The Mona Lisa

So I went to the Louvre this morning and saw the Mona Lisa (or, as the French call it, La Joconde). I wasn’t particularly interested in going out of my way to find it, but my sister wanted to, and so we battled the massive crowds so that eventually, we could view the small painting from about ten feet away (you aren’t allowed any closer). I stood, trying for a look of reverence, while my sister snapped a picture (no flash), and then we fought our way back out of the room (apparently there’s no better place to stop and have a long conversation with someone). We continued through the hall of Italien painteurs, looking at the paintings, but not stopping to stare. We had discussed earlier how we are each more impressed by the sculptures and ancient artifacts (like the mummified cat) than we are by paintings, and so maybe this is why, but neither of us can understand what makes the Mona Lisa so special. I assume that many people there saw it for the same reason we did—because if you’re in Paris, and you’re in the Louvre, you are sort of supposed to see it—but why? We even saw a large-ish group of people clustered around a similar looking painting (we think they were confused), so even with our relatively high level of painting ignorance, we were by no means the worst off—but how special can something be if you mistake it for another painting?

All in all, other parts of the museum were way more impressive, and interesting. There was ancient papyrus from (what I think was) The Book of the Dead. There were artifacts from Mesopotamia that were almost 5,000 years old. There were an astounding number of statues from which the heads had been removed (my sister, who just finished a study abroad in archaeology, tells me this is a way to try to “kill” the god or spirit or the statue itself). There was even a mummified crocodile. And yet along with the Venus de Milo statue and the Virgin of the Rocks painting (both of which we missed, because we couldn’t find them), it is the Mona Lisa that draws the most crowds, compressing hundreds of people into one small area of the what-must-be miles of corridors.