 Mona
Lisa mugged!
Mona Lisa is certainly a painting of elegance, mystery, and above all
it has an envious reputation. Any kid in our land knows who and what is
Mona Lisa. This 16th Century oil portrait is also known as la giocondo
done by Leonardo da Vinci during the Italian renaissance. The work now
belongs to the French government.
This should be a good muse for your column, said my father,
forwarding a story that appeared on Daily Telegraph. I found the story's
headline very hilarious: Woman attacks Mona Lisa.
To put it short, it is a story about a Russian woman who threw a mug,
which was bounced harmless because the painting had the protection of a
bullet proof glass. Only the mug got shattered. Leonardo da Vinci could
have been happy if he was alive to know the painting was well protected
and someone was worried about mugging his famous work.
But this was not the first event of such calibre. The work faced
threats even during World War II, so it was taken out from the Louvre
and shifted first to Chateau d' Amboise and then to the Loc-Dieu Abbey
and last to the Ingres Museum in Montauban. Towards 1956 the bottom of
this painting was damaged on a number of attempts of vandalism. During
this period a young Bolivian had thrown a rock at the painting, damaging
Mona Lisa's left elbow. It was amended later on.
So came the bulletproof glass to give a wide berth to the continuous
attacks. But attacks were on end. Again in 1974 a disabled woman sprayed
red paint on the painting. She was disappointed at the museum policies
towards people with disabilities.
Now this latest situation of the Russian woman throwing a terracotta
mug at the painting is because she was denied of French citizenship.
Funny enough she has bought the mug at the Louvre itself to damage the
glass shield at least.
This chain of news leaves us something to talk about. The Telegraph
story adds a reference to Stendhal Syndrome, which is known as,
according to Wikipedia, psychological disorder when someone gets exposed
to an art. The patients get symptoms such as rapid heartbeat and
dizziness.
A team of medicos have identified this as 'tourist disease'. Some
have detected a similar affliction as the Jeruselam Syndrom, because
that happens to pilgrims when they visit the holy city of Jerusalem.
There may be hundreds of stories like this. I remember Rowan
Atkinson's much popular movie 'Bean', in which a bleak curator gets a
chance to fly to America as Dr. Bean. The chap damages the 'Whistler's
Mother', but that happens naively. This scene is followed by many funny
events.
This story has its other side too. There were some creations that
were scoffed down even in our society. Asoka Handagama's Tani Tatuven
Piyambanna is one such example. Oscar Wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray'
was not well received from some quarters.
Art is something that does not very much go in a capitalistic
society. In Shakespeare's time, the art was patronized. All the artistes
had patrons, so they had to mould their artistic works according to
their patron.
This problem appeared in our Sigiri frescoes too. The public had the
habit of smudging the frescoes, or overwrite their feelings of the
frescoes. So the authorities had to take steps against this.
This is quite natural when humans are naturally prone to damage the
beauty of art, so to say nature too. They litter the beautiful places
like Sripada and Horton Plains.
Even the Thripitaka, the Buddhist canons, faced grave threats. It
would not survive if our monks had not taken pains to protect it by
life.
Can I remind you John Keat's lines?
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases;
it will never
Pass into Nothingness
What happened to Mona Lisa and what is happening around us force us
to recontemplate these lines, doesn't it?
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