It was another dreary November day in Paris. But, Gee Golly! It was Paris! Tripping through the Louvre, is, of course, a lovely way to spend any day. And there I was at the beginning of the new millenium soon to be standing in front of the Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa."
Whenever I get the chance to visit a work of art I love and admire, I consider it a sort of pilgrimage. No less so in this case, because it was a revisit. I had seen it many years before when I was eleven years old (summer 1974!) and again almost twenty years later in 1992.
The first time seeing this work was an intimate experience. I recall that there was no glass on the painting, only a simple velvet rope a few feet away from it. The next visit was after times had become more violent toward works of art. Michelangelo's Pieta had been brutally hammered There was glass and a velvet rope this time. But each of these two visits was a profound. personal experience. I didn't understand why she was so special. What was her secret? But I knew that she did have one and I wanted to know what it was. At that time I was not able to discover it. Perhaps when I was older?
Well, I got my 'older' chance to at the beginning of the new millenium (2002). But "Mona Lisa's" popularity had gone beyond previous imagining. She was used in popular media to tout goods, and was spoofed as well. She had a gained a disquieting ubiquity. She was bound to be surrounded by throngs of people. What could be left of the intimate experience I had when a child? What of my quiet pilgrimage could I hope to regain while viewing this simple work through a crowd of picture-snapping tourists?
As I rounded the corner into the da Vinci gallery I was appalled at what had happened to my simple little "Mona Lisa." She was not only thronged by picture-snapping tourists, but was also boxed in thick, bullet-proof glass, and a metal railing creating a twelve-foot barrier around her. Worse yet, few people were actually trying to look at the painting. They were only engaged in taking pictures of each other in front of it. Boy, this started to get me a bit steamed. Someone, I thought, must do her the honor of actually looking at her.
I weasled my way to the front, smiling as politely as I could, to get a better view. A picture-snapper became irritated at me for getting in the way of her 'photo op'. We had no common language, so as I gestured at the painting and indicated that she was in the way of my seeing it. She gestured at her picture-taking companion and indicated that I was in the way of her shot. I remember being so irritated that I was trying to look at the painting and her back was to it. Argh.
This painting had been the object of fascination for hundreds of years. Throughout her history those 'in the know' had been saying it was a great painting. Why? Certainly she had a quiet power, but what, at long last, makes her great? Would she reveal her secret to me? Would I be able to find a way to complete my profound pilgrimage? Have my quiet moment with this work I loved and admired? To finally discover her secret?
Suddenly, I had a stroke of brilliance. I crouched down at the rail. A guard looked a bit askance at me, but was kind enough to notice that I was making no moves toward the paining. (I will venture to say it's the sort of understanding one may more often get from a French gallery guard.) I only wanted to have an undisturbed view, and one that would not disturb the experience of those behind me. At any rate, the noise around me was still deafening, but I was able to tune it out because I, at long last, had an undisturbed view of the object of my pilgrimage,
Was it her smile that perhaps was not a smile? Was it the mystery of who the model may have been? Was it a self-portrait of da Vinci himself? The longer I looked, the more I wondered. And the longer I looked the more it seemed to me that she could turn and reveal her secret. She seemed to be on the verge of saying something, turning to reveal a full wry smile, and telling us all she knew. I stared and caught myself half expecting she would, at any moment, turn and tell me her secret.
And then it struck me, this the secret of her greatness. The brilliance of this painting, the reason da Vinci kept it with him in his studio, continuing to work on it for decades, was just this. She will seem on the verge of turning to tell us her secret for as long as the canvas holds together. Simple paint on canvas, constructed by a human hand, will forever be seen as a woman at any moment about to turn and revel her secret.
This is why this painting endures as a great image. This is why art helps humans to endure. It tells us secrets and asks us to find more.
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