Becoming Mona Lisa: The Making of a Global Icon [Hardcover]

Donald Sassoon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 9, 2001

Perhaps better than any other art object, the Mona Lisa demonstrates that something can be high art and pop, classic and cool. Donald Sassoon provides a fascinating account of how Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece became what it is today. He examines how the Renaissance genius created the picture, who the subject was, why it gained its unrivalled position in the art world, and how it has come to be used and abused by other artists and the international advertising industry.

Tracing the reception of da Vinci's paintings as well as the development of the museums, essential to bringing art to a broad public audience, Sassoon's account is as much the story of serious art's popularization as it is of one painting's ascendance to the status of global icon.

Brilliantly illustrated, this lively, engaging narrative is meticulously researched and written in an elegant, accessible prose.

Facts Behind the Smile

1) The most commonly asked question at the Louvre:
Where is the Mona Lisa?

2) In 2003, the Mona Lisa will become the only painting in the Louvre to occupy its own room.

3) As well as hanging in the Louvre, the Mona Lisa appears on mugs, ashtrays, calendars, folders, T-shirts, and mousepads.

4) Eighty-five percent of all Europeans think the Mona Lisa is the
best-known painting in the world.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

What is it with the Mona Lisa? Why has one small Renaissance painting of a woman--whose "mysterious" smile nobody paid much attention to until the 19th century--become the most famous artwork in the world? Donald Sassoon's witty, tidbit-packed social history Becoming Mona Lisa: The Making of a Global Icon investigates the people, institutions, and ideas that shaped popular taste. Deftly folding prodigious research into a lively narrative, Sassoon emphasizes the role of marketing--from a haunting description by English essayist Walter Pater to press coverage of the painting's theft from the Louvre (1911), vandalism by a stone-throwing visitor (1956), and headline-grabbing exhibition in the U.S. (1963). Beginning in the 20th century, a range of interpretations by other artists--some of which are included in the book's modest group of color reproductions--join the unstoppable tide of spoofs, travesties, advertising images, and even medical diagnoses of the unsinkable Lisa. --Cathy Curtis

From Library Journal

No one can dispute the importance of the mural, titled Cenacolo, that Da Vinci painted in the refectory of a small church in Milan, Italy. In approaching one of the most copied creations in history, Steinberg (The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art) analyzes previous scholarship and reconsiders the geometry, narrative, and composition of the original while examining the thousands of copies made during the last five centuries. Among the notable observations here is the author's confrontation of a notion that he says has "tyrannized" the literature on the mural: that the picture freezes a single moment. Steinberg convincingly argues that the "moment" has more duration than previously was thought. Another fascinating chapter is devoted to the role and meaning of the hands and feet in the picture. This is an important addition to Da Vinci studies, and scholars, students, and serious lay readers with an interest in the Last Supper or the evolution of Western art will be rewarded by time spent with this volume. Highly recommended for any art collection.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (November 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151008280
• ISBN-13: 978-0151008285
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #715,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NUMBER 779, STUDIED FROM ALL ANGLES!, October 31, 2001

By 

Bruce Loveitt (Ogdensburg, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Becoming Mona Lisa: The Making of a Global Icon (Hardcover)

Mr. Sassoon sets out to discover why the "Mona Lisa" is the most famous painting in the world. By the end of this book I don't think we have the answer, but that's not Mr. Sassoon's fault. I really don't think that question can be answered satisfactorily, but no matter-Mr. Sassoon gives it his all and provides us with an entertaining trip through the history of "La Joconde", as "she" is known in France.

We learn many interesting facts along the way: The painting was acknowledged as a masterpiece even during Leonardo's lifetime. One reason was Leonardo's use of the "contrapposto" position, which shows the model's torso in a three-quarter view, while the face looks in a different direction. This is meant to bring movement to what, in a full straight-on view, would otherwise be static. Surprisingly, there was nothing special about "the smile." Smiles were common in Renaissance portraiture. What would have been unusual would have been someone looking sad in a portrait of the time. Interestingly, Leonardo tried that in his portrait "Ginevra de'Benci". That model was also "prettier" than the model for the "Mona Lisa", at least by current standards. But that painting is nowhere near as famous as the "Mona Lisa".

Mr. Sassoon takes us through all the hoops in trying to explain why the "Mona Lisa" is most famous. Besides the fact that Leonardo painted it, the author mentions the fact that the painting is in the Louvre; that it was stolen in a famous theft just a few years before WWI; that the advertising industry has latched onto the painting ad nauseum, etc. We reach the end of the book not really believing that any of this is sufficient to explain the superstar status of this painting. Mr. Sassoon himself points out that there are many other paintings by equally famous artists; many such paintings in the Louvre; many famous paintings that have been involved in famous thefts, etc. So, why the "Mona Lisa".....

So, just read this book for the interesting history of the painting and for the author's trenchant observations on the "art world". It helps that Mr. Sassoon has a great sense of humor about the whole thing, also. What other painting could inspire a man to sell his business so that he could take a job as a Louvre guard? This is what a man named Leon Mekusa did in 1981. He explained that he considered "being able to greet the 'Mona Lisa' before anyone else in the morning as such a privilege that he had asked not to be paid."!! People even write letters to the painting, care of the Louvre....

Oh, by the way, in case you're wondering about the title of this review; The "Mona Lisa" bears the Louvre inventory number of 779. That's one mystery cleared up anyway...

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just the Painting, but the Popularity, November 30, 2001

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Becoming Mona Lisa: The Making of a Global Icon (Hardcover)

What question gets asked most often by visitors to the Louvre? There is one question that tops the existential query, "Where am I?" The question is, "Where is the _Mona Lisa_?" This reflects the importance of this particular icon. A famous cartoon in the _New Yorker_ made the matter sharper. It showed a middle-aged American couple rushing into the Louvre and asking the guard: "Which way to the _Mona Lisa_? We're double-parked!" That's an exaggeration, but not much of one. According to Donald Sassoon's _Becoming Mona Lisa: The Making of a Global Icon_ (Harcourt), the crowd around the masterpiece, some illegally taking flash pictures, is like a crowd around a pop star complete with paparazzi. Sassoon has taken on the task of explaining how it is that this work has a reputation as The World's Most Beautiful Painting. That title, of course, is arguable, but it is certainly the most famous painting, and how this came to be makes a great story.

Of course Mona is good-looking, but that doesn't explain it. Leonardo painted other female portraits of handsomer women. For centuries, _The Last Supper_ was his more famous work. It was only when a cult of Leonardo rose among the romantics in the nineteenth century that his work loomed over that of, say, Michelangelo and Raphael, who were far more prolific and influential. Leonardo was busy doing other stuff, and mostly failing. His gadgets stayed on the page and his experiment with oils on the _Last Supper_ doomed it to precipitous decay. In the romantic imagination of a century and a half ago, however, dreaming big and failing was heroic, and he looked the part, although his bearded, god-like visage is probably not the self-portrait everyone assumed. Gautier and Pater wrote purple prose about the lady, and if she had hired a publicity agent, she could not have achieved greater success. In 1911 she made headlines because she was stolen, and she has been a steady focus for fiction during the twentieth century. Sasson has listed many, many references to her, such as Nat King Cole's famous song.

When in 1919 Marcel Duchamp drew a beard and goatee on a postcard of her, and exhibited this naughty French postcard under a saucy title, he continued a trend of including Mona in popular art, something that Malevich, Dali, Magritte, and Warhol have all done as well. There are good send-ups and bad, some that expand our ideas of the realm of this icon, and some that are just gross. All get included in this remarkably inclusive and wide-ranging book. Witty and lucid, it is not so much about a painting as it is about fashions and history, and the role chance plays in our search for objects of fame.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book About a Mysterious Painting, May 15, 2005

By 

Deeyar - See all my reviews

This review is from: Becoming Mona Lisa: The Making of a Global Icon (Hardcover)

Everyone In the World Knows that Mona Lisa Is the Greatest Painting of all time. Buy this Book and Learn how that masterpiece was made.