Why is the Mona Lisa so famous? - Noah Charney

2,211,441 views ・ 2022-01-04

TED-Ed


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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