A street artist in Naples, Italy, has used his art to protest against the decision of a university in Milan to cancel a course on Fyodor Dostoevsky, painting a giant mural of the Russian author.
Protesting against the move, Naples artist Jorit has created the giant mural of the author of ‘Crime and Punishment’ and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ in his home city, based on Russian artist Vasily Perov’s 1872 painting of Dostoyevsky.
Jorit only added the face paint that he uses in his human tribe-themed works.
His newest art will now, as he stressed, serve as a reminder that only with culture can we understand the causes of wars and build peace while adorning the corner wall of the Augusto Righi Technical School of Naples.
Another part of the mural, which will be officially unveiled on March 25, is a quote from Paolo Pasolini’s film ‘The Hawks and the Sparrows’, which warns that the greatest threats to world peace might be wealth inequality and class war.
Many other Italians like Jorit were taken aback by the University of Milano-Bicocca’s decision to cancel its Dostoevsky course and replace it with courses focused on Ukrainian authors, which was promptly reversed following public outcry.
In one of the many examples of how Russian culture has been targeted in Western countries following the Russian attack against Ukraine in late February, there were calls to ban Russian exhibits and to demolish Russian sculptures which Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, has blasted as absurd last week.
Previously in February, a few days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Milan’s Mayor Beppe Sala refused the return to the La Scala podium of the world-renowned Russian conductor Valery Gergiev after he refused to condemn the invasion of Ukraine.
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