Monthly Archives: October 2006

(An excerpt from my 2006 travel blog).

What I discovered at the Louvre is that basically I’m a philistine. You may have already worked this out, but exposing myself to the world’s finest art collection really rammed it home. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it: it’s all good stuff. But I just can’t get as excited about great art and sculpture as I know I should.

I mean, with the Mona Lisa, I agree that Leonardo managed a great enigmatic smile on that thing. An exceptionally good enigmatic smile even. But given the Mona Lisa is apparently valued for insurance purposes in the order of $650 million dollars – well, it’s not that good a smile.

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