“She is older than the rocks among
which she sits; like the vampire, she
has been dead many times, and learned
the secrets of the grave . . .” Walter Pater
wrote in the 19th Century. “Are you warm,
are you real, Mona Lisa, or just a cold
and lonely lovely work of art?” Nat King
Cole sang in 1950, the arrangement by
Nelson Riddle. The recording, the B Side
to “The Greatest Inventor of Them All,”
made Number 1 on the Billboard chart.
In 1911 the poet Guillaume Apollinaire
was arrested for the painting’s theft
from the Louvre and implicated Picasso
though both were exonerated. Americans
bought six Mona Lisas but the original
was identified by Da Vinci’s fingerprints
in the oil. Her husband was Florentine
businessman Francesco del Giocondo,
likely involved in the trading of female
slaves. At the painter’s death in 1519
at the palace of the King of France
the portrait remained unfinished after
over 10 years of work. La Gioconda
died in a convent where she was found
innocent of sexual scandal. Da Vinci paid
a musician to play flute to set the right
mood though she is not the central subject
of the masterpiece. Her smile is the door
to the strange mountains in the distance.
Author Bio:
Nels Hanson grew up on a small raisin and tree fruit farm in the San Joaquin Valley of California, earned degrees from U.C. Santa Cruz and the U of Montana, and has worked as a farmer, teacher and contract writer/editor. His fiction received the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan Award and Pushcart nominations in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. His poems received a 2014 Pushcart nomination, Sharkpack Review’s 2014 Prospero Prize, and 2015 and 2016 Best of the Net nominations.
which she sits; like the vampire, she
has been dead many times, and learned
the secrets of the grave . . .” Walter Pater
wrote in the 19th Century. “Are you warm,
are you real, Mona Lisa, or just a cold
and lonely lovely work of art?” Nat King
Cole sang in 1950, the arrangement by
Nelson Riddle. The recording, the B Side
to “The Greatest Inventor of Them All,”
made Number 1 on the Billboard chart.
In 1911 the poet Guillaume Apollinaire
was arrested for the painting’s theft
from the Louvre and implicated Picasso
though both were exonerated. Americans
bought six Mona Lisas but the original
was identified by Da Vinci’s fingerprints
in the oil. Her husband was Florentine
businessman Francesco del Giocondo,
likely involved in the trading of female
slaves. At the painter’s death in 1519
at the palace of the King of France
the portrait remained unfinished after
over 10 years of work. La Gioconda
died in a convent where she was found
innocent of sexual scandal. Da Vinci paid
a musician to play flute to set the right
mood though she is not the central subject
of the masterpiece. Her smile is the door
to the strange mountains in the distance.
Author Bio:
Nels Hanson grew up on a small raisin and tree fruit farm in the San Joaquin Valley of California, earned degrees from U.C. Santa Cruz and the U of Montana, and has worked as a farmer, teacher and contract writer/editor. His fiction received the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan Award and Pushcart nominations in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. His poems received a 2014 Pushcart nomination, Sharkpack Review’s 2014 Prospero Prize, and 2015 and 2016 Best of the Net nominations.
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