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Leonardo da Vinci's

Mona Lisa

is No 

Longer Art 

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[T]he language learner who claims that the Mona Lisa is not art because he or she does not understand the meaning of the term ‘art’ should not be confused with adept language user who denies that the Mona Lisa is art while knowing precisely what the term ‘art’ conventionally means. Such a person may be perverse or [they] may be expressing an important insight into the nature of art”

-Thomas Leddy

Is it Art?

da Vinci's Mona Lisa

W

        hat it means to produce art has changed and involved throughout the centuries, but objects outside the current understanding of art, retain their artistic designation. What once was the embodiment of ‘art’ is often held with a greater prestige than more recent works, which represent the development of art. This is not true for other disciplines, such as Science. When a past scientific ‘fact’ is replaced with information that the scientific community believes to be more accurate; the former retains its history in the given field, but loses its’ scientific status.

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       In his 1923 essay, The Dehumanization of Art, Spanish philosopher, Jose Ortega y Gasset outlines the changes occurring in the discipline of Art. Gasset suggested that the realistic art of the past succeeded, because it creates the illusion of reality. This realistic aesthetic is pleasurable to the majority of people, because it does not require much of their mind, as it “is essentially undistinguishable from their ordinary behaviour” (Gasset, 325). Gasset stated that “art has no right to exist if, content to reproduce reality, it uselessly duplicates it” (331). Art’s mission is “to conjure up imaginary worlds” (Gasset, 332). The ‘new’ art of the twentieth century accomplish this conjuring.  

        Did da Vinci do more than just “replicate life” in the Mona Lisa? It is said that he continued working on the painting long after working with its’ model; slightly altering features and adding shadows. With these alterations, is the Mona Lisa “undistinguishable” from ‘reality’? Does it require much of the viewer’s mind? Dose it conjure up imaginary worlds? It does not.

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      Despite these changes in the discourse of art, the objects that are given paradigmatic status are objects that reflect an art world that no longer represents the current field. One of the most famous of these objects, is Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. While Da Vinci’s painting is certainly a paradigmatic object, Thomas Leddy questioned “must we accept [it] as paradigmatic of art”? (267). Duchamp, himself questioned the paradigmatic art status of the famed painting, when he painted a moustache on a photo of the work (L.H.O.O.Q.) Many academic paintings of the nineteenth century have had their art status reclassified to craft or illustration status by art critics, such as Roger Fry and Clive Bell (Leddy, 268). If Fry and Bell can “reclassify” the status of nineteenth century academic paintings, why stop there? Why not re-valuate all that is ‘art’? Why not re-valuate the Mona Lisa’s place in the world of art?

Works Cited:

Gasset, Jose Ortega y. “The Dehumanization of Art” Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, edited by Harrison, Charles and Wood, Paul. 2003, pp. 323-332.

 

Leddy, Thomas. “Rigid Designation in Defining Art” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Vol. 45, No.3, Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics. 1987, pp. 263-272.

 

McEvilley, Thomas. “Kant, Dada, and Duchamp”, The Triumph of Anti-Art, Kingston Ny: McPherson & Co., 2005, pp. 15-35.

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