Five curious questions in art

1. Why is the Mona Lisa so famous?

Until 1911, the Mona Lisa was just another work by one of the Renaissance masters. But that year it was stolen from the Louvre—the most significant art theft in history alongside that of Edvard Munch's The Scream in 1994—and its disappearance made it famous worldwide. People sent flowers to the museum. Poems and songs were written about it. Since then, many have been drawn to that enigmatic and unique smile. Historically, portraits have served various purposes, and the Mona Lisa never quite fit any of them. Because it's not a clearly defined and easily explained work, people keep returning to it. We want answers, and it bothers us that we don't have them, so we keep searching.

2. Can a good forgery be considered art?

Yann Walther, head of the Swiss Institute of Fine Arts Experts, states that at least 50% of the art in circulation is forged or misattributed. As we wrote in our article "The Art of Forgeries ," thousands of reproductions of Picasso, Modigliani, Chagall, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, and Renoir created by the Hungarian artist Elmyr de Hory remain on the market. De Hory was never recognized as a painter during his lifetime, but, ironically, after his death the value of his paintings skyrocketed, leading to their being forged in turn, and even Orson Welles immortalized him in the film "F for Fake ." The Dutchman Hans Van Meegeren, for his part, was so adept at imitating his compatriot Vermeer that he swindled, among others, Hitler's third-in-command, Hermann Göring.

3. Why are the most famous artists male?

The Guerrilla Girls , the New York-based collective of female artists dedicated to fighting sexism and racism within the art world, also ask this question. As in many other fields, women have been excluded from artistic decision-making and the art world in general: artists, gallery owners, art professors, collectors, critics, and museum directors used to be mostly men. Women were used almost exclusively as models, which explains why the most sought-after portraits depict women as such, as we discussed in our article "The Battle of the Sexes." The only artistic field where women earn as much as men is, right now, music. Fortunately, this trend has begun to change.

4. Did Andy Warhol like tomato soup?

Andy Warhol used an everyday object to demystify institutionalized and elitist art: a can of Campbell's tomato soup depicted in perspective against a neutral background that highlighted its outline and prevented other elements from distracting the viewer. Reflecting on his career, Warhol stated that the Campbell's soup can was his favorite work, and one of his favorite foods. "I used to have the same lunch every day for twenty years, and I drank it."

5. What would life be without art?

Nietzsche said that life without music would be a mistake. That's a good starting point for defining what life without art would be like. Editor Hatje Kantz went further and explained that without art:

There would be noise and tones, but no music.

There would be writing and words, but no stories, memories, or novels.

There would be photos but no film.

There would be colors, dots and lines, but no drawings or figures.

There would be shapes and materials, but no sculptures.

There would be no way to express human ideas, emotions, imagination, memories, and thoughts. We wouldn't know what the past was like.

Everything that is difficult to find in life... is possible in the arts