Stealing the Mona Lisa: What Art Stops Us From Seeing

by Darian Leader

Darian Leader is one of the finest popular writers using the psychoanalytical insights of Freud and Lacan to understand the contemporary state of love, life, and letters. In Stealing the Mona Lisa he turns his attentions to art. The book is not really about the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911. For Leader, the story of the theft provides a leitmotif for his elegant discussion of what we find art so seductive, but ultimately frustrating and perhaps disappointing. Leader begins by asking if "the story of the 'Mona Lisa's' disappearance can tell us something about art and why we look at it." He is fascinated by the fact that the painting's absence drew crowds, and asks, "might this give us a clue as to why we look at visual art? Are we looking for something that we have lost?"

This is an elegant and witty book that uses the insights of Freud and primarily Lacan to offer a range of amusing but often striking accounts of why we look at art, the importance of the gaze and the look, the significance of emptiness and incompleteness in art, and why artists create what appear to many to be incomprehensible works. Erudite and wide-ranging, Leader moves from a comparison of Leonardo's painted smile to a symbolic penis, to the artist Yinka Shonibare's observation that painting "was a way of staying out of hospital," which leads Leader to conclude that "the only people who don't sublimate are artists." Stealing the Mona Lisa doesn't always convince, but Leader's ability to explain complex theoretical ideas without oversimplification makes this a fascinating psychoanalytical version of John Berger's classic Ways of Seeing. For Leader, the point is to understand what art stops us seeing. --Jerry Brotton

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Psychoanalysis, Psychology, Art Design

200 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2002

About the author

Darian Leader is a British psychoanalyst and author. He is a founding member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research (CFAR).

Darian Leader is President of the College of Psychoanalysts, a Trustee of the Freud Museum, and Honorary Visiting Professor in Psychoanalysis at Roehampton University.

From Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darian_L...

Reviews

[funda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mona Lisa tablosunun 1911’de çalınmasının ardında oluşan boşluk ve “şey” hakkında yazılan en doyurucu metinlerden biri olabilir. Sübliminasyonla başlayıp, Freud’un dürtü kuramı ile dikkatimizi çekip ardından Lacan ve hiçbir zaman dolduramayacağımız yarık teorisiyle devam eden bir anlatı… Poe’nun “Çalınan mektup” hikayesinin gerçeğe dönüşmüş hali. Skopofilik dürtülerin imge ve uzam ile ilişkisinin ortaya konuluşu aynı zamanda.
Bir kahve eşliğinde edilen sohbetin keyfiyle okudum. Okurken de zaman zaman Leonardo’nun beyin kıvrımlarında dolaştım.
Tavsiyedir.

[Karin Gottshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it because of Leader's psychoanalytic lens, which seems so out of vogue in the age of the Brain, that he's not better-known? Or maybe he's just too difficult to really fit into the popular nonfiction category, but too readable to be pigeonholed as academic. He's brilliant, and I've been reading everything I can find by him. Like his other work, Stealing the Mona Lisa is dense and beautifully written. Some of Leader's ideas seem far-fetched, but I love that he's continually casting out beyond the familiar, into the strangeness of our desires. For every theory that leaves me unconvinced, he posits ten more that allow me to see myself and the world differently, in ways that feel profound and true.

[Ángel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un libro recomendable para los amantes del arte y para los que buscan comprenderlo. Aquí se aborda desde la perspectiva del psicoanálisis. Luego, hallarán buenos planteamientos sobre el arte y nuestra forma de acercarnos a él; es accesible a cualquier lector por su lenguaje, la simplicidad de sus planteamientos y el humor e ingenio con el que se intercalan anécdotas que lo aleja de otros libros de arte más densos. Sin embargo, el texto de Leader, en mi opinión, tiene varias lagunas de monotonía.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

so wonderfully confusing that if i ever understand it i would become a pretentious art critic

[Calleigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

This isn’t exactly a review, but why does this book talk about penises so much…

[Ella Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're looking for a book about the reaction to the stealing of the Mona Lisa and why we even look at art in the first place, then this is an excellent place to start. It's from a psychoanalytic angle, so you can expect frequent references to Freud and his writing about Da Vinci, and you can also expect to not agree with every single point made. But Leader writes fluently, in a increasingly rare tone that neither talks down to the audience, nor overcomplicates the subject. I sometimes struggle with more academic texts and will get bored if the writing style and subject doesn't catch my interest, but I read this book over three sittings and was thoroughly enthused the whole time. I would defiantly recommend this to anyone looking for an accessible example on how to apply psychoanalytic theory, or anyone who thinks they would be interested.

[Stevo Beader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This marvellous book raises many questions and some of them are listed below:
- What we are looking for in art? Perhaps something that we have lost?
- Pleasure in looking revolves around something that is hidden. What is that?
- Does visual art in some cases function as a screen which diverts the evil eye?
- Is true function of art evoking the empty place of the Thing (das Ding)?
- Why absence mobilizes look?
- Why Mona Lisa is not just a painting, but a symbol of painting?
If you are intrigued by any of this questions, read book, you won’t be disappointed.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very great book, the ideas discussed are effectively interesting because they point at the hidden obvious, the truth that is actually just beneath our eyes. The book reveals an interesting point of view to the reader. It also presents a rich culture of arts and gives an innumerable amount of great art references to the reader, a great reading for anyone in the fields of culture and art. The only downfall of this book is that some chapters, due to their length, make for a hard read. Overall, highly appreciated reading this book!

[Valentín Serrano García · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5.
No es el libro de Darian Leader más acertado en cuanto a ritmo y dosificación, pese a que cumple bien su doble función: aportar una nueva perspectiva respecto a La Gioconda e introducir la teoría estética lacaniana.

Para quienes deseen profundizar en este asunto, recomiendo "Las tres estéticas de Lacan" de Massimo Recalcati.

[Gamze Seckin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book. As an artist I was hoping more insight into art, artists, art lovers, etc. Instead the book is a single big chapter of multiple incoherent paragraphs jumping from topic to topic. To be fair the author is quite knowledgeable about art history and psychoanalysis, he just is not a good writer.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you want to learn about the stealing of the Mona Lisa and about the social reaction to this, then read this book. I was expecting this book to go further into psychoanalysis with art, which it did not, so I was disappointed.

[Rhys · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were some interesting parts - art as lack, logic as absence, absence of art that makes you look, art that makes you look - but they didn't cohere for me. Maybe I needed a little more guidance through the shifts in narrative.

[₵oincidental Ðandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

As steep as the proposed theories & concepts put forward by the author may be, they still make for an enlightening & interesting read.

[Özge Günaydın · Rating 5 out of 5]

Müthiş tavsiye ederim

[Baglan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leader is lucid as always, but I expected more of a deep dive

[Colton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Less cohesive than other works I've read by Leader, but still a great grab bag of implications of art and artists.

[Juan Manuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gran libro para todos aquellos que quieran introducirse en la óptica psicoanalítica del arte. Muy ameno y entretenido, y no demanda demasiados conocimientos previos.

[Catwalker · Rating 3 out of 5]

An psychanalytic exploration of what we are doing when we look at art, what we might be looking for, and we think it means.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the title suggests that this book is about the Mona Lisa and its 1911 theft from the Louvre, that event is merely the starting point for a much broader discussion of art. Author Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst who explores the reasons why we look at art and why artists create; what are we trying to see and what do we fail to see?

Readers should be prepared for dense discussion of drives and sublimation (key elements of the psychoanalyst's craft). At times, Leader also assumes that the reader has at least a passing knowledge of mythology and specific works of art.

Exploring the human motivation for creating and viewing art is an interesting topic, but this title will not appeal to most readers.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know if I agree with all of Mr. Leader's conclusions, but I loved this book. He includes so many huge ideas in such a short book, and his examples run the gamut from art to movies to everyday life. Mr. Leader is a Freudian scholar and his point of view is illuminating and challenging. A fast, worthwhile read.

[John Kemp]

An absorbing and non-threatening point of entry to the Lacanian universe, its brilliance and manifold perversities, using the theft of the Mona Lisa and Freud's reading of Leonardo as the point of departure for a wider reflection on modernist aesthetics.

[Earthwatchaddict · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a bit too technical for me but I think it would be fascinating for someone with a more artistic background. Still, very interesting.

[Lilac · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far I really like it, it's different from pretty much everything I"ve read before, and readable, which are both plusses :)