The Protest

Leonardo da Vinci 1503

“As ones whole life is a style or a scenario with which one trued to deny oblivion and to extend oneself beyond death in symbolic ways.” 

Humankind has a paradoxical nature, a symbolic identity that brings him sharply out of nature itself— and into civilization. At the forefront of civilization we find the experience, appreciation, and need for art as a primal symbolic system. So it comes as no surprise that my first day in Paris was spent at the Louvre. 

Lost and unsure which wing to take on, I surrendered to the only signs I recognized: the Mona Lisa. Moments later I was no longer following the directional signs, but the crowd of other scurrying tourists on a mission to see it themselves. After several missed turns, I finally turned the corner to the maze of retractable line dividers before me. In line I could get an occasional glimpse of the painting, but only for a few seconds before another raised phone would try to violently capture their experience for facebook.  

The line slowly inched closer as people would rotate in and out, but the closer I got the closer I grew to disappointment. When it was finally my turn to approach the renowned work and experience the overwhelming shared experience of many- I felt nothing but more disappointment. 

Was I alone in this discontent, or did society put so much weight on a painting that no work would ever have the capability of carrying? Seeing the Mona Lisa was seeing a failed protest that chanted “we really are something special in creation."