The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci (c. 1503-05) oil on panel 301/4x21 in. Leonardo signals the beginning of painting’s attempt to free itself from architecture. His Mona Lisa tells us about landscape space, about modeling the human figure, about atmospheric perspective and sfumato—-all the things that begin to separate sixteenth-century painting from all the painting that went before it. But the best news is that the Mona Lisa comes in a tidy package, a marvelous, manageable rectangle. One of the very first paintings to leave the hard architectural wall, in favor of a portable panel.
Since Mona left the wall she has also left the panel, in fact she has been seen nearly everywhere you can imagine. She has been seen on everything from neck ties to bath mats. My collection of Mona’s is not the first and probably will not be the last. I found my first Mona reproduction in an antique store in Eurika, Kansas about 20 years a go, I bought it mostly for the frame. The more I looked at her the more infatuated I became with the painting it’s self, how the eyes would follow you across the room and then there was the mystery about who she really was.
Being a visual artist and always going places, galleries, shops, junk yards, museums and the like, I began to notice that Mona was also in a lot of these same places, so I started bringing her home. Then as we began talking about her and who she might be, other people began bringing her to me, friends, relatives and especially the kids. The interesting thing about collecting something is that there is always something special you’re looking for, while your out there looking at all the other stuff. Who is Mona after all?
