Occasionally [a] Musing

The next few Sidetracked articles are focusing on a recent trip to France.  They are written in the form of a travel journal. One of the greatest things about being the executive director of Wonder Voyage is the chance to travel around the world. France is the 40th country I have visited.  I must admit that I had a few preconceived ideas about France and her people.  Boy, was I in for a shock.

June 25, 2010- Pierre, the top Paris guide for the Louvre, takes us into the largest and finest art museum in the world. I actually came to meet a woman I have been having an emotional affair with for years.

Through Pierre’s eyes I start to appreciate art in a different light. We pass the subtle nuances of marble sculpture in Michelangelo’s Twin Slaves.  We take in France’s finest paintings, some which span more than 30-feet in length. Liberty, The Raft of Meduse by Gericault and the Emmaus Pilgrims by Tintoret; they are all works of intricate exquisiteness.  Walking beneath Winged Victory, a sculpture from 190 B.C., causes everyone to hush. Her majesty, beauty and power may cause one to grow dizzy.  To walk slowly around the Venus de Milo is to begin to comprehend unpolluted sensuality.

But as lovely as all of these works of art, it is only her stare I desire at this moment.

Her story is fascinating. She was commissioned by a wealthy couple from Prague. For reasons unknown to even him, Leonardo Di Vinci became obsessive with this particular piece of art. He would spend three to four years reworking her on the wood she was painted upon. Di Vinci records 10,000+ hours went into the painting. When his Mona Lisa was complete, he was in love. The day he unveiled her to the commissioning couple was a day of mixed emotions for the artist. The couple was not satisfied. She was not what they wanted so they refused to pay for her. Leonardo was both saddened and thrilled. He was in love so he would keep her for his own. When invited to France by the monarch Francis I, Di Vinci brought his masterpiece to show the king.

Francis was instantly smitten immediately recognizing a masterpiece;  The Mona Lisa captured the heart of a king. Francis, discerning greatness, turned to Leonardo, and offered the Master a castle, a life time pension, and 4000 pieces of gold to obtain her.  Francis had to have the Mona Lisa. Leonardo found a buyer.  Today, she is owned by 62 million French. She is priceless never to be sold again.

I now stand in front of her.  A crowd of two-hundred tourists shove to move to the front of the insignificant red ropes that somehow magically hold the tidal wave of humanity.  Most just want a quick click of the camera that says “I saw her”. She is a celebrity but not many seem to want to really look at her. She is surrounded by phenomenal art yet all eyes gather toward her. I once thought of her as immobile  but as I move to the front of the crowd to stare at her image a strange phenomenon occurs. The painting begins to vibrate and come alive.

The winding path on the left calls to come and join the journey. The stream on the right begins to flow rapidly like the passage of time. The petrified mountains in the background begin to crumble as the weight of time patiently wears them away.  Yet she is caught in the moment- frozen in time. She is three dimensional, epochs unbroken on her brow. I am filled with the strange sensation that I am no longer observing a painting. Somehow, Mona Lisa has been watching me. The observer becomes the observed. Time has been interrupted and the great beauty now watches the buzzing crowd surrounding her. She is full of motion, and I fill with emotion, as the world around us comes to a halt.

I am in love.

The Mona Lisa brings me to Ephesians 2:10 (possibly my favorite verse in the Epistles): “For we are God’s Masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus for great adventures, which God prepared for us before the creation of the universe.”  If you were to take the elements that were used for the creation of the Mona Lisa (the wood, the brushes, oils, paints) and break them down into today’s prices you would have about $30 worth of raw materials.  So what makes her priceless? Her fame? The style of art? Her age? The time it took her to be created? All those are the fruit of the finished product. The one element that separates the Mona Lisa from all other art is the touch of the Masters hand. As we look into the mirror we often see a jumble of body parts not worth our weight in salt. We may look on our lives and think we are of little value. Yet, Ephesians declares we are His Masterpiece.  Touched by the hand of God, we are priceless no matter what our minds or others may tell us. And Christ has created untold adventures for us to follow, if we desire to do so. We were in His heart and a part of His canvass before we were ever conceived.

He is in love.

Au revoir from France.