A Muse for All Time…

Leonardo da Vinci ( 1452-1519) - Mona Lisa - 1503-1506 - Oil on wood - 77 x 53 cm (30 x 20 7/8 in.) Louvre, Paris (click photo for larger image)A muse artists have loved--and have loved to hate--for centuries! According to Vasari, this picture is a portrait of Mona or Monna (short for Madonna) Lisa, who was born in Florence in 1479 and in 1495 married the Marquese del Giocondo, a Florentine of some standing - hence the painting's other name, `La Gioconda'. This identification, however, has sometimes been questioned. It has been suggested that she was Giuliano de Medici’s (3rd son of Lorenzo de Medici) mistress and that he commissioned the painting. Taking a living model as his point of departure, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) has expressed in an ideal form the concept of balanced and integrated humanity. The smile stands for the movement of life, and the mystery of the soul. The misty blue mountains, towering above the plain and its river, symbolize the universe. The work redefined classical painting.

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) French Dada Artist - L.H.O.O.Q., 1919 - post card reproduction - 19.7 x 12.4 cm (approx. 7.75 x 4.8 in) - Philadelphia Museum of ArtMarcel Duchamp’s (1887-1968) piece, L.H.O.O.Q. (in French èl ache o o qu), is a pun, since the letters when pronounced in French form the sentence "Elle a chaud au cul", which can be roughly translated as "She has a hot ass". Duchamp himself confirmed this loose translation of the title. "L.H.O.O.Q." is also a pun in English as it can be pronounced as "look."  This work was first conceived in 1919. The work is one of what Duchamp referred to as “assisted readymades”.