Mesmerizing Mona Lisa
On Apr 15, World Art Day, I saw Mona Lisa* - the world's most discussed, most written about, and most famous painting at The Louvre, even though Tuesday is the weekly holiday for the museum - possibly the world’s most visited museum with about nine million visitors a year. How did I manage that? No prizes for guessing. I enjoyed a virtual tour at zero-cost! Seated at a cosy chair in my study room, I spent an hour or more up close with 12 Masterpieces at the museum’s portal.[i] To continue my immersive experience, I visited the museum through Google Arts and Culture[ii], to check what more this portal offered. Most renowned museums of the world now offer virtual tours and online exhibitions.
In 2005, I
had seen Mona Lisa at The Louvre. Visitors appreciate the iconic
painting from behind the barricade about twenty feet from the wall which is set
up for a good reason; Mona Lisa had been stolen in 1911! A sizeable
crowd of visitors, several much taller than me, had already gathered in front,
and I had to peer through the shifting torsos and shoulders to catch fleeting
glimpses of Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile. I saw Leonardo da Vinci’s classic
painting, but did I really see her?
A visit to a
world-famous museum is always overwhelming and a bit unsettling. You are
suddenly reminded that life is too short with not enough time to enjoy all the
good things in the world. You must quickly decide which exhibits to skip, which
ones to see, and how much time to assign to which. Not unlike a grand, royal feast
serving choicest cuisines of the world where you may eat all you can but must
exit in an hour or earlier.
I recall having spent about two hours at the museum after waiting for an hour and a half for entry. Which masterpieces did I see then? Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, I remember. Btw, the more famous Medici Venus, among about 5000 artworks seized by Napoleon’s troops, had to be returned to Italy under the Treaty of Vienna after Napoleon’s defeat at the Waterloo; and is now at Uffizi Gallery, Florence (Link: https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/medici-venus).
But I remember
none of the other masterpieces listed by the museum in its virtual tour; not
even The Winged Victory of Samothrace – the goddess Nike, the messenger
of victory (yes, the footwear brand is named after the goddess!); Psyche
revived by Cupid’s Kiss, or Michelangelo’s Slaves! Wasn’t my visit
in the category of value-for money, photo-stop group-tour packages entitling
the tourists to boast ‘been there, seen that?’
Those who
are passionate about Art may draw up a detailed plan for their museum visits;
but even they must skip most of the exhibits on display. The Louvre displays
about 35000 exhibits in 400 rooms over an area of 72000 square metres; and an
average visitor spends one to three hours in the museum. Should a visitor
choose to visit every exhibit in the museum, how long would it take? At one
minute per piece, it would take about 79 days to see everything, assuming
8-hour days, excluding the time to walk through 400 rooms at different levels.
Metropolitan
Museum of Art (New York City, USA) has over 2 million exhibits; to see every exhibit it would take more than
11 years. State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia) has over 3 million
exhibits. It would take more than 17 years to see it all.
So, which
museums are in your bucket list? How about the Indian Museum, Kolkata - established
in 1814, and Asia-Pacific’s oldest and largest museum with about 2.5 million
exhibits?
I have a
modest goal: to embark upon a virtual tour of top 10 museums in the world and
see at least 10 masterpieces in each. That's not much; but dipping a toe in the ocean of art and sculpture is better, I suppose, than not venturing near the ocean at all!
Mona Lisa & India’s Nuclear Programme
Believe it
or not, Mona Lisa had a little role in India’s nuclear programme.
India was
getting ready to test a nuclear weapon for which PMO was holding top-secret meetings with only
a handful of senior officials. Naresh Chandra, senior Adviser in PMO, suggested
to P.C Narasimha Rao, PM in mid-1994 that the Air Force be brought on board and
the Defence Secretary be briefed.
“Cautious to
a fault, Rao gave the go-ahead for Chandra to meet Defence Secretary K. A.
Nambiar-but not in India. He suggested they meet in Paris…
Chandra and
Nambiar decided to meet at the art gallery at the Louvre. When Nambiar arrived
at the world's largest art museum, he found Chandra pacing up and down
restlessly…
One could
only imagine the two men, the serious, poker-faced, low profile, South Indian
Nambiar, and the tall and portly Chandra standing in front of the portrait of
the Mona Lisa, admiring her enigmatic smile, while Chandra briefed the defence
secretary on the latest developments in India's nuclear programme. It was
inconceivable that any surveillance agency would have picked up their lip
movements!”
(Source: How
Prime Ministers Decide by Neerja Chowdhury; pg. 361)
***
* Excerpt from The Louvre’s brief description of the painting:
“Portrait
of Lisa Gherardini, Wife of Francesco del Giocondo, known as the Mona Lisa
Leonardo da
Vinci
The painting’s special appeal lies in its technical
excellence, the sitter’s famous smile, the fantasy background landscape and
the sfumato technique that envelops the figure in a misty
haze.
In 1966, this famous and fragile masterpiece was moved
to the Louvre’s largest room – the Salle des États – where it is conserved in
the best possible conditions, protected inside a temperature and
humidity-controlled glass case.”
***
Postscript
Mona Lisa Song
An esteemed
reader shared the following link for the Mona Lisa song by Nat King Cole which
won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for 1950, and was inducted into
the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1992:
https://youtu.be/NIDX18Xl16s?si=_So7pWZFmKMASmnt
[i] Link for the 12 masterpieces:
[ii] Google Arts & Culture offers virtual tours and
high-resolution images from over 2,000 museums worldwide. It enables one to
explore exhibitions, view artworks up close, and even take 360-degree tours of
museum interior.
Link: https://artsandculture.google.com/
Very informative
ReplyDeleteVery delightful read.Your post has inspired to explore virtual museum tours. The Louvre's collection sounds fascinating!"
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