On the impending deletion of Charlie Bit My Finger (Interconnected)
At the time of the “Mona Lisa” heist, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece was far from the most visited item in the museum. Leonardo painted the portrait around 1507, and it was not until the 1860s that art critics claimed the Mona Lisa was one of the finest examples of Renaissance painting. This judgment, however, had not yet filtered beyond a thin slice of the intelligentsia, and interest in it was relatively minimal.
Somehow the news kicked off a media storm: Newspapers around the world came out with banner headlines. Wanted posters for the painting appeared on Parisian walls. Crowds massed at police headquarters.
And, although it is one of the most replicated pieces of art in the world: Today, eight million people see the Mona Lisa every year. – not that you can get a good view of it.
Some kind of perfect storm – a population looking for a cause or an idea; media looking for something to talk about; the First World War was brewing, maybe people needed a distraction; the conditions for a positive feedback loop… like too much dry undergrowth and not enough rain in fire season…
