I bet you and your beguiling smile never saw this coming.
Do you enjoy it? It is, after all a hero worship of sorts, a kind of mad pilgrimage..
There's nothing in your eyes to suggest it's bothering you, no sign of tiredness, of world-weariness at your predicament; nothing in your demeanour that betrays a desire for it all to stop, for them all to go away.
Indeed, perhaps you revel in it. Perhaps you hear the incandescent cries of great artists turning, writhing in their tombs as their works go un-noticed, unappreciated by the hordes who blindly stampede past in your direction? Perhaps you enjoy their outrage.
Oh, I came to worship too, of course - but found I preferred to step back, seek a space, a wall to lean on, and watch the watchers watching you instead for a while.
Single-minded, unswerving, blinkered, they thundered for your presence chamber...all the nations of the world, it seems; their target set, their aim true, heading your way...countless languages, countless tongues, melded and stirred into a meaningless, senseless noisy thrum.
They move in a speedy current, carried along by each other - and I see why Giotto, why Botticelli, why even the blessed Fr Angelico - who have the unhappy circumstance of being on the route to your domain - might grumble. How it must wound to be so ignored! For them, THEM, to be relegated to 'D-list', dulled by your red carpet A-List celebrity....
I see you, first, from quite some way away. It is a disappointing anticlimax of an introduction - you over there, me over here and in between us the mass moves, convulses, clamours. The air smells of sweat.
There are many, many smaller versions of you in the viewfinders of cameras and smartphones, held high by their owners. Each device identifies a face, your face, boxing it in red, zooming in, beeping, pinging, buzzing as the auto focus finds its subject.
There are even flashes where none are permitted - but I see little evidence of your modesty being protected. There are security guards present, though none runs to your aid.
I move closer, join the throng. We bump, push, pull, nudge; there are exchanges, exclamations. It is like the Tube: there is no consideration for personal space, there is no eye contact for that would then require an acknowledgement, politeness. It would demand an 'after you', or a 'please, go first'.
There is a sense of urgency, of neediness, impatience. Each wants a piece of you all to themselves at the speed of a shutter. But do they think you will run away if they are not fast enough!
You seem to bear it well, in your bulletproof case, aloft, aloof. But this melee cheapens you, for all your reputed allure.
Too many want to see you, the hordes must be satisfied - and quickly - and it's clear your custodians have decided there is no time for contemplation, for consideration, for dignity, for respect.
They need to keep the queues down - so you have become the 'wham, bang, thankyou ma'am' of the Louvre.
Doesn't this horrify you? It should. Your name makes superlatives drip from the tongue, you are myth, you are legend, you are wife, temptress, secret-keeper, enigma, there are a million facts, a million figures, a million stories. You are Mona Lisa....
But you have become a cheap thrill, La Gioconda, for a quick-hit, list-ticking mob who - and you must believe this - seem to care not a jot for the genius of your creation. You think they love you? That they are lost in you? They do not. They are not. Why would they behave so if that were the case.
I've watched them. Point. Snap. Done. Next....
And those who do care...do pity them. Those who have come to see and wonder, who arrive, throw up their palms in helpless futility at the snapping hordes and turn on their heels, preferring not to meet you at all rather than to meet you like this.
You don't believe me? Your eyes tell me you know better. Well wear your smile then Mona Lisa. Enjoy the mob.
Pretend it is not the case that you are betrayed...
No comments:
Post a Comment