The Seasoned Celebrity - a re-write

He carried her until he died.

Now she sits on a sand sponged wall spread open behind her like a blank canvas. People comment on how small she is in real life; I blame that wall with all its height and width. A low, thin rail separates her from the hordes of pushing fans. They breathe hot air and vie for front row with jabbing hands. But she is not fazed; she has been doing this for years. Mouths form little ‘ohs’ as critical eyes land upon her; some are ‘ohs’ of wonder, some of disappointment. Mine is an ‘oh’ of surprise.

She is the most known, visited, written about, sung about and parodied work of art in the world, and yet she is humble and strikingly plain. Her clothing is not aristocratic; her transparent veil, delicate and dark like the aging of her portrait, is perhaps a symbol of simple virtue. There is a plump fullness about her, yet she is shrouded in the mystery of supposed identity. Leonardo used Sfumato, the blurring of sharp edges to leave the corners of her face in shadow.

I have read that when enlarged and under infrared glare, her beauty is infallible. But for me, this is how she was meant to be seen; small, unimposing and dipped in shadow.

She was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, smuggled beneath a painter’s smock to be returned to Italy. Standing before her, I understand the motives of that man. This room is too removed from the quietness and slow intimacy of the artist and his muse; the steals of impatient cameras too harassing.

Behind her, two worlds are painted. In the middle distance, the world of men with its winding road and warm, comfortable colours. In the far distance, a wild, uninhabited world splays into the horizon with jagged rocks and waters. It is this world that is level with her eye.

There is another Mona Lisa, deemed to be the original. The sitter is younger, her face smooth and sweet, but the painting is unfinished. The far distance is unknown just as sense of self in youth is often a mystery. How beautiful that the portrait depicting the wisdom of years has found greater value and fame. How beautiful that she was the one Leonardo completed.  

How beautiful that he chose her to carry with him until he died.