The Mona Lisa Cult

There are many women in Paris worth staring at, and they are easy to find.  Like most people, I entered the Louvre with the intention of laying eyes on a woman I’ve heard about since my world history class in junior high school.  The museum was humid from all the body heat radiating off the numerous visitors.  I removed my jacket and followed the signs pointing toward the Mona Lisa.  The signs weren’t completely necessary; I followed the throng of people marching toward that famous lady. 

I was not curious to see the painting.  The image of Da Vinci’s masterpiece has been indelibly printed in my mind.  I was more excited to witness the mob of photographers jostling for a better position.  I imagined them as hunters aiming their rifles at an innocent creature.  They’d squeeze the trigger and show off their trophy at home. 

The Mona Lisa has no next-door neighbors, for she hangs on a wall in the middle of the room.  A wooden, semi-circle railing keeps the thieves and vandals at bay, and a glass case protects her from foul play, like McMissile milkshakes thrown from afar.  A dense cloud of spectators huddle around the painting.  Some fight their way up to the front, whereas the meek raise their cameras above their heads and hope to capture that smile recognized around the world.  Youngsters take selfies with Mona to make Facebook friends jealous. 

I didn’t take a picture of the Mona Lisa for several reasons.  I suspect I shall never forget that face.  Not only do I already know what the painting looks like, but so do my friends and family.  Even my father, who says redneck phrases like “Yinz want anything from Sheetzes?” is familiar with La Joconde.  Showing my folks back home a snapshot would be a redundant confirmation. 

Instead, I took a picture of the people taking pictures of the Mona Lisa.  I wondered why so many of these people flocked to see this.  Surely, the millions of visitors weren’t all art buffs.  Not everyone in this room understands the meaning of chiaroscuro, and most probably could not tell the difference between a Monet and a Manet.  I doubted my knowledge as well, so what was I doing here?  Why are we all crowding around this old painting in this stuffy room? 

Certain museum-goers undoubtedly could extrapolate the reasons why La Joconde is a timeless artwork, but that doesn’t account for half of the world being there all at once.  Like the city she lives in, the Mona Lisa has become a household name known around the world thanks to our history books and Dan Brown thrillers.  Snapping selfies with Mona means you’ve been somewhere worth bragging about, but this behavior also suggests something potentially repugnant.

Rather than creating our own art, we snap photos of the works of dead artists.  We merely replicate the genius of others and use these pictures as backgrounds for our iPhones.  But maybe I’m being too harsh about this. 

We could be keeping Da Vinci’s painting alive by combining ancient brushstrokes with social media.  Our interaction with art has changed with the influx of convenient cameras tucked inside our smartphones.  Tourists may be unable to steal the Mona Lisa, but they can walk out of the museum with a miniature masterpiece stored in their photo albums.  The glass case and the wooden railing offer futile protection because the physical form is becoming irrelevant except to purists and art thieves.  While the Mona Lisa hangs inside the Louvre, she is displayed on digital walls and inside memories. Da Vinci has already achieved the ultimate goal of art.  He is immortal, and so is his painting.