A snort came from the far wall. Théodore Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa —a tangle of desperate, dying men—could not help itself. “Solve you? They don’t even look at us. They shuffle past my dead and my dying to squint at your eyebrow.”
Lisa’s painted hand—immobile for four hundred years—seemed to ache to reach out. Mona Lisa Smile
“That’s why I smile,” Lisa said. “Not for the scholars. Not for the crowds. For the one girl who needs to see that a woman can be looked at, dissected, mythologized—and still remain herself.” A snort came from the far wall
Not loudly. Not with the vulgar animation of a cartoon. But with the slow, patient rhythm of oil on canvas settling after a long day of being stared at. Mona Lisa Smile