Why Is the ‘Mona Lisa’ So Famous?

[dealmaker]

 

[tomorton]

Fantastically clever brushwork, interesting facial expression. Radical composition for its time. Otherwise a dull portrait.

I'm hoping to get to the Louvre eventually but this painting wouldn't be on my top ten paintings to see there in real life. Anybody have some better suggestions for the tour?

 

[Pekelo]

Nothing special about it, but it was stolen in the early 1900s... That made it famous.

Here is a technical explanation, but it is BS, because it wasn't famous until it got stolen:

https://understandingpaintings.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/the-mona-lisa-–-what’s-the-big-deal/

 

[mlawson71]

I have always wondered about that. Leonardo Da Vinci was certainly a fascinating man with fascinating body of work, but why this one?

 

[Visaria]

i've seen the Mona Lisa first hand....only thing special about it is the huge crowds taking pictures of it. They've put a darkened glass box around it to protect the picture from flash photography.

I cant recall the names of other art in the louvre...there are some nice stuff there.

i prefer the artwork in uffizi in florence, italy anyway...spent half hr looking at birth of venus by boticelli (spent 30 secs on mona lisa).

 

[lawrence-lugar]

i've seen the Mona Lisa first hand....only thing special about it is the huge crowds taking pictures of it

Alot of so-called top things, and people, in life are overrated...and just popular because of some superficial popularity or marketing contest of some sort.

 

[mlawson71]

I wonder what it would be like to view it quietly, in private, without the crowds and the flashes of cameras and all the ruckus.