A painting by Paul Gauguin on loan to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. was attacked by a gallery-visiting woman who repeatedly struck the work of art while screaming ‘this is evil.’

According to other gallery-goers and security personnel the woman, who has been identified as 53-year-old Susan Burns, attempted to tear the painting down from the wall and thrashed the painting with her fists.

According to misdemeanor complaint charges Burns 'struck the middle of the painting with her right fist.'

Luckily, a transparent acrylic shield surrounding the work of art, protecting it from the assault.

'She was really pounding it with her fists. It was like this weird surreal scene that one doesn't expect at the National Gallery,’ Pamela Degotardi, a witness to the incident, told The Washington Post.

The 1899 painting, Gauguin’s ‘Two Tahitian Women,’ depicts two native women carrying fruit and flowers, one with both breasts exposed, the other with one exposed.

According to a criminal complaint filed in Washington, D.C. Superior Court, Burns said that the painting is '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.'