1% is still a percentage of salt. Whilst not a crazy percentage, still enough to make a point.
On August 21, 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in Paris, France. The authorities acted quickly and Pablo Picasso was questioned, and fortunately, Guillaume Apollinaire was apprehended and placed in jail. Of course the bad news is that Mr. Apollinaire did not in fact steal the painting. It was missing for two years before being found when the original thief, a Louvre employee named Vincenzo Peruggia, was caught while trying to sell the painting to a Florentine art gallery. Apparently Mr. Peruggia's motivation was that he felt the Italian master's work should be returned to Italy where it rightfully belonged. After recovery, the Mona Lisa was shown all over Italy for two years before being returned to the Louvre. Mr. Peruggia served a six month jail term and was considered a national hero in Italy.
Art is often lost on my- I simply do not 'get' any of Pollack's work for example. But something in the Mona Lisa forces me to look at it (in photographs, I have never been to France or seen the painting in person). So if DaVinci can appeal even to such a heathen as me, I guess he really was a Master (I love his drawings of horses!).
Brian
I never knew about the theft. I saw the painting for the second time last year. It is displayed much better then the first time I saw it. I never understood why that painting got so famous. Of Da Vinci's body of work this falls somewhere in the "meh" category IMO.
I was at a convention in downtown San Francisco, had some downtime and went into the SF museum of modern art. I found it to be "The Emperors New Clothes" in action. There were 5 or 6 examples of "monochromatic art". I'm not talking about a picture in black and white, that would be "dichromatic art". I'm talking about pieces where the "artist" went down the the Alameda Navy yard, stole a bucket of battle ship grey and slathered it on to a canvas. At least 2 in grey and several in other colors. They had descriptions about how the "artist" brought out the color on canvas. I was waiting for a blank spot on the wall with the exact same description. I guess I'm like the people in the fable that thought the emperor was naked.
Think I'm exaggerating?
http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/collection/artwork/19534
or
http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/collection/artwork/22933
This is my idea of truly great art and it isn't even in a museum. It's a fountain in front of a building in Irving, TX:
The burning of Washington DC was in retaliation for the incursions and burnings into Canada. Unfortunately, the locals decided to take advantage of the situation and did some looting. Not a great time in American history, at least in the DC area.<sigh> Some things never change.
On August 24, 1814, Dolly Madison had dinner prepared for herself and her husband, President James Madison. Nothing unusual about that. What was a bit on the odd side is who actually ate that meal; that was the day that British troops arrived, took the city of Washington and burned almost all of it. After eating the meal left in the White House, of course.
The next day, the head of the British forces there, Read Admiral George Cockburn (Easy Boys!) searched out the offices of a local newspaper, The National Intelligencer, as they had put him in such a bad light and nicknamed him "The Ruffian". He was determined to burn that building too but some local women persuaded him not to do that as it would almost certainly set the nearby houses afire. Instead, he ordered the building be taken down brick by brick, and ordered all the type in the letter 'C' be destroyed "so that the rascals can have no further means of abusing my name."
And by the way, the oft- repeated stories of Dolly Madison personally taking the portrait of George Washington down and removing it from the White House to save it are false: the painting was far too large and heavy for any single person to carry it, never mind remove it from the wall mounting. Servants actually removed the painting.
Brian
This is my idea of truly great art and it isn't even in a museum. It's a fountain in front of a building in Irving, TX:They have a really large thing like that out at Cleburne, TX. I like tat kind of art