Why I Hate the Mona Lisa (and Possibly the Louvre)

The Mona Lisa may be the worst painting in the Louvre. It is certainly the most overrated. Viewing it is undoubtedly the worst artistic experience in that vast, overcrowded museum. 

The collection holds 35,000 other works, and almost any of them is bound to provide more intellectual and aesthetic pleasure than the maddening effort of trying to get close to Western Civilization’s most famous painting. Viewers feel compelled to take their own photos of the painting to prove they were there.

Napoleon loved the Mona Lisa. One can imagine that it was not so difficult to get a glimpse of Lisa Gherardini (the wife of a Florentine merchant) during the Napoleonic era.

On my second trip to Paris in 1978, which might as well have been the Napoleonic era, I beheld the painting for the first time. I have seen it a few times since, and the crowds have grown increasingly impenetrable. Ten million people flock to the painting each year, each wanting to check the box. The Louvre recently announced plans to move the Mona Lisa to its own gallery by 2031. Just today, a consultant told The New York Times that this would create "a kind of fast-food museum where you see the Mona Lisa and take a picture."

My view of Mona Lisa in 2024

During my last visit to the Louvre in October 2024, Joe and I took a quick refresher tour. It seemed perfect for a dilettante like me. Paradoxically, given the Museum’s tourist density, I concluded I might never set foot in the Louvre again. It was too difficult to navigate, and Paris’s other museums offer more rewarding, albeit less comprehensive, treasures.

Of the 90-minute “Louvre Lite” tour, thirty minutes were spent explaining and viewing La Gioconda, the Italian name for the famous painting. Thirty minutes may be the record; the HuffPost reports that visitors spend only 17 seconds peeping at her on average.

Why am I so anti-Mona Lisa? For one thing, the painting is unfinished. She has no eyebrows. It was never delivered to its patron because Leonardo wasn’t finished with it. For another, I don’t like it that much.

I first studied the Mona Lisa in 5th grade, when my teacher, Miss DeSilva, introduced the class to humanism and one of the Italian Renaissance's most significant contributions to art: perspective.

Ghirlandaio's masterpiece

A better, still-famous Italian Renaissance painting, also from the Quattrocento, shares with Mona Lisa the portrayal of a real-life subject and the advancement of perspective. Ghirlandaio’s An Old Man and his Grandson is located around the corner from Leonardo’s painting, and it resonates with me more. From the realism of the aging figure’s disfigured nose to the tender glance between grandparent and child, I find the painting more emotionally impactful than Mona Lisa.

The most famous painting in the world may not, in truth, be the Louvre’s worst painting, but an interplanetary visitor may wonder what all the fuss is about. 

I raise my eyebrows – something Lisa Gherardini herself cannot do – at the notion that her likeness is the Louvre’s greatest reward. I also bristle at the idea that the Louvre is Paris's greatest artistic reward. Bigger isn't better.

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