Yes, I've heard that argument as well, and felt it myself to some extent. Not to torture the analogy too much, but one thing to note about the Mona Lisa is the

Yes, I've heard that argument as well, and felt it myself to some extent. Not to torture the analogy too much, but one thing to note about the Mona Lisa is the amount of discussion, debate, and research that has gone into questions such as "what location does the background represent?" and "who is this lady, anyway?". Literally hundreds of years have gone into an analysis of that painting, and posthumously publishing Tolkiens background notes almost guarantees that the legacy of his work will be treated very differently. That said, Tolkiens works exist at an interesting cusp in the course of human history, as we are transitioning from a dearth of contextual clues surrounding works of art, to an extreme excess. Nothing is sacred, but such is the way of things today...