Why is the Mona Lisa so famous? - Noah Charney
As dawn broke over Paris
on August 21st, 1911,
Vincenzo Peruggia hoisted a painting
off the wall
and slipped down the back stairs
of the Louvre.
He was close to freedom,
the exit just before him
when he encountered a two-pronged problem:
the door was locked
and footsteps were approaching.
Tucked under Peruggia’s arm was
Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.”
It's arguably the world's most
famous painting today.
But how did it achieve its status?
Leonardo is thought to have started
the portrait in 1503
at the request of a Florentine businessman
who wanted a portrait of his wife,
Lisa Gherardini.
Leonardo continued working
on the painting for more than 10 years,
but it was unfinished by the time he died.
Over his lifetime, Leonardo conducted
groundbreaking studies on human optics,
which led him to pioneer
certain artistic techniques.
Some can be seen in the “Mona Lisa.”
Using “atmospheric perspective,” he made
images at greater distances hazier,
producing the illusion of profound depth.
And with “sfumato,” he created subtle
gradations between colors
that softened the edges of the forms
he depicted.
All of this is striking,
but is it enough to make the “Mona Lisa”
the world’s most famous painting?
Many scholars consider it an outstanding
Renaissance portrait—
but one among plenty.
And history is full of great paintings.
Indeed, the “Mona Lisa’s”
rise to worldwide fame
depended largely on factors
beyond the canvas.
King François the First of France
purchased the painting
and began displaying it
after Leonardo’s death.
Then, in 1550,
Italian scholar Giorgio Vasari
published a popular biography
of Italian Renaissance artists,
Leonardo included.
The book was translated and
distributed widely,
and it contained a gushing description
of the “Mona Lisa”
as a hypnotic imitation of life.
Over the years, the “Mona Lisa” became
one of the most enviable pieces
in the French Royal Collection.
It hung in Napoleon’s bedroom
and eventually went on public display
in the Louvre Museum.
There, visitors flocked
to see the once-private treasures
of the deposed aristocracy.
During the 1800s, a series of European
scholars further hyped the “Mona Lisa” up,
fixating to a conspicuous degree
on the subject's allure.
In 1854, Alfred Dumesnil said that
Mona Lisa’s smile imparted
a “treacherous attraction.”
A year later, Théophile Gautier wrote
of her “mocking lips”
and “gaze promising unknown pleasures.”
And in 1869, Walter Pater
described Mona Lisa
as the embodiment of timeless
feminine beauty.
By the 20th century,
the portrait was an iconic piece
in one of the world’s most famous museums.
But the “Mona Lisa” wasn’t yet
a household name.
It was Peruggia’s 1911 heist that helped
it skyrocket to unprecedented fame.
Having been contracted to make protective
cases for the Louvre,
it wasn’t totally inconceivable for
Peruggia to be locked inside the museum.
And, lucky for him, when a workman
encountered him in the stairwell,
he simply helped Peruggia open the door
and let him walk out into the morning.
The theft made international headlines.
People gathered to see the blank space
where the “Mona Lisa” once hung.
The police interviewed Peruggia because
he had worked at the Louvre,
but they never considered him a suspect.
Meanwhile, they interrogated Pablo Picasso
because of his connection
to a previous Louvre theft,
but eventually let him go.
For two years, Peruggia kept the painting
in a false-bottom suitcase,
then smuggled the “Mona Lisa” to Italy
and arranged to sell it
to a Florentine art dealer.
Peruggia saw himself as an Italian patriot
returning an old master’s work.
But instead of being celebrated as such,
he was immediately arrested.
With the mystery solved, the “Mona Lisa”
went back on display to large crowds,
and newspapers took the story
for a victory lap.
In the following decades, conceptual
artist Marcel Duchamp mocked it;
Nazi art thieves pursued it;
Nat King Cole sang about it;
and museumgoers wielding stones, paint,
acid, and teacups attacked it.
More than 500 years after its creation—
eyebrows and eyelashes long since faded—
the “Mona Lisa” is protected
by a bulletproof, earthquake-safe case.
Now, it stands perhaps less as an
exemplary Renaissance portrait
and more as a testament to how
we create and maintain celebrity.
