Yemeni graffiti, Murad Subai, revealed that a mural he painted in the heart of Paris was vandalized and defaced by unknown assailants.

Subaie commented, "Art has a tremendous ability to anger, incite and enlighten. Less than two days after I executed the mural of the "Conquerence" collage in the heart of Paris, the mural was distorted and canceled."

"My work, especially the political one, has gone through a lot of obliteration in the past years, but whenever it happens, it makes me realize that I am on the right path," added the graffiti.

Activists commented on the incident by saying that the power of the artwork (its influence and connotations) is what prompted the owners of sick souls to attack it and seek to withhold it from the public, adding, "You only fight the truth... Continuing is the solution," according to their words.

Subaie explained earlier that the “Conquerence” mural embodies war, death and oppression in Yemen, where everything is destroyed and divided, as he put it, noting that this mural is inspired by “The Scream,” the famous work of the great Norwegian painter Edvard Munch.

The mural was executed on the bank of the Seine, between the Louvre and Dorsey, on 25 July 2021.

The Scream by Edvard Munch

The Scream, by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, is one of his most famous paintings. The Scream is famous for the person standing in the center of the painting, screaming, and placing his face between his palms.

The tormented person stands on a road overlooking the Christiana Gorge in Oslo, under a dramatic red and yellow sunset.

The Scream (1893) by Edvard Munch (Foreign Press)

It is also considered one of the most important and famous paintings of European modernity, and has become a symbol of the psychological turmoil, anxiety and despair that surrounds modern man.

Munch wrote in his diaries about the inspiration for the painting: “One evening I was walking along the road, the city was on one side, the fjord under the city, I was tired and sick, I stopped and looked at the fjord, where the sun was setting, and the clouds turned the color of blood, I felt a scream go by. In nature, it seemed to me that I heard the cry, and I painted this picture, and the clouds, as actual blood, and it was the cry."

Munch used different media (tempera, oil, and pastel) to depict the colors of sunsets, mixing the media together to show the strength of the colors, but at the same time mixing different media caused chemical reactions that deteriorated the colors of the painting.

Over time, the vibrant colors in the painting faded, especially after it was stolen more than once, and it continued to be displayed in the Munch Museum and the audience approached it to watch the brush strokes and colors closely, which caused an increase in moisture on the surface of the painting as a result of water vapor resulting from breathing.

According to ongoing research conducted at the Scientific Analysis Laboratory of Fine Arts in New York, it has been proven that over the past 127 years the yellow pigments have faded and turned white, in addition to the appearance of some other signs of deterioration. Colors of decomposition.