This is a quintessential example of the ideas expressed by Walter Benjamin which Berger enhanced--that the allure and sanctity of the Mona Lisa or any other well known work of art for that matter, is violated by the commercial medias insistence of perverting it insofar as to wear out its originality and singularity. I was at the Louvre a handfull of summers ago, filing up the stairs with a thousand foreign souls wanting to marvel at this Image. I pierced through a mob of flashing camera lights, crying children, and tip-toeing individuals all and sundry...only to catch a glimpse of her forehead and subsequent frame. I was dreadfully disappointed. How small it looks! Is that really it? Really? My art class in high school had her face coating the door! And I thought to myself that I had grown to have that reaction to one of the most recognized faces in the world. That my private familiarity with the Mona Lisa was so intense, that the original had the impression of a piece of paper tacked onto the wall. Now why is that? It occurred to me that the Mona Lisa is the most violated of paintings and eliminates the "moment" of her smile. My expectation had been fulfilled by the first time I glanced at it. Isn't it sufficed to say that the Mona Lisa is Dead? -Denis
This is a quintessential example of the ideas expressed by Walter Benjamin which Berger enhanced--that the allure and sanctity of the Mona Lisa or any other well known work of art for that matter, is violated by the commercial medias insistence of perverting it insofar as to wear out its originality and singularity.
ReplyDeleteI was at the Louvre a handfull of summers ago, filing up the stairs with a thousand foreign souls wanting to marvel at this Image. I pierced through a mob of flashing camera lights, crying children, and tip-toeing individuals all and sundry...only to catch a glimpse of her forehead and subsequent frame. I was dreadfully disappointed. How small it looks! Is that really it? Really? My art class in high school had her face coating the door!
And I thought to myself that I had grown to have that reaction to one of the most recognized faces in the world. That my private familiarity with the Mona Lisa was so intense, that the original had the impression of a piece of paper tacked onto the wall. Now why is that? It occurred to me that the Mona Lisa is the most violated of paintings and eliminates the "moment" of her smile. My expectation had been fulfilled by the first time I glanced at it.
Isn't it sufficed to say that the Mona Lisa is Dead?
-Denis