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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Teens
- Theme: Mystery
- Subject: General Interest
- Published: 05/24/2019
When I was a teenager my parents took me and my sister to Germany to visit my older brother who was stationed there while in the Army. Mom and Dad decided to take a side trip to Paris, France. While there they drug us to a museum known the world over as the Louvre. Visiting a museum in Paris was not necessarily what I would have considered a favorite thing to do. I thought I could at least see some pretty girls. Believe me I saw plenty of French beauty. That made the museum visit worthwhile.
One famous work of art Mom and Dad wanted to see was one I remember seeing a picture of in a grade school history book. It was the Mona Lisa. Seeing it caused me a great deal of consternation, weeks later.
I still remember the room in which the Leonardo da Vinci portrait was displayed. We had been in many rooms looking at many exhibits. Things flowed pretty well. But, when we got to the Mona Lisa room, it was wall to wall people. We could barely get close enough to see the famous smile.
There must have been 100 People ahead of us in that small room. But because we were part of a tourist group, we were on a strict time schedule so we couldn’t wait in line to get close enough. That famous smile would have to be seen from a far and through a mountain of heads. That painting was not such a big deal to me anyway. I preferred looking at the short skirts on all those pretty and very much alive French girls. It was a wonder to me why so many people would wait so long to get up close and personal with a painting on a wall.
Two months after we got home a new school year had started. I had lots of stories to tell, obviously. As my luck would have it, my teacher found a way to ruin my visit to Paris. She decided her class needed to write an essay on an eternal question. What’s behind the Mona Lisa smile?
I saw the smile, sort of, in person. I remember thinking, “What’s the big deal?” Unfortunately, that essay still required me to research. As a student, I avoided that type of study, if I could. I did not care about painters. I preferred to study a good action warrior. Action was easier for me to relate to.
I spent many evenings visiting the library to research the topic. Keep in mind, research in the mid 1960s meant touching and feeling paper. Computers were not something used by a library patron back then.
First of all, a researcher would have to leave the home and somehow get to a building which housed lots and lots of books. After arriving at this building, most likely the researcher would walk to the encyclopedia section and thumb through pages and pages of those reference books for anything that remotely resembled the topic. Notes would be written on pieces of paper. The books would then have to be returned to shelves which of course meant getting up out of your comfortable chair and walk them back over to the shelves they came from.
Usually, encyclopedias did not contain all the answers required for the topic. So researching the card catalog was the next step. That required more physical effort. One had to leaf through a set of boxes containing alphabetized index cards by topic, author, or book title. Not an easy chore to quickly accomplish.
Several books had to be identified as possible resources. Those books were located in various locations throughout the library. The books had to be pulled from the shelf and then leafed through to find your topic. Many times books pulled from the shelf only contained a paragraph or two about your topic and was of no value. More notes from these different sources had to be written down on paper.
Of course, all this research had to be done after school. It always seemed to be poor planning on the part of the teacher who was requiring the research. He or she wanted the paper to be completed on a day after we had an extended period of beautiful weather. That meant we were inside wishing we were outside enjoying the outdoor activities.
That was not fair. How were we supposed to concentrate on the research? Why could they not plan for us to do the research on lousy weather days?
Fortunately, Mona Lisa has much history. That is both an advantage and disadvantage. It is easy to find material to use in an essay. Unfortunately, that means lots of books to look through, which equates to lots of time being spent indoors in the evenings in beautiful Southern Illinois.
And today’s kids think they have it tuff researching on their tablets in the park under a tree?
My extensive research discovered that history does not agree on what’s behind the smile on Mona Lisa’s face or who the model was. Some say she was 24 year old Lisa Gherardini, the third wife of a silk merchant, and pregnant.
With research there must be a conclusion, and this was mine. I thought long and hard about that, so pay attention. It’s extremely deep.
If, indeed Lisa Gherardini was pregnant, perhaps she was unable to hide her enthusiasm about the new life she was bringing into her old world. Could that be the reason for what appears to be a smile?
I didn’t stop there, though. With a bit more research I discovered others believed there was a perverse secret behind her smile. In fact, these people did not believe, Mona Lisa was smiling. She was smirking. Mona Lisa was really a man. That man was Leonardo da Vinci. They believed he was a cross dresser and he was painting a self portrait. If that was so, I guess the smirk was appropriate. To be honest, as a teenager, that ended any question I had about what was behind the famous smile.
Needles to say, whether smile or smirk, I am quite sure, the real reason for it died with Leonardo and whoever the real model was.
As for me, I never was an art connoisseur. That is a mystery I do not plan to spend any more time solving. But it is neat to say I saw the Mona Lisa in Paris, France in the Louvre.
The Mona Lisa Smile(Ed DeRousse)
When I was a teenager my parents took me and my sister to Germany to visit my older brother who was stationed there while in the Army. Mom and Dad decided to take a side trip to Paris, France. While there they drug us to a museum known the world over as the Louvre. Visiting a museum in Paris was not necessarily what I would have considered a favorite thing to do. I thought I could at least see some pretty girls. Believe me I saw plenty of French beauty. That made the museum visit worthwhile.
One famous work of art Mom and Dad wanted to see was one I remember seeing a picture of in a grade school history book. It was the Mona Lisa. Seeing it caused me a great deal of consternation, weeks later.
I still remember the room in which the Leonardo da Vinci portrait was displayed. We had been in many rooms looking at many exhibits. Things flowed pretty well. But, when we got to the Mona Lisa room, it was wall to wall people. We could barely get close enough to see the famous smile.
There must have been 100 People ahead of us in that small room. But because we were part of a tourist group, we were on a strict time schedule so we couldn’t wait in line to get close enough. That famous smile would have to be seen from a far and through a mountain of heads. That painting was not such a big deal to me anyway. I preferred looking at the short skirts on all those pretty and very much alive French girls. It was a wonder to me why so many people would wait so long to get up close and personal with a painting on a wall.
Two months after we got home a new school year had started. I had lots of stories to tell, obviously. As my luck would have it, my teacher found a way to ruin my visit to Paris. She decided her class needed to write an essay on an eternal question. What’s behind the Mona Lisa smile?
I saw the smile, sort of, in person. I remember thinking, “What’s the big deal?” Unfortunately, that essay still required me to research. As a student, I avoided that type of study, if I could. I did not care about painters. I preferred to study a good action warrior. Action was easier for me to relate to.
I spent many evenings visiting the library to research the topic. Keep in mind, research in the mid 1960s meant touching and feeling paper. Computers were not something used by a library patron back then.
First of all, a researcher would have to leave the home and somehow get to a building which housed lots and lots of books. After arriving at this building, most likely the researcher would walk to the encyclopedia section and thumb through pages and pages of those reference books for anything that remotely resembled the topic. Notes would be written on pieces of paper. The books would then have to be returned to shelves which of course meant getting up out of your comfortable chair and walk them back over to the shelves they came from.
Usually, encyclopedias did not contain all the answers required for the topic. So researching the card catalog was the next step. That required more physical effort. One had to leaf through a set of boxes containing alphabetized index cards by topic, author, or book title. Not an easy chore to quickly accomplish.
Several books had to be identified as possible resources. Those books were located in various locations throughout the library. The books had to be pulled from the shelf and then leafed through to find your topic. Many times books pulled from the shelf only contained a paragraph or two about your topic and was of no value. More notes from these different sources had to be written down on paper.
Of course, all this research had to be done after school. It always seemed to be poor planning on the part of the teacher who was requiring the research. He or she wanted the paper to be completed on a day after we had an extended period of beautiful weather. That meant we were inside wishing we were outside enjoying the outdoor activities.
That was not fair. How were we supposed to concentrate on the research? Why could they not plan for us to do the research on lousy weather days?
Fortunately, Mona Lisa has much history. That is both an advantage and disadvantage. It is easy to find material to use in an essay. Unfortunately, that means lots of books to look through, which equates to lots of time being spent indoors in the evenings in beautiful Southern Illinois.
And today’s kids think they have it tuff researching on their tablets in the park under a tree?
My extensive research discovered that history does not agree on what’s behind the smile on Mona Lisa’s face or who the model was. Some say she was 24 year old Lisa Gherardini, the third wife of a silk merchant, and pregnant.
With research there must be a conclusion, and this was mine. I thought long and hard about that, so pay attention. It’s extremely deep.
If, indeed Lisa Gherardini was pregnant, perhaps she was unable to hide her enthusiasm about the new life she was bringing into her old world. Could that be the reason for what appears to be a smile?
I didn’t stop there, though. With a bit more research I discovered others believed there was a perverse secret behind her smile. In fact, these people did not believe, Mona Lisa was smiling. She was smirking. Mona Lisa was really a man. That man was Leonardo da Vinci. They believed he was a cross dresser and he was painting a self portrait. If that was so, I guess the smirk was appropriate. To be honest, as a teenager, that ended any question I had about what was behind the famous smile.
Needles to say, whether smile or smirk, I am quite sure, the real reason for it died with Leonardo and whoever the real model was.
As for me, I never was an art connoisseur. That is a mystery I do not plan to spend any more time solving. But it is neat to say I saw the Mona Lisa in Paris, France in the Louvre.
Radrook
04/12/2021Very interesting description of your experience with the Mona Lisa painting. True about the hassle involved in library research back then. Also. about the confusuion concerning who this woman really was. I personally never considered her attractive. So I always wondered what the big deal was. They say because her eyes supposedly follow the viewer as he shifts position? Really? That I would like to see. In any case, very entertaining story! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
Ed DeRousse
04/12/2021Thank you for reading my story. Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. I, like you, question her attractiveness.
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