WHY THE MONA LISA IS SO FAMOUS

I´m an art teacher but currently working in a school supporting students with
homework. I always introduce myself to my students as an art historian and I
always get the same answer: “I know the Mona Lisa” That made me think: how
could these young students who haven’t studied History of Art yet, know about
this painting? And this is the reason why I´ve chosen to talk about the Mona Lisa
and why is one of the most famous paintings.
The Mona Lisa is widely considered the greatest portrait
of all time. It appears in countless advertisements, has
inspired poetry, sculpture, forgeries and theft.
Personally, I believe that the painting is small, only
77cmx33cm, the color is somber, the background
seems desolate, and the subject is not of anyone
historically significant - the wife of a Florentine cloth
merchant with an enigmatic smile, missing eyebrows
and showing the special trademark technique than
Leonardo used called sfumato. Technically it means
where colors blend in so well you can´t see where they
start or end. This applies to that famous smile. Besides, the greatest innovation
in here is the relaxing and informal three-quarter pose of the subject. Although
Mona Lisa´s pose may seem common place and almost trivial today, it was
revolutionary in the early sixteenth century. Until then, the model used to be
represented in profile.
But, out of the artist´s many paintings, why would this be the one that everyone
remembers him for?
I´ll begin by talking about studies. According to studies, there are several
reasons- the enigmatic smile, her way of looking, the mystery of who she was...
But most of all, not until the painting was stolen did it become so famous.
Specially the publicity is what really propelled her to fame.
In 1911 an Italian workman employed at the Louvre, Vicenzo Peruggia, spent
the night hiding in a cupboard. When everyone had left, he slipped the painting
out of its frame and took off with it. For a while it was suspected that the famous
artist Pablo Picasso might have been the thief, which caused a sensation. In
addition, newspapers spread the story of the crime worldwide. Thousands of
copies of the Mona Lisa were distributed to the public.
Furthermore, when the painting finally returned to the Louvre on the 4th of
January 1914, practically the whole world was cheering. I wonder what
Leonardo´s reaction would have been to the long queues of people eager to see
the painting returned.
On the other hand, after the emotion of the robbery, the popularity of Mona Lisa
was maintained thanks to the ingenious avant-garde
parodies. The pioneer was Marcel Duchamp, who assured
that anything could be art. In 1919 he created the most
famous parody of all: he drew a moustache and goatee
beard on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa and called the
resulting work L.H.O.O.Q, letters that pronounced in
French sound like "She has a hot ass". Undoubtedly,
Duchamp had started a trend. As the culture became
globalized, advertisers needed to employ immediately
recognizable universal symbols, and the Mona Lisa was
without doubt one of them, the first mass art icon.
To sum up, I would like to discuss this photograph. If you have been to the
Louvre seeing the Mona Lisa, you probably might not recognize this display
room. It is because the painting has been moved to another room recently
because the previous one is being repaired.
It is exemplified how differently the digital generation experiences art. People
crowded around the painting at the Louvre are taking photographs of the piece,
or selfish. It is a well-known fact that in the presence of the Mona Lisa at the
museum, digital photography rather than looking at the painting, has become
the primary experience.