If you have used this website in conjunction with your classes, kindly take a few moments and write to me to explain how it has served you, and how it might be improved. If you have created a web-site that cites these pages, I'd be grateful to receive its address. Many thanks. 

To many viewers, the web-site on this domain entitled "Mona Lisa Images for a Modern World," to which this page serves as preface,  is merely a fanciful and (hopefully) mildly entertaining excursion into the phenomenon sometimes called "monalisiana" -- the works produced when Leonardo's famous image serves as inspiration for countless (often humorous or satirical) variations. The above notwithstanding, this web-site can serve a variety of didactic functions in a classroom environment. Teachers can adapt its content and raise questions appropriate to the needs of primary and secondary education (K-12), and for use in entry-level college courses in art history and art appreciation.

Despite its whimsical subject and its odd serendipitous collection of images, teachers should be assured that this author verifies that all facts presented have been researched, and as far as can be reasonably determined are true. In addition, none of the documentation and source materials have been invented; they are the product of research and aim at scholarly accuracy.

On the other hand, the opinions, interpretations, assertions and speculations made of this raw material run the gamut from the merely credible to the outlandishly absurd. Some readers recognize that "Mona Lisa Images for a Modern World" is parody, and sometimes spoofs art historical practices and methodology. But, is all of its content really parody? In this context the text can be used as an exercise for discussing the methods and logic of art-historical thinking and the role of assumption and critical predisposition in cultural discourse. Depending upon the intellectual maturity of the class, a teacher might assign one or several sections of this paper and ask the class to discuss topics such as the following:

• When attempting to understand an age or culture, what role is played by the analysis of the common, everyday items created for amusement or practical need, and how does the analysis of these works compare to interpretations derived from the "important" aesthetic and cultural monuments of the period? What kind of significance can be drawn from works commonly considered insignificant?

• Art history is commonly taught from a set of canonical works. What purpose is served by the analysis of the non-canonical?

• How do works become canonical? Do they start out that way?

• What is the difference between "fine arts" and "material culture?" Does the analysis of these disparate resources lead to similar conclusions? If not, why not?

• How far can the student "push" the interpretation of facts before an analysis becomes incredible?

• What is the value of works of art intended to serve as ephemera, as apposed to those made to be permanent?

• How is an original image (such as the Mona Lisa) affected when it becomes the source of unrelenting variation?

• The Mona Lisa is a painting in the Louvre. When you think of the Mona Lisa in the course of everyday events, do you think of a painting or just an image? What is lost when you remember a work as an image rather than as an object? Is anything gained?

• Why was an ancient image such as the Mona Lisa come to be chosen as an "icon" for the present age? What does this choice signify about how we value the past? How did the Mona Lisa develop its "iconic" status?

• What is the distinction between the so-called "high arts" and the "low arts," and who is served by each type.

• When we identify a work as carrying "meaning," to what extent does the artist participate in the creation of that meaning? Is our understanding of meaning somehow affected by the society in which an object was made? By the societies though which the work has past throughout the ages? By the interpretations of viewers, historians and critics? What may viewers credibly bring to their interpretations? Is there a difference between what a work means to the artist that created it, to the age that created it, and to the age that views it?

• Considering the corpus of Mona Lisa ephemera, is it possible to identify stylistic and conceptual trends? Is ephemera somehow outside of the confines of art history?

• This Mona Lisa site may be said to be about the "after-life" of the Mona Lisa. Does the meaning of a work change through the years? If so, in what ways?

• Any works that is famous in its own time can generate an "after-life" as artists copy and adapt it to their purposes. Is the "after-life" of the Mona Lisa different in any special way than the immediate "after-life" of works by, say, Raphael or Michelangelo?

• What is the role of parody in the fine arts and criticism? Does parody necessarily imply a falsehood?

• Our current laws of copyright grant a limited monopoly to copyright holders. It is limited because after a certain period copyright expires and works enter (some say "fall" -- some say "are elevated") into the "public domain" where they may be used without permission by anybody for any purpose. If the Mona Lisa were still under copyright, to what extent do you think creative artists would feel free to copy and parody this work? Can modern works, still under copyright be the fount of a similar flurry of creativity? Do you think Leonardo would try to keep other artists from making fun of the Mona Lisa or from copying her? Should all works be free to be used as source material for the creation of new works? Do you think Leonardo understood what we call "originality?"

• Does one artist have the right to say to another, "No, you may not use my work as inspiration for yours?"

• This Mona Lisa study identifies a curator who opposes using Leonardo's painting as a subject in advertisements. Should great works of art be protected from commercial use and ridicule? Why or why not? Does an advertisement ridicule a work of art when that work is used to sell, say, suntan lotion?

• Why do ideas, which seem so "true" at one time, seem so stale and dated only a few years later? We expect images to look dated eventually. 1) What is the same and different about ideas? 2) And why do dated and stale images suddenly seem to become fresh and vital later on in their life?

Proceed to the main Mona Lisa site.

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