The Louvre’s upcoming renovation & expansion includes a dedicated room for the Mona Lisa. “The Mona Lisa would be accessible separately from the rest of the museum…with its own ticket.” An estimated 80% of visitors come just to see the Mona Lisa.
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Having been to the Louvre at roughly 10-year intervals since 1980, I think this will be an improvement for all those who want to see the rest of the museum. The crowds had started by the 1990s, but phones and selfie sticks and social media have made it infinitely worse. Just let the selfie seekers go to a separate room with a separate entrance and exit so they can get what they want, and let the rest of us see everything else. I mean, it could probably even be a copy of the painting and no one would notice. (IMHO, that painting isn't even the best Leonardo in the museum, but even if it were, no one is actually looking at it.)
The Mona Lisa is opposite Veronese's absolutely incredible “Wedding Feast at Cana.” Most people seemed to absentmindedly glance up at it for a second as they walked out of the room, despite it being by far the best painting in the room.
Yes! It takes up..an...entire...wall. And no one sees it. Fortunately my kid remembers that painting better than the Mona Lisa (which she couldn't even really get close enough to see as a 6-year-old, despite my shoving her forward through the throng). But that's because I had an art history prof who was into audience studies and kept showing us pictures of the Mona Lisa viewers vs viewers of what was on the wall around it, so I made my kid look at that. :)
I saw it in 2000, and it was busy, but the photos I've seen of the recent crowds are just insane.
Also, the first copy of the Mona Lisa is in Madrid at the Prado (one of my favorite museums of all time, so much good stuff), which I think is a better version, and it isn't in a room that's over-run with tourists checking it off their bucket list.
I forgot about the Prado Mona Lisa — great call! There are justifiably crowds around The Garden of Earthly Delights, but down the hall a half-dozen rooms is a totally uncrowded Mona Lisa.
(Also, last time I was at the Prado, that version of the Mona Lisa was in the same room as Rogier Van Der Weyden's Descent from the Cross, which is probably my favorite religious painting. It's spectacular.)
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