Celeb Mona Lisa
I first saw
Lisa Gherardini, a/ka/ Mona Lisa, in person in 1962 in New York. I’ve
since learned its visit then was part of a tour that included Washington,
D.C. and a visit by Jackie Kennedy. An enlightened second grade
teacher named Brenda Blumberg prepared us for a field trip to Metropolitan
Museum of Art. I remember in particular her discussion and
demonstration of how her eyes would follow ours when we looked at the
painting. We talked about the hands and, of course, the enigmatic
“smile.” (I know that there are those who dispute it is actually a smile,
but that is a digression). There we were, a bunch of seven year olds,
bused into New York, watching the demarcation line in the Lincoln Tunnel
telling us when we crossed from New Jersey to New York. We went to the
museum and moved past the painting, absorbing what we could in the few
seconds we had in front of her. I did notice the movement of her eyes.
I also remember that you could get relatively close and the view was
unobstructed.
I saw her
again in 1976 when as a student I made my way across Europe on less than $10
a day and a eurorail pass. Having studied in England, I made the poor
man’s Grand Tour in two and a half weeks, sleeping half the time on the
night train and once in the Milan train station. Oddly, I don’t
remember her from that time (some thirty years ago) as I do from across the
forty years of my second grade experience, but I remember going directly to
see her once I visited the Louvre. I recall that she was on a wall,
with other paintings. I also recall that there was not a particularly
large crowd in front of her.
While I have
been to Paris since then, I was confined to conference rooms on business,
and it was not until this year, in May, that I had sufficient free time to
visit the Louvre, among other places.
I took my
time. I wandered through the European paintings, noting the mid-14th
century of John the Good at the beginning of the French paintings. The
Louvre handbook calls it the earliest known portrait painting in Europe, and
though I had seen it reproduced in books, there was still something about
seeing it in actuality. John Berger has addressed what has happened to
the way we now view original works of art that have been reproduced for
viewing in other places, in Ways of Seeing. He acknowledges the
intrinsic value of the original and the uniqueness of feeling one has on
seeing the actual work of art, but argues that the technology that permits
reproduction has caused its meaning to change, and the original to be valued
more for its extrinsic worth. Such a painting “has become impressive,
mysterious, because of its market value.” Previously getting at it another
way, Walter Benjamin in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction, noted in 1935 that “[m]echanical reproduction of art changes
the attitude of the masses toward art,” and “that which withers in the age
of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.”
So I lingered
over the portrait of John the Good, trying not to think of the reproductions
in art history books, and simply absorb this painting on its own terms.
In due
course, I found myself in the great hall, signs urging visitors one way for
the Mona Lisa and another way for Venus de Milo. I had not focused on
the fact that there were three other paintings by Leonarda da Vinci on the
walls—The Virgin of the Rocks, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, and
Saint John the Baptist. No one was looking at these. To my
knowledge, there is only one Da Vinci painting on exhibit in the United
States—another version of The Virgin of the Rocks, in the National Gallery
in Washington, D.C. So here we have these remarkable works by this
remarkable painter, going unremarked as the crowds surge past into the
gallery off to the side.
And there she
is, like a pop star, at the far end of the room, her admirers before her,
cameras raised, videos rolling, grinning faces posing in front.
Virtually no one was actually looking at the painting. People move in,
see it, either literally or figuratively check it off the list, and move on.
I did make my way to the front and tried to absorb the painting as the
throng pulsated around me. One or two others did seem to be pausing in
their acts of reproduction. But my friend, whom I had last seen thirty
and forty years ago, was now encased in bullet-proof glass.
I tried not
to think of all that I’d read, about the hands, the face, the fantasy
background. I tried to clear my mind and simply see this painting for
what it was, and is, and imagine the physical hand of the man who painted it
at work.
It’s funny
how we are conscious of moments, of time passing, and almost by dint of will
try to force ourselves to remember something as it is happening; sometimes,
when we push too hard, we lose that which we are trying to hold completely.
I was intent this time on seeing the Mona Lisa. I tried not to let her
celebrity status get in the way. Nonetheless, I cannot help but feel
that my most profound experience with, and appreciation, of Mona Lisa
remains forever in 1962 when I was able to look (and as Berger would say,
see) a work of art as a work of art.
Still, her
eyes locked in mine this last time and I like to think there was a faint
glimmer of recognition and remembrance.
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