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Comment by ketralnis | Hacker News Reader

It was fairly unknown outside of art buff circles until it was stolen in 1911 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa#Refuge,_theft,_and_v...

It's not a mysteriously unknown technique, or of particular historical importance, or the only painting by da Vinci. It become famous mostly because of the theft incident and once you're famous the famousness tends to feed itself because people do things like X-ray it which adds to the mystique. It was owned by some famous people including Napoleon and it's spent a lot of time in art museums being shown to the public, but there's no secret message on the back or alien decoder ring or demascus steel/roman concrete "how'd he do it?!" mystery.

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If it didn’t have some other appeal the theft would never have led to the worldwide appeal of the painting. The theft may have kickstarted the recognition but this painting has something special about it, the woman, her expression, there’s a mystery about it.

I loved the painting before I ever knew it was stolen.

I think it’s fair to say there is something about this painting that isn’t in many other works or most other works, and it’s a human and psychological quality more than some special painting technique.

Nah, it’s just as often complete dumb luck too.

Throw enough stuff at the wall, eventually something sticks.

Do it often enough, and something becomes iconic.

And even if it was only slightly different from its peers at the time, that one thing is what will be remembered.

> I loved the painting before I ever knew it was stolen.

But is that because the painting was already famous and well known because of the theft (despite your not knowing about the theft)? That is, if you were a few hundreds years old and showed in your journals how you loved the painting in the decades before it was stolen, that would be significant. But saying you loved the painting before you know it had ever been stolen, but falling in love with it in the decades after it became famous because of the theft doesn't mean as much, does it?

But there are many famous paintings out there that I know of because they are famous that I didn’t fall in love with.

The argument seems to be that I fell in love with the Mona Lisa as a result of it being famous, versus some other quality it has which I find appealing.

But for example, Van Gogh’s Sunflowers is also incredibly famous but I don’t find that painting appealing at all. For me, it’s boring. Ditto for many other famous paintings. What I’m saying is that I’m not sure so sure that’s it’s logical to say: “oh this thing is just popular/well loved because it’s famous, there’s no other reason”

Oh sure. Nobody's telling you personally not to like it or discounting the reasons you like it. We're just talking about the thermodynamic limit of the likingness of it over a spherical cow average of humans ;) And maybe also asserting that there are many other lesser known paintings that also have those qualities that you enjoy but you haven't seen because they weren't slingshotted into the public conciousness. These things are linked but not necessarily causitive. My claim above is even simpler, which is that I'm surprised people are spending time sussing out what specific paint was used because I didn't think that was even a question people asked. It's a painting from a known artist with a known style and known materials that both it and its sibling paintings have been pretty well pored over before.

Anyway like what you like and ignore the nerds :)

But, if the Mona Lisa wasn't famous because of the theft, would you have even been aware of it to fall in love with?

A lot of paintings get stolen though, what makes this case special

Back in the 70s, the Pet Rock became all the rage. Considering all the novelty gag gifts that come and go, why did that one catch fire? Some memes catch on while most don't for inscrutable reasons. Most likely there was some notable cultural reference to it and its nudge into cultural relevance further fed to more gains.

Shrug, good question. I guess that's what it means to be famous for being famous.

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