Letters: Activists were effectively attacking the sun

Following t he attack on Van Gogh's 'The Sunflower' by climate activists it is worth considering this artwork afresh out of concern for the victim.

In 1888 Van Gogh had a "discovery of the sun" (according to the Franciscan Friar George Morin OFM).

He moved to Arles in Provence and began to paint in bright, vivid and happy colours. Most prominent among these colours was yellow.

Van Gogh described the sun as "a light that it would best describe as yellow, pale sulphur, pale lemon, gold. Yellow is beautiful".

His most famous painting from this period - 'The Sunflowers' showed the reflection of the sun's bounty in the produce of the earth. The climate activists effectively attacked the sun in their attack on this painting.

It is oddly fitting for a creed that worries about the warming of the earth. The fluctuations of the sun are the main factor in changes in earth's temperature.

The world has heated from ice ages with no input from man, since 1880 it has warmed by 1.1 degree Celsius. Pre-Christian religions worshipped the sun. I wonder whether in throwing off Christianity our age has also thrown of the old religions that Christianity subsumed. Where once we basked in the light we now look up with fearful eyes and the youth fear the apocalypse in anti-sun cults.

Dominic Gallagher, Glenavy, Co Antrim