The Stories of the Mona Lisa: An Imaginary Museum Tale about the History of Modern Art
Dad will you tell me a story A story Yes any story you want Okay sure Why don’t I tell you a story about the history of painting Painting has its own story Of course it does And the Mona Lisa the most beautiful painting in the whole world is going to guide us through it How come that’s the most beautiful painting in the world Nobody has ever been able to portray as much life in a face as Leonardo da Vinci did with the Mona Lisa And life equals beauty It looks like a photo At the time before photography had been invented portraits had to be as accurate and realistic as possible If I were to order a portrait of my daughter for example I would expect expect to see my daughter on the canvas So when photos were invented all the painters lost their jobs No they just changed how they went about their work The desire for paintings that looked like their subjects meant that accuracy and delicate shading and coloring were vital but these requirements were suddenly no longer necessary You could say that everything a photo did the painters stopped doing by themselves So what did they do That’s what I’m going to tell you about 4 The sTories of The mona lisa
Histoires de Joconde 5
You can’t see this Mona Lisa very well It’s just her reflection This is a painting by Claude Monet It dates from 1875 and is called Impression Sunrise I prefer the Leonardo da Vinci one That’s fine but you’re going to have to learn how to look at things differently How You’ll see Here everything is just color and light Monet didn’t worry about likeness but rather about the impression of likeness If you look again the drawing seems to have vanished Ah-ha That’s why he called it Impression Sunrise Exactly And this is the painting that gave its name to the great painting movement called Impressionism The Impressionists first exhibition took place in the studio of a photographer named Nadar Weren’t they angry with the photographers No the invention of photography was like a liberation for painters an 6 iMPressionisM ClaUDe moneT 1840 1926
opportunity to explore new things Why did he give the same name to two of his paintings Look carefully silly It’s not the same artist The other painting is by an Englishman named William Turner and was painted four years earlier So Monet copied him Monet saw a Turner exhibition in London and it obviously inspired him greatly In fact you could say that William Turner was the first of the Impressionists And Impressionism is Color and light Good job The day that Monet died one of his friends Georges Clemenceau who was also a French politician cried out No black for Monet Then he ripped down the colorful curtains that were in the bedroom where the body was resting and used them to cover his friend So as you see color and light is a philosophy that extends even beyond death William TUrner 1775 1861 7
