The Best Known Girl in the Whole Wide World

Donald Sassoon, professor of comparative European history at Queen Mary College, University of London, and author of The Culture of the Europeans: From 1800 to the Present (2006) and Becoming Mona Lisa: The Making of an Icon (2002), talks about how the Mona Lisa became the most famous work of art in the world.

http://frontrow.bc.edu/program/sassoon/

This lecture caught my attention straight away because Sassoon starts out by the describing the Mona Lisa in extreme detail, and I was actually surprised to be able to picture all of it in my head even though I've never looked at the painting very extensively. To me, it felt like a small way to prove just how famous this work is, that just about anyone can picture the portrait in their mind without much effort. I also thought it was interesting that he compared the painting to a celebrity, which I have to say I agree with completely.



 It was a little hard to follow at some points because I felt Sassoon got a little off topic, and it took a long time for him to start into his point. However, overall, I thought it was an interesting lecture on something that most people in the world know about.