Robert Hughes is an art critic who has been around long enough to see the drastic changes in the art world. He has seen art go from something to appreciate and to mean to a popularized lucrative business. According to Hughes, this change began around the time the most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa, made it's way around the United States. In the film "The Mona Lisa Curse," talks with his friend Robert Rauschenberg, art collectors, and museum curators about the state of the art world today.
There were two comments in "The Mona Lisa Curse" that particularly stuck out to me. One of Hughes' issues with the world of art is how little money the artists are making and how much collectors are reselling the artwork for. "We support this artist by promoting them by buying them at auction, by buying them privately." This truly perplexed me because though you are helping the artist make a name for him/herself by putting a high price tag on their work and therefore their name; you are not doing much for them. The artist most likely got a fraction of the amount for which the work was resold and uncertainty of whether or not their work would ever see the light of day. This is like a bar owner booking a band, but telling them that they aren't going to be paid because the exposure received is payment enough. The second comment that stood out to me was by one of the curators of the Metropolitan Museum Tom Hoving. He compared museums to movie theaters asking why one should be more profitable than the other. Both are venues used for the display peoples works. Hoving began using business and marketing tactic and made the way museums run today.
As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Just because Robert Hughes cannot find meaning and appreciation for some pieces of art does not mean they are not art. A professor of mine once asked my class to define the word "music.
The Secrets of Mona Lisa Outline I. ... Leonardo da Vinchi's profile on the veil of the Mona Lisa. ... The way Mona Lisa looks at us. ... The top of his head is the veil line crossing Mona Lisa's forehead. The profile looks to Mona Lisa's right and our left as we view the painting. ...
But perhaps, his most famous and controversial masterpiece is the "Mona Lisa." ... The Mona Lisa looks both approachable and evasive, like a human being, but with unrealistic qualities. ... Her identity was mush easier to find than the Mona Lisa's. ... Lastly, a comparison of the "Mona Lisa" to da Vinci's final female portrait, "Ginevra de' Benci," shows, yet again, more differences that sets the "Mona Lisa" apart from his other portraits. ... Of all the works da Vinci created, the Mona Lisa is probably his most famous. ...
Mona Lisa Smile In the movie Mona Lisa Smile, directed by Mike Newell in 2003, three eligible women have choices and what they chose grounds them to the roles they play in society and what inevitable leads them to feminism because of the choices they made. ... In Mona Lisa Smile, we see a world full circle of women who are victims of men and even circumstance. ... The men in the film were not concerned with what their girlfriends wanted to do. ... In Mona Lisa Smile, these women created choices and made them, which was forbidden for that time period. ... The women of Mona Lisa Smile...
I also wanted to learn more about the Mona Lisa. ... Is the Mona Lisa the Leonardo's only famous painting? ... At first looking at the Mona Lisa I was thinking to myself that it wasn't that big of a deal. ... All of these things helped to give a feeling that the Mona Lisa gives to a person. ... I also came to realize that the Mona Lisa is a very good piece of art. ...
In Leonardo's Mona Lisa (1503), her expression is that of physical and emotional restraint-riposo. Raphael's La Donna Velata (1516) also features a restrained expression like that of Mona Lisa. ... Mona Lisa and La Donna Velata's hairstyles are both smoothed dark hair with a part in the middle, obviously fashionable at the time. ... With Mona Lisa's background setting including a winding path/river, which gives the meaning of a Path of Virtue, the symbolism of the Path of Virtue combined with the veil symbolism shows that Mona Lisa was a married woman, not a mistress as...
An example of this is Leonardo DaVinci's Mona Lisa. Unlike the works described above, the Mona Lisa is composed of inexpensive materials, i.e. paint and wood. ... Leonardo DaVinci was so attached to his painting of the Mona Lisa that he held on to it until he died. ...
