Mona Lisa

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This is the Mona Lisa, indisputably the world’s most famous painting, and arguably the world’s most famous work of art. The Louvre Museum is home to the painting, which is Leonardo da Vinci’s most celebrated work.

If you’re having trouble locating the painting, it’s the tiny, faded, brownish painting behind the thick, greenish, bulletproof glass on the gigantic, yellowish wall. Many people comment that it is much smaller than they expect, and that the colors are badly faded.

Although the Mona Lisa is hardly the world’s best painting (and isn't even Leonardo's best work), it is the best known, and it is the Louvre Museum's guaranteed meal ticket, and so it is carefully protected. As you can see, it's only 77 centimetres (about 30 inches) high. The colors of the painting have faded to shades of brownish-everything, and the tinted glass that protects it doesn't help. This room in the Louvre, the Salle des États, was completely remodeled to accommodate this painting a few years ago.

Of course, the remarkable thing about this photograph is that it shows the vast crowd that is perpetually gathered in front of the painting. Why people photograph it is a mystery to me—you can get a better look at the painting by visiting the Louvre’s Web site. Many of them use flash (technically forbidden, but this is not often enforced), which means that they end up with superb photographs of the flash units on their cameras, reflected from the glass in front of the painting. I photographed this in available light. Yes, the wall around the Mona Lisa really is an unpleasant off-white color, at least in the light that usually illuminates the room (which is lit well enough that you don't need flash to take photos).

In 2007, the museum tried to prohibit photography in this room. The reaction to this absurd restriction was very negative. The prohibition was quietly dropped not long thereafter. Everyone wants a picture of the Mona Lisa, or of himself/herself in front of the Mona Lisa.

Anyway, when you visit the painting in person, you see mostly the backs of other persons’ heads. Personally, I felt that, since it is so easy to find pictures of the painting itself, it might be more interesting for my visitors to see the location in which the painting is displayed. If you visit the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, this is exactly what you’ll see. The best part about seeing it in person is that you can tell everyone else that you saw it in person; you can even make up stories about how superlatively beautiful it is (yeah, right—at the time of this photograph, there were at least two dozen women in the room who were a lot prettier than the Mona Lisa!), or how the eyes follow you (they don’t). I guess that myths have to start somewhere, right? Many people who find it unimpressive are afraid to admit it, since they believe they might be missing something magic about the painting that only art connoisseurs can see. Don't worry—it really is unimpressive, especially after all you've heard about it before seeing it. The biggest thrill is just seeing something so famous in person.

Although the Louvre is mostly without air conditioning and feels like a malfunctioning sauna in most areas, this room is refrigerated, thank goodness.

There's a roped-off area right in front of the wooden railing that protects the painting in which small children and very short adults are allowed in order to get a better look at the painting. You can see it better in this picture.

By the way, the French themselves call this painting La Joconde /la ʒokõd/, and that’s how the museum refers to it. The actual subject of this portrait was probably Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a fabric salesman from Florence, Italy. It was most likely a commissioned portrait that was never delivered to the buyer. It came into the French royal collection during the reign of François I, but exactly how he came by it is also rather mysterious. It was painted about five hundred years ago.

Photographed on August 1, 2008.