True. My point was that if you were to simply look at a distant mountain and paint what you saw, it would be in focus. Getting a distant object to appear suitably “blurred” (out of focus) required some creativity, as you pointed out.
JR8…
Yeah, that is a shame. I imagine that if I were to see it in a musuem, I would pause and think, “First time someone used proper perspective, eh? Interesting” and move on.
I was seventeen years old when I visited the Louve. I walked around the corner and there she was. She was alive. I couldn’t stop staring. And from that day, over 20 years ago, I still can feel what it felt like to look at her and I knew why she was famous. I didn’t know there were people who could really look at her and not see her.
I don’t think there’s anything particularly impressive about going and seeing the ACTUAL painting; indeed, the last time I was in Paris dr_mom_mcl and I skipped the Louvre because it was too expensive, big, and crowded.
However, I do think and have always thought that the IMAGE is quite compelling. I have a print of her that I bought on that trip hanging on my wall, and sometimes I’ll just sit there and stare at her.
China Guy said:
I think that’s part of the problem of really appreciating the original. The images have become part of our subconscious through constant use. Overexposure, really.
It’s like a person born and raised in New York City never going to the Statue of Liberty, or even thinking it’s anything special. Try telling that to the folks from Des Moines!
Or when a sports reporter stayed too long in the Orioles dugout prior to a game, heard the National Anthem being played, and apologized. Earl Weaver just said, “Relax, kid, we do this every day.”
Along with the theft, I think part of its allure (and celebrity) is also the controversy over whether it should have been returned to Italy. Wasn’t there quite a flap over that at one point?
BTW, what is the deal with her eyebrows? Why doesn’t the Mona Lisa have any eyebrows?
Fashion.
I recall a newspaper account of a study (published shortly after I read CK Dexterhaven’s masterly account) that I think is what warmgun is referring to.
It suggested that one reason for the fascination of the Mona Lisa smile was the shadowing. This shadowing meant that when you didn’t focus on the smile, by looking at the eyes for example, your peripheral vision picked up the impression of a strong smile. When you looked back directly at the mouth, the smile was much less visible.
This may have contributed to the feeling that she is always just on the border of smiling. Thus the fascination. Well, they didn’t have TV in those days…
I think it’s good to trust your own responses to works of art, but I have often been grateful for the people who have suggested I try harder to find that which at some time ignited the imagination of a society. Sometimes, with patience you can discover it too, and then you have shared something of a time that no longer exists.
Which, some feel, is part of the reason we value art.
Redboss
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
—Bob Dylan
One of my favorite paintings to see IRL is “The Arnolfini Wedding” at the National Gallery. The level of detail is astounding; the more you look, the more there is, and the print versions don’t come close to showing it all. The spouse and I have a tendency to go and stand with our noses just close enough to the painting to make the security guards nervous. I never get tired of that one. And there’s rarely a crowd in front of it.
Perhaps if La Joconde had the same level of lighting, lack of crowds, and freedom to stare, I’d be more taken with it.
From a visit to the Louvre in '92 I seem to remember that The Mona Lisa was displayed behind smoked glass. Am I mis-remembering, here? The crowds were pretty thick and I only gave it a cursory glance. I was disappointed in how small the painting was. From all the hoopla, I was expecting something the size of a picture window.