Barsony Piotr - The stories of the Mona Lisa: an imaginary museum tale about the history of modern art

For Maya Barsony,
and her cousins Roxanne, Shoshana, Hlose, and Nora.

Based on an idea by Nadine Nieszawer.

Copyright 2012 by Piotr Barsony

Originally published in France as HistoriesdeJoconde Hugo & Cie, 2010.

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Manufactured in China, June 2012

This product conforms to CPSIA 2008

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barsony, Piotr, 1946- author, illustrator.

[Histories de Joconde. English]

The stories of the Mona Lisa : an imaginary museum tale about the history of modern art / Piotr Barsony ; translated from the French by Joanna Oseman.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-62087-228-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Painting, Modern--Juvenile literature. 2. Art movements--Juvenile literature. 3. Leonardo, da Vinci, 1452-1519. Mona Lisa--Juvenile literature. I. Oseman, Joanna, translator. II. Barsony, Piotr, 1946- Paris : Hugo & Cie, 2010. Histories de Joconde Translation of III. Title.

ND190.B2513 2012

759.06--dc23

2012015603

Artistic direction: Sandrine Granon and Stphanie Aguado

Paintings: Piotr Barsony

PIOTR BARSONY

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY JOANNA OSEMAN

Dad, will you tell me a story?

A story?

Yes, any story you want.

Okay, sure. Why dont I tell you a story about the history of painting?

Painting has its own story?

Of course it does. And the Mona Lisa, the most beautiful painting in the whole world, is going to guide us through it.

How come thats the most beautiful painting in the world?

Nobody has ever been able to portray as much life in a face as Leonardo da Vinci did with the Mona Lisa. And life equals beauty.

It looks like a photo

At the time, before photography had been invented, portraits had to be as accurate and realistic as possible. If I were to order a portrait of my daughter, for example, I would expect to see my daughter on the canvas.

So, when photos were invented, all the painters lost their jobs?

No, they just changed how they went about their work. The desire for paintings that looked like their subjects meant that accuracy and delicate shading and coloring were vital, but these requirements were suddenly no longer necessary. You could say that everything a photo did, the painters stopped doing by themselves.

So, what did they do?

Thats what Im going to tell you about.

You cant see this Mona Lisa very well. Its just her reflection.

This is a painting by Claude Monet. It dates from 1875 and is called Impression, Sunrise.

I prefer the Leonardo da Vinci one.

Thats fine, but youre going to have to learn how to look at things differently.

How?

Youll see. Here, everything is just color and light. Monet didnt worry about likeness, but rather about the impression of likeness. If you look again, the drawing seems to have vanished.

Ah-ha! Thats why he called it Impression, Sunrise!

Exactly. And this is the painting that gave its name to the great painting movement called Impressionism. The Impressionists first exhibition took place in the studio of a photographer named Nadar.

Werent they angry with the photographers?

No, the invention of photography was like a liberation for painters, an opportunity to explore new things.

Why did he give the same name to two of his paintings?

Look carefully, silly! Its not the same artist. The other painting is by an Englishman named William Turner and was painted four years earlier.

So, Monet copied him?

Monet saw a Turner exhibition in London, and it obviously inspired him greatly. In fact, you could say that William Turner was the first of the Impressionists. And Impressionism is ?

Color and light.

Good job! The day that Monet died, one of his friends, Georges Clemenceauwho was also a French politiciancried out: No black for Monet! Then he ripped down the colorful curtains that were in the bedroom where the body was resting and used them to cover his friend. So, as you see, color and light is a philosophy that extends even beyond death.

She looks pretty against the blue sky!

This is Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, a Dutch painter who lived in France.

It looks like its made up of waves

Van Gogh put his troubles and torments onto the canvas.

Is that how he saw the Mona Lisa?

We see just as much with our hearts as we do with our eyes.

Why did he paint if he was so sad?

Because painting made him feel better and less anxious, took him away from his black moments, as he used to say.

Ah-ha! He put suns in the sky to make everything better!

Without a doubt. He also painted sunflowers, plants that look like the sun and are always pointing towards its rays. The strange thing is that his self-portraits are done in the same reds and yellows as his sunflowers.

Did he want to be a sunflower?

Im not sure he wanted to really be one. But just like them, he was always looking for the best possible light. Thats why he moved to Arles, which is a very sunny town in the south of France. He was obsessed with light, both exterior and interior. As a young man, he wanted to be a pastor so that he could preach about spiritual light to the men who worked overnight in the coal mines of Northern France.

Was he an Impressionist, like Monet?

At that time almost everyone was. The difference was that Monet painted what he could see, whereas Van Gogh painted what he felt inside. You could say that he was expressing his own impressions.