Eye of the beholder II

[david]

Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa?
Or just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art?

-- Ray Evans, 1950

Some wanderers eagerly travel long distances at great expense to see “the original.” After a bit of chasing such dreams, I’ve concluded that, for the most part, such enterprise is folly.

My mind was finally made up in Eau Claire, Wisconsin last year when I discovered a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa painted on a brick wall a couple of stories above a rubble-littered dirt parking lot. The masterpiece was partially obscured by power poles and wires; and it struggled, alone, to overcome the tired, drab exterior of the building and surrounding environs.

On the other hand, it represents an amazing commitment to art.

Someone, for some reason, accepted a daunting challenge: simply painting a mural twenty feet above ground presents some difficulty; dealing with a substrate comprised of old, chalky, largely oxidized and no-doubt filthy paint must have required extensive surface preparation, perhaps sand-blasting or other methods of abrading the aging surface; finally, the artist creating this reproduction had to overcome what he or she must have known would be a common reaction, namely, “Why put that classy painting in this crummy part of town?”

My epiphany began as I contemplated this scene and maneuvered for a suitable angle to take a photo. I found myself torn between a shot that played up the artistry and one that highlighted the context.

Back in my room, I examined my results. The photos did seem to support my thesis: the clutter creates a sort of “aesthetic noise” that diminishes the impact of the art. This led to stage two of my epiphany.

It occurred to me that the quality of the reproduction was probably enhanced by the fact that it was enlarged and then viewed from a distance. The many cracks and scratches that normally stand out when the 400-hundred-year-old painting is seen up close are invisible from 100 feet away. From afar, the image appears to be flawless.

Millions have traveled to Paris to view the masterpiece in the Louvre and millions more came to look when it was on display in Washington, New York, Tokyo and Moscow last century.

But, it occurred to me, that all of these observers have been forced to deal with at least as much aesthetic noise as surrounds the replica in Eau Claire.

Michelangelo did not create the thousands of cracks and scratches that blemish the surface of the painting. These flaws do not reflect his talent – in fact, they are a terrible distraction, the painting has been defaced by time.

If the artist saw the painting as it appears today, would he not be disgusted by the condition of a work he spent five years creating?

Skilled art “restorers” have removed foreign substances from the surface of the painting; but none have dared to fill the cracks and scratches.

So, I did it.

I downloaded a good copy and “PhotoShopped” it to remove the flaws. I brightened the colors just a bit – mostly reducing what I thought was a yellowing that had taken place over time.

Now I have a version of the painting that I believe more closely resembles the original. I’m no longer distracted by the flaws. Say, Mona was a looker, wasn’t she? And a good deal younger than I had thought. She cleans up nicely.

A few million dollars of redevelopment money might remove the piles of rubble, power poles and wires that rob perfection from the Eau Claire version; a minute or two of digital photo manipulation transformed the old gal into a fetching young beauty.

At least that’s the way I see it…