Here's something I would like to point out about Marcel Duchamp's, “L.H.O.O.Q., Mona Lisa with a Mustache,” the famous scribble of a mustache on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa, and also the Mona Lisa itself and its emergence from relative obscurity after the highly sensationalized thievery at the Louvre. In 1911, before the outbreak of World War I and at the height of the Futurist movement, there was a deep questioning of the origins and enforcement of the concept of aesthetics and aesthetic taste. The core idea was that museums and aesthetic ideas existed simply to reinforce the social order, and that the royal academies were tied to monarchy and elite groups—those who were the taste makers. Already a bit of rebellion had started to break out in France in the form of Impressionism, which was spreading also to England, but not quite to the same degree. It’s worthwhile to note that subversive ideas about artistic representation had also spread to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiel, and the poet Srecko Kosovel were producing “shock-wave” work. Sadly both, both Schiel and Kosovel would die very young in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.
In the case of the Mona Lisa, that modest canvas was safely ensconced in the Louvre in a wing dedicated to Renaissance painting, and there it was mildly respected but nothing special. But in 1911 something happened—the painting disappeared. It was stolen, and suddenly its disappearance created all kinds of scandal. Different people were accused of having stolen it, and in addition to that, people who were considered anarchists were also accused. So after two years of newspapers selling many, many special editions with sensationalized headlines tying the theft of the Mona Lisa to anarchist groups and people trying to make an anti-monarchy statement—let's say the Futurists, potentially, and especially anarchists (absolutely not monarchy, but anarchy)—it was recovered in 1913. It had been stolen by an Italian employee of the Louvre, who was caught when he tried to steal it. So much for grand Anarchist hijinks or Futurist “performance art.”
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| Theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911 |
Now, by 1919, Marcel Duchamp had already been doing his own subversive artwork—the so-called “readymades,” where he would, for example, mount a toilet on a stand and call it a fountain. And then he also had his famous Nude Descending a Staircase, which looked like stills from a motion picture film. His works were questioning the status quo in terms of art. During that time, I'm sure he got very tired of headline after headline: "Where's the Mona Lisa? Who stole it? They caught the thieves—who are they? Are they anarchists?" All that sensational information overload and publicity overload—I'm sure it made it so that every person in Paris saw a reproduced image of the Mona Lisa many times a week. Everyone in Paris knew it was a Leonardo da Vinci painting, and at that, a modest painting that had been pretty much ignored until its highly publicized theft in which the publicity quickly turned into spectacle - spectacle with a capital S !
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| Relentless and continuous sensational press coverage involved the public in the mystery of the disappearance of the Mona Lisa |
So being so tired of the Spectacle of a Stolen Master, what a great opportunity to make a statement about not only elite types of paintings and priorities and hierarchies and aesthetics, but also to mark the incredible attention and sensationalism and the triggering as a hoi polloi ploy to boost buying newspapers that were focusing on that theft.
By putting a mustache on a cheap postcard reproduction of the Mona Lisa, Duchamp was basically mocking not just the idea of aesthetics, but also all the sensationalized brouhaha around the theft of the piece—the newspaper headlines, the excitement, the melodrama. He's mocking the idea of essentially newspaper headlines and lowbrow entertainment regarding a theft from the Louvre.
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| Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q. response to the Mona Lisa in a Paris over-saturated with sensational journalism related to the theft and recovery of the Mona Lisa ("La Joconde"), and later, the trial of the accused thieves. |
Consequently, I think there are different dimensions to Marcel Duchamp's mustachioed Mona Lisa, and if we understand the context, it's even more enjoyable and fun to look at. The equivalent might be to put a mustache on something that's been promoted and promoted and promoted—an image that's come out over and over and over that we're supposed to consider high art and revere it. I can't really think of anything right now, but I'm sure it's out there.
