Stealing the Mona Lisa: What Art Stops Us from Seeing [Hardcover]

Darian Leader (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2003

Art is more about what isn't than what is, as popular psychologist Darian Leader reconsiders art history in a very particular--and refreshing--way.

When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, it was twenty-four hours before anyone noticed it was missing. Afterward, countless people flocked to see the empty space where it had once been on display. What could have drawn these crowds to stare at a blank wall? Many of them had never seen the painting in the first place. Can this tell us something about why we look at art, why artists create it, and why it has to be so expensive? Taking this story as his starting point, Darian Leader explores the psychology of looking at paintings and sculpture. He combines anecdote, observation, and analysis with examples taken from classical and contemporary art. This is a book about why we look at art, and what, indeed, we might be hoping to find.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Darian Leader is one of the finest popular writers using the psychoanalytical insights of Freud and Lacan to understand the contemporary state of love, life, and letters. In Stealing the Mona Lisa he turns his attentions to art. The book is not really about the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911. For Leader, the story of the theft provides a leitmotif for his elegant discussion of why we find art so seductive, but ultimately frustrating and perhaps disappointing. Leader begins by asking if "the story of the 'Mona Lisa's' disappearance can tell us something about art and why we look at it." He is fascinated by the fact that the painting's absence drew crowds, and asks, "might this give us a clue as to why we look at visual art? Are we looking for something that we have lost?"

This is an elegant and witty book that uses the insights of Freud and primarily Lacan to offer a range of amusing but often striking accounts of why we look at art, the importance of the gaze and the look, the significance of emptiness and incompleteness in art, and why artists create what appear to many to be incomprehensible works. Erudite and wide-ranging, Leader moves from a comparison of Leonardo's painted smile to a symbolic penis, to the artist Yinka Shonibare's observation that painting "was a way of staying out of hospital," which leads Leader to conclude that "the only people who don't sublimate are artists." Stealing the Mona Lisa doesn't always convince, but Leader's ability to explain complex theoretical ideas without oversimplification makes this a fascinating psychoanalytical version of John Berger's classic Ways of Seeing. For Leader, the point is to understand what art stops us seeing. --Jerry Brotton

Review

"It's intelligent and witty and has cracking good anecdotes...It can tell you things about art you had never thought of." -- Evening Standard

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint (April 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158243235X
• ISBN-13: 978-1582432359
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,821,933 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unique and well written, March 7, 2009

By 

Magda S. - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Stealing the Mona Lisa: What Art Stops Us from Seeing (Hardcover)

Here's a fascinating meditation on art, desire, value, and beauty as seen from the lens of the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. The author, who is most obviously incredibly smart, uses a casual yet colorful voice that never reeks of self-importance or self-consciousness. So many great observations, this is a book I'll dip into again and again.

The only complaint I have is that I wish it had been broken up into chapters, rather than one long narrative.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rare treat, November 26, 2007

By 

Eggert Ragnarsson "amanda and eggert" (Iceland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Stealing the Mona Lisa (Paperback)

this book is great and I would recommend it to anyone. Its really rare to find a book written on art that manages to be fun and well written, this is both. Amazingly I couldnt put this book down, a total breath of fresh air, thank you Darian Leader!