Best question that came into the Wednesday night fishbowl (the fishbowl's for questions that don't fit that night's topic but that people have to know):
Why is the Mona Lisa so famous?
(Anyone want to take a stab at that one before Wednesday?)
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Isaac Arten is a youth minister, author and speaker based in St. Louis, MO.
"You look so young, and then out of your mouth comes this wisdom!" --J.N., on Isaac's teachers' workshop.
"Well, I'm sure we're paying you millions of dollars." --B.D., on Isaac's salary
The Rookie's Library
About Me
- Isaac, The Rookie
- To be a rookie, to me, means to always be prepared but never claim to be ready. I am exploring life under God's call. As an unordained professional youth minister, I work with students and families to grow relationships with Christ leading to lifelong commitment; relationships with each other to become healthy Christian humans; and relationships with the larger Church to develop a global view of God's people.
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2 comments:
Really, it's kind of a matter of "in the right place at the right time". Leonardo was a spectacular painter in his time, one of a relative few. Nowadays, you have probably hundreds of thousands or millions of kids graduating from art schools all around the world. That doesn't mean they're any good, necessarily, but in combination with the much greater population, it increases the number of good painters in the world and, thus, the competition is much fiercer. For every piece of contemporary work recognized as genius or wonderful, there are hundreds of roughly equal quality that will never be known. (And thousands that are just plain horrible.)
Of course, perhaps the most appropriate response is, "why not?"
I've always thought it was partially because of the "right place, right time" theory, but also partially because she doesn't necessarily look happy. Most of the other portraits I've seen have the person looking happy. Mona Lisa seems... I don't know, cynical, sad, happy, knowing... all sorts of things depending on what mood I feel when I look at her.
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