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"Some 80 percent of visitors, according to the Louvre’s research, are here for the Mona Lisa — and most of them leave unhappy." Well, screw them? The Louvre mu

"Some 80 percent of visitors, according to the Louvre’s research, are here for the Mona Lisa — and most of them leave unhappy." Well, screw them? The Louvre museum is a pure marvel content-wise with 40k objects showing what is Culture from prehistory to today, right in the center of Paris, over 70k square meters. If people go only there to see Mona Lisa instead of checking the Sculpture department too after having read about it online, they kinda deserve to take a shitty selfie and complain about the size of the La Gioconda instead of getting the pleasure of visiting a gigantic place offering pieces of art made over many millennia.

excalibur 7y ago
> Well, screw them? Yeah, but the experience would also be much more pleasant for the museum's other patrons if the Mona Lisa were elsewhere. And the Louvre would make more money by opening a whole new location with a massive visitor count guaranteed, although they would have a significant investment to recoup. Moving the painting helps all involved.
- ArmandGrillet 7y ago
  True, I always thought that having Mona Lisa being part of something bigger was motivating people to check out the rest of the museum but according to the article this is not correct.
  - cmdshiftf4 7y ago
    The motivation is to check off items on the "Top 10 Things To Do In Paris" list, get a few selfies to prove to peer that they've been there, and move on. If the crowds at museums and galleries hosting tourist traps such as the Mona Lisa were indicative of people's interest in art & history, documentaries on the same wouldn't be the virtually niche product that they are today.
Terretta 7y ago
Telling people that "I stood in line for 30 minutes to see the Mona Lisa which was (a) the most amazing painting I've seen, or (b) like a foot high and worse than Sunday cartoon art" ... either way, the name drop and story are worth a 30 minute wait. Every 90 minutes of basic cable TV you wait through 30 minutes of ads, and you don't get to say you saw the Mona Lisa for your trouble.
jfengel 7y ago
The Louvre has astonishing content, but does a terrible job of telling stories. It's not so much a museum as a trophy case: "Look at all the fabulous art we collected when we were rich." Why this art? Why do these pieces go together? None of those questions have an answer. The walls are just covered in art. Taking down the Mona Lisa isn't the answer to that. The answer is to give the public a reason to look at the pieces leading up to it, and the pieces around it. Tours are one way to get that, but explanatory placards could do it. Take the visitors through a story, any story. Chronological, by artist, by subject, by method of acquisition -- any is better than just "a bunch of paintings on walls". The latter may appeal to people who have the experience to tell their own stories, but the general public doesn't learn anything from the museums except "I don't know why that piece is so famous". The Musee d'Orsay across the river does exactly that. It's a more modern museum, built around telling stories rather than displaying prizes. The Louvre is a relic of the power of French kings and emperors and the subsequent attempts to share their acquisitions with the public. It's even more glaring with the historic objects, which are relics of colonialism rather than telling the stories of the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and other cultures who produced them.

excalibur 7y ago

> Well, screw them? Yeah, but the experience would also be much more pleasant for the museum's other patrons if the Mona Lisa were elsewhere. And the Louvre would make more money by opening a whole new location with a massive visitor count guaranteed, although they would have a significant investment to recoup. Moving the painting helps all involved.

ArmandGrillet 7y ago
True, I always thought that having Mona Lisa being part of something bigger was motivating people to check out the rest of the museum but according to the article this is not correct.
- cmdshiftf4 7y ago
  The motivation is to check off items on the "Top 10 Things To Do In Paris" list, get a few selfies to prove to peer that they've been there, and move on. If the crowds at museums and galleries hosting tourist traps such as the Mona Lisa were indicative of people's interest in art & history, documentaries on the same wouldn't be the virtually niche product that they are today.

Terretta 7y ago

Telling people that "I stood in line for 30 minutes to see the Mona Lisa which was (a) the most amazing painting I've seen, or (b) like a foot high and worse than Sunday cartoon art" ... either way, the name drop and story are worth a 30 minute wait. Every 90 minutes of basic cable TV you wait through 30 minutes of ads, and you don't get to say you saw the Mona Lisa for your trouble.

jfengel 7y ago

The Louvre has astonishing content, but does a terrible job of telling stories. It's not so much a museum as a trophy case: "Look at all the fabulous art we collected when we were rich." Why this art? Why do these pieces go together? None of those questions have an answer. The walls are just covered in art. Taking down the Mona Lisa isn't the answer to that. The answer is to give the public a reason to look at the pieces leading up to it, and the pieces around it. Tours are one way to get that, but explanatory placards could do it. Take the visitors through a story, any story. Chronological, by artist, by subject, by method of acquisition -- any is better than just "a bunch of paintings on walls". The latter may appeal to people who have the experience to tell their own stories, but the general public doesn't learn anything from the museums except "I don't know why that piece is so famous". The Musee d'Orsay across the river does exactly that. It's a more modern museum, built around telling stories rather than displaying prizes. The Louvre is a relic of the power of French kings and emperors and the subsequent attempts to share their acquisitions with the public. It's even more glaring with the historic objects, which are relics of colonialism rather than telling the stories of the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and other cultures who produced them.