"MONA LISA" AN UNCONVENTIONAL VIEW.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20834, 28 September 1929, Page 19

"MONA LISA" AN UNCONVENTIONAL VIEW.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—l have read with great intom c f the reports of the series <?fßetires on art delivered by the Rev. J. Bumsand only regret that it is impossible for ml to make one of the hearers. Dunedin crti I?LZl m °v f ° rtl,Date in the opporttmity of hearing discourses on art from a P entl£ man so well qualified to dea! with hW subject, and obviously E 0 m, lc h in love with it as Mr Burns. I wish I could have had the privilege of seeing thrown on the screen, h, turn, many of the wonderful paintings by the world's greatest masters while the lecturer pointed out their special distinctions and excellencies. Having lived all my life in >,ew Zealand, with the exception of a recent brief visit to the Homeland.. I have naturally had scanty opportunities of seeing the originals of great paintings; indeed, only the most ordinary means of learning about the art treasures of the world at second hand So in voicing my opinion about any work of art I claim only the qualifications possessed by any ordinarily intelligent person with some natural feeling for art, love of the beautiful, and general knowledge gained by reading. In his last lecture on ' Popular Paintings by Popular Painters," Mr Burns, selecting six famous paintings of womanhood, gave second place to Leonardo da Vinci's famous portrait of Mona Lisa. The report, greatly condensed, does not state what special charms the lecturer pointed out in a painting which seems to exercise the most powerful fascination over both artists and other people. My own first introduction to thi& masterpiece of Leonardo's was the famous

passage in Walter Pater’s book on the Renaissance,—a wonderful piece of imaginative description and interpretation. It was years before I saw a small reproduction of the Mona Lisa, and then I was disappointed and repelled. Pater’s description had. led me to expect mystery and subtlety; not nobility, nor goodness, nor sweetness. But I had looked for beauty, and the face seemed to me, as it 6 till. seems, ugly; It not only lacked nobility, it was sly and sinister. Well may Pater mention “strange sins” in connection with this “passes” Italian woman with her faint, elusive smile. One feels that she would mingle poison in a. rival’s drink, or hire a.bravo to stab a man who stood in her way. Physically and morally I say, the woman is ugly; fat, with features out of proportion, and", a general effect of baldness produced by the strained back hair and' lack of eyebrows; the expression crafty and thoroughly evil. Since then every reproduction that I have seen, and an all too-hasty look, a year ago, at the original in the Louvre, have but strengthened my feeling of revolt and repulsion, and I would on no account have a copy of the “Mona Lisa” on my walls. Now. let not a hasty reader interpret me as saying that I see nothing to admire in the picture, or that, I deny its claim |to be considered a masterpiece. It is a 1 masterpiece in virtue of Leonardo’s won--1 derful technique, and the elusive, haunting smile which seems to exercise an hypnotic influence over people. I suspect, however, that a good many who think they,admire the “ Mona Lisa " do so because they have always heard that it is a masterpiece of wonder and beauty. As for admiripg,-it is possible to'admireawork of art or literature and yet to dislike it intensely, and regard it as oyer esteemed. I admire the “ Mona Lisa” for the art exhibited in painting a repellant subject. But I maintain that the _ woman’s countenance is not beautiful in any sense, but ugly; and that it is essentially ignoble and evil. In talking with people and in reading I have only met with two or three disparaging views of the “ Mona Lisa.” I have the courage of my opinions, but when one knows one’s views are unconventional and heterodox, it is pleasant to find that one is not altogether out in the cold,_ but that here and there a person thinks likewise. So I was pleased lately to meet with (I think) the third contradiction to the general exfoliation of “ Mona Lisa.” It is found in a little book entitled “ Odd Moments,” by H. Greenhough Smith, editor of the Strand Magazine, which contains sympathetic comments on literature and art, with many selected gems of poetry and prose. In a section “ Confessions of a Philistine,” in which the author satirises some up-to-date art theories, he begins with “Mona Lisa “Reader, when you pay a visit to a picture gallery do you bring to the paintings the eye of an artist or the regard of a Philistine? The difference is world-wide. For example, to an artist the ‘ Mona Lisa ’ is a gem among the world’s great things of beauty; to me it is the portrait of a fat old woman with no eyebrows and a lickerish deer, who turns me sick at heart. For lam a Philistine myself—like the vast majority of people—-non-artistie to the core.” The last sentence is “writ sarcastic,” That the writer is very much the reverse of a Philistine one need. only dip further into the little volume to be assured of.— I am, etc., „ , E. H. Dunedin, September 26.