{"id":5285,"date":"2005-07-15T23:45:10","date_gmt":"2005-07-15T23:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html"},"modified":"2005-07-15T23:45:10","modified_gmt":"2005-07-15T23:45:10","slug":"the-mets-mona-lisa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html","title":{"rendered":"The Met’s Mona Lisa"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker, an article about the Met’s acquisition of this painting<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s their most expensive acquisition ever – 50 million dollars, a Duccio. Apparently the piece is highly regarded because of its place as a sign of transition:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\u201cIt\u2019s part of the whole revolution in expression that takes place in the late thirteenth century and early fourteenth century\u2014the revolution which of course has as its real figurehead neither Duccio nor Giotto but Dante. Dante is an absolute contemporary of Giotto, and a near-contemporary of Duccio, he\u2019s writing at exactly the same time, and he even made a scene with Giotto and Cimabue in \u2018The Divine Comedy.\u2019 The fact that Dante chose to write in the vernacular, in Italian rather than Latin, is one of the turning points of the West. And this is precisely what these artists were about as well\u2014finding a vernacular as opposed to an intentionally \u00e9litist, anti-popular form of painting. This is the real thing; painting is no longer an illustration but something that attempts to evoke a human response from the viewer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The aspect of the work that evokes that intepretation is the gesture of the Child – reaching up to move the veil from the Virgin’s face.<\/p>\n

It’s an interesting article, and I was especially fascinated by the curators’ fascination with , enthusiasm for and determination to acquire the piece, and their sense of its importance. Which of course, has nothing to do with the subject of the painting, but with its place in art history. I don’t deny its importance – I believe them. But I found the experience of reading an article on the love of a painting borne of religious faith with no reference to the subject as anything but a vehicle for stylistic innovation unsurprising, but thought-provoking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From The New Yorker, an article about the Met’s acquisition of this painting It’s their most expensive acquisition ever – 50 million dollars, a Duccio. Apparently the piece is highly regarded because of its place as a sign of transition: \u201cIt\u2019s part of the whole revolution in expression that takes place in the late thirteenth…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Met's Mona Lisa - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Met's Mona Lisa - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From The New Yorker, an article about the Met’s acquisition of this painting It’s their most expensive acquisition ever – 50 million dollars, a Duccio. Apparently the piece is highly regarded because of its place as a sign of transition: \u201cIt\u2019s part of the whole revolution in expression that takes place in the late thirteenth…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-07-15T23:45:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/special\/Duccio\/images\/duccio.L.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Met's Mona Lisa - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Met's Mona Lisa - Via Media","og_description":"From The New Yorker, an article about the Met’s acquisition of this painting It’s their most expensive acquisition ever – 50 million dollars, a Duccio. Apparently the piece is highly regarded because of its place as a sign of transition: \u201cIt\u2019s part of the whole revolution in expression that takes place in the late thirteenth…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2005-07-15T23:45:10+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/special\/Duccio\/images\/duccio.L.jpg"}],"author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html","name":"The Met's Mona Lisa - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/special\/Duccio\/images\/duccio.L.jpg","datePublished":"2005-07-15T23:45:10+00:00","dateModified":"2005-07-15T23:45:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/special\/Duccio\/images\/duccio.L.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/special\/Duccio\/images\/duccio.L.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/the-mets-mona-lisa.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Met’s Mona Lisa"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}