Dijon. The Magnin museum in Dijon, eastern France, was little known until the opening ceremony of Paris-2024, which boosted the number of visits to its website from 150 to 150,000 by hosting the painting that could have inspired a controversial scene.
“Our website has exploded. We went from about 150 visitors to 150,000 overnight,” Leslie Weber-Robardet, the museum’s communications officer, told AFP. She could not yet say how many visitors had been affected.
Since 1938, the museum has had “The Feast of the Gods” hanging on its walls, a 17th-century work by Dutch Baroque painter Jan Hermansz van Biljert that some on social media associate with the controversial scene of the opening ceremony.
It showed the French actor and singer Philippe Katerine almost naked, dressed as the Greek god of wine Dionysus, in front of a festive banquet, accompanied by drag queens and with DJ Barbara Butch as master of ceremonies.
“The museum is not behind the comparison” on social media, says Weber-Robardet, explaining that it is a “work of mythological inspiration, of a feast taking place on Olympus”, “the wedding of Thetis and Peleus”.
However, controversy arose with criticism from far-right politicians in France and even former US President Donald Trump, who saw in this scene a reference to Jesus’ last supper with his apostles.
The reactions on social media forced Butch to file a complaint for cyberbullying, death threats and public defamation.
The ceremony’s artistic director, Thomas Jolly, claimed a reference to “a great pagan festival connected with the gods of Olympus.”
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– 2024-08-02 16:50:19
