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Leonardo da Vinci

Mona Lisa

1503
79.4 × 53.4 cm (31.3 × 21 in)

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VOICES FROM HISTORY

“A smile so pleasing that it was a thing more divine than human to behold.”

— Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, 1550

“She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave.”

— Walter Pater, The Renaissance, 1873

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B

Brian Kelly · 18d

Unpopular opinion after seeing her in person: the crowd is the artwork. Three hundred phones in the air and she just sits there, unbothered, behind the glass.

C

Carmen Reyes · 17d

Ha! I had the same experience. But go early on a weekday and you get ninety seconds almost alone with her. The smile really does follow you.

P

Priya Raghavan · 14d

Everyone talks about the smile, but look at the landscape behind her — two horizons that do not line up. The mystery is not only in her face.

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