How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Despite her monumental reputation, the Mona Lisa was a mere thirty-one inches by twenty-one inches— smaller even than the posters of her sold in the Louvre gift shop. She hung on the northwest wall of the Salle des Etats behind a two-inch-thick pane of protective Plexiglas. Painted on a poplar wood panel, her ethereal, mist-filled atmosphere was attributed to Da Vinci's mastery of the sfumato style, in which forms appear to evaporate into one another. (26.1)
When Saunière brought Sophie to see the Mona Lisa for the first time, she was disappointed because the painting was so small and unimpressive. Isn't it funny, that one of the world's most infamous masterpieces is that underwhelming?
Quote #5
The Mona Lisa's status as the most famous piece of art in the world, Langdon knew, had nothing to do with her enigmatic smile. Nor was it due to the mysterious interpretations attributed her by many art historians and conspiracy buffs. Quite simply, the Mona Lisa was famous because Leonardo da Vinci claimed she was his finest accomplishment. He carried the painting with him whenever he traveled and, if asked why, would reply that he found it hard to part with his most sublime expression of female beauty.
Even so, many art historians suspected Da Vinci's reverence for the Mona Lisa had nothing to do with its artistic mastery. In actuality, the painting was a surprisingly ordinary sfumato portrait. Da Vinci's veneration for this work, many claimed, stemmed from something far deeper: a hidden message in the layers of paint. The Mona Lisa was, in fact, one of the world's most documented inside jokes. The painting's well-documented collage of double entendres and playful allusions had been revealed in most art history tomes, and yet, incredibly, the public at large still considered her smile a great mystery. (26.6)
It turns out the great mystery is that Mona Lisa is supposed to be the divine union of male and female in the perfect representation of beauty. So her mysterious smile is all about androgyny. (Langdon explains all this in a flashback to one of his own entertaining lectures for some inmates at a local prison.) How is this important to our plot? It's not, really. It helps a little bit to build on the premise that Da Vinci was a devout adherent to the beliefs of the Priory of Sion…but more importantly, it's fascinating.
Quote #6
The masterpiece she was examining was a five-foot-tall canvas. The bizarre scene Da Vinci had painted included an awkwardly posed Virgin Mary sitting with Baby Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Angel Uriel on a perilous outcropping of rocks. When Sophie was a little girl, no trip to the Mona Lisa had been complete without her grandfather dragging her across the room to see this second painting. (30.20)
That's such a universal experience in an art museum: the parents, desperately trying to inject some culture into their progeny; and the child, dragging their feet and equally desperate to just go home. It's funny that someone who was raised with such respect for the art world to still pull the: "Ugh, Grandpa. We've seen this one already!"