I, Mona Lisa Quotes

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark,’ replies Michelangelo.”
― Natasha Solomons, I, Mona Lisa

“Picasso was a genius, but, unlike Leonardo, he seemed to take macabre pleasure in women’s pain. He needed to inflict torment upon us in order to create his art. I was filled with repugnance. Beside Pablo, Michelangelo seemed a gentle, agreeable fellow.”
― Natasha Solomons, I, Mona Lisa

“Pablo had woken me up to colour and noise again, and now I had someone to talk to, I couldn’t bear to be abandoned to silence. He understood his power over me and gloried in it. He was the same with me as with all his women – witty, charming and diabolical. I was smitten.”
― Natasha Solomons, I, Mona Lisa

“realise how differently Leonardo and Michelangelo see the world. How differently they want us, the viewer, to perceive our world. I imagine that sketch of the David in marble, massive and bold and magnificent, a feat of daring from the prodigious Michelangelo. His vision of art isn’t like Leonardo’s. Il Gigante is aggressive and brash, swaggering with his slingshot. Nothing is hidden. A glorious exterior displayed for all to admire. Leonardo is opposite. He always instructs Cecco and Tommaso to tell stories with their pictures but to leave something as a mystery, something hidden. It is more enticing, more delightful, when a secret is concealed. The viewer must bring part of themselves to the painting.”
― Natasha Solomons, I, Mona Lisa

“They hasten after him. Wealth cannot insulate a man from unhappiness. The ill-fated man grieving for his beloved wife and now enraptured and enchanted by a painting. I study Leonardo through the darkness. It takes powers of divine genius to make a painting of such beauty that a man loves it as though it were a real woman. Yet, in me, he has created something else entirely.”
― Natasha Solomons, I, Mona Lisa