a meaningless smile on my face, which I hoped was as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s, which I had finally seen in person at the Louvre and from which I had wandered away bemused. That’s it? How could one not be underwhelmed once confronted with the Western world’s most famous painting? I studied it for as long as I could with the crowds jostling me. A very good painting. But a portrait any better than a dozen others in the Louvre, some of which featured faces that seemed just as enigmatic? Or was enigmatic just the European equivalent of the Asiatic inscrutable? I was flummoxed by my inability to
...more
