Heh... incoming Mona Lisa rant :) (Gaming)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Saturday, June 25, 2016, 17:38 (3076 days ago) @ slycrel

I've been lucky enough to see the Mona Lisa in person a couple of times now. I feel the same way about her as I do about most games/movies/television: it is impossible to "spoil" her :)

I was a visual arts major in high school, which means I spent a lot of time studying hundreds of paintings, including the Mona Lisa. I'd always appreciated the skill and technique that went into painting it, but even after years of studying art, I didn't quite get it. I just couldn't understand why this one painting was held up above so many other paintings that looked so similar as far as I could tell.

Then I saw it in person, and I got it. Not right away, though. The painting itself is actually a bit unassuming compared to some of the other massive works of art on display around it. When I first saw it, I thought "cool, there it is... looks exactly like the photos" and I moved along with a bit of a shrug. I slowly wandered around the room, looking at all the other art on display. Every time the Mona Lisa entered my field of view, something about it grabbed my attention. The old saying of "her eyes follow you wherever you go" is completely true, but that wasn't the most amazing thing about it. Every time I looked back at her, she looked different. I was sure that she was not only looking at me the entire time, but her expression kept changing. After about 10 minutes walking around the room, I could no longer focus on the other paintings around me. The Mona Lisa's presence is so strong and enigmatic that it makes her feel alive. I've never seen anything like it before or since.

That's the part that no photo in any textbook was ever able to capture; you can't just "look" at the Mona Lisa for a minute or two and really get it. You need to spend time around it, study it, let it fall into the background, see it up close, see it again from across the room, look away, look back, etc. I walked into the gallery knowing every inch of that painting, only to discover that I didn't really know it at all.

And that's how I feel about any great piece of art or entertainment. Finding out that character x kills character y, or that this person is that person's father is ultimately meaningless to the experience, IMO. What matters is the look on person y's face when person x kills them, or the build of emotions that leads someone to tell someone else "I am your father". If those moments are powerfully told, they hit me exactly as strong after 100 viewings as they do on the very first viewing, because I'm not feeling my own reactions, I'm feeling things through the characters :)