Every year the olive trees will get a beating. Cruelyty is not very popular in the civilized West and wife beating is under scrutiny and discussed more openly. Whenever I paint olive trees there seem to be the suggestion that the trunks turn into female bodies and maybe not only because their fluid trunk shapes. Maybe the raising of their branches like arms in despair suggest their suffering to us.
We are the ones who want the oil and we know how to get it!
As vegetarians we asked often if plants are easier to kill than animals. There seems to be a ranking in species : from humans down to different animals to different cell organizations...making killing easier and less connected with guilt. But in the world the killing of a human being by an other human being is still going on and we can find many reasons to quieten our guilt, by putting lower values onto the victims. I better finish my salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.