 and she has done time for assaulting an officer and conspiracy to commit a carjacking.
Lisa de Moraes, the Post's TV columnist, had some fun at the expense of the local TV stations, which have had conflicted feelings about breasts ever since Janet Jackson flashed one at the 2004 Super Bowl and the bluenoses goaded the Federal Communications Commission into levying a fine.
She noted that in their promos of the story the local Fox outlet blurred the nipples, NBC showed the two Tahitians from the shoulders up and CBS ran no photo at all. They did, however, give their viewers the complete picture, so to speak, on their later news broadcasts. (To be fair, the Post ran its photo of the painting well inside, on page C9.)
Whatever Burns' problems with the post-impressionists, it's a good thing she didn't wander into the 16th and 17th century European Renaissance galleries. They're packed with nudes, lolling, gamboling, lounging, preening. Poor Burns would have had to radio back to the CIA for instructions.
Dale McFeatters is an editorial of Scripps Howard News Service (www.scrippsnews.com). He can be reached at mcfeattersd(at)shns.com.
