If you want praise of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" as art, you can find it.
你如果想要赞扬列奥纳多·达·芬奇的《蒙娜丽莎》是件艺术品，一定能发现她有艺术价值的地方。
But what if you think it's just...
但是如果你觉得那就只是很⋯
... fine?
⋯普通呢？
What's the cynic's explanation for the "Mona Lisa"?
那些愤世嫉俗的人是怎么看《蒙娜丽莎》的呢？
Why is the "Mona Lisa" so, so famous?
为什么《蒙娜丽莎》会那么有名呢？
Is it really that much better than da Vinci's "Lady with an Ermine"?
真的有比达芬奇另一幅作品《抱银鼠的女子》还要好吗？
That seems better; there's one more ermine.
那幅画似乎是比较好，多了一只银鼠 。
But it's "Mona", who is so famous, that the director of the Louvre ⏤ where "Mona Lisa" lives ⏤ said 80% of their visitors are only there to see that one painting.
但是因为卢浮宫的《蒙娜丽莎》是这么的有名，所以其馆长说 80% 的游客到那里都只为了一窥这幅画作。
If you don't think "Mona Lisa" is famous just because she's somehow ten times better than every other painting, her story reveals something more interesting.
如果你不觉得《蒙娜丽莎》是因为比其他的画作还要好上十倍，所以才有名的话，那么她的一些故事会让你感到有趣。
Something about how art breaks into wider culture.
是关于艺术如何朝向更广泛的文化来发展。
And it might never have happened if the "Mona Lisa" hadn't disappeared.
如果《蒙娜丽莎》没有不见，这些事情就不会发生了。
Before "Mona Lisa" became a mass culture star, before she vanished, one critic made her a work of art worth taking.
在《蒙娜丽莎》还未变成大众文化的焦点之前，也就是它还没有不见之前，有位评论家就称颂其很有艺术价值了。
And he was so over-the-top insanely in love with the painting that he single-handedly made it a masterpiece.
而他对这幅画作太喜爱痴狂了，一手就让它变成了绝世名作。
Walter Pater's 1873 book "The Renaissance" was key.
瓦尔特·佩特在 1873 年出版的《文艺复兴》就是关键。
It came out more than 350 years after Leonardo painted "Mona Lisa", but it defined the painting for Victorians.
这本书是在列奥纳多画完《蒙娜丽莎》的 350 多年后才出现的，而其为维多利亚时代的英国人解释了这幅画作。
That was key in an age when it was hard to actually see the art, so the words did the work.
那个时代是很难看到这种艺术的，也因此是非常关键的点，文字帮助人们理解画作。
Here is the epic semi-colon-stuffed paragraph at the center of his ode to "Mona Lisa".
以下是他赞颂《蒙娜丽莎》的主要的一个小段落，其中用了许多分号作连接。
Highlights:
重点：
"...the animalism of Greece."
“⋯古希腊原始的征战本能。”
"She is older than the rocks among which she sits."
“她所象征的意义，比环绕在她身旁的石头还要古老。”
"Like the vampire, she has been dead many times."
“如同吸血鬼般一再死而复生，千年不朽。”
This was the purplest prose of all time, but people loved the stuff.
这是有史以来最艰深晦涩的文章，但人们就是喜欢这样的东西。
Oscar Wilde thought the essay's writing was great.
奥斯卡·王尔德认为这篇文章写得很不错。
He praised, "the musical of the mystical prose".
他称赞：“虚无缥缈有韵味的散文。”
And every general interest profile of the Louvre, from academic guidebooks to discussions clubs in Paducah, used Pater's words to talk about "Mona."
而每张关于卢浮宫的有趣简介，从专业的参考手册到帕迪尤卡的讨论会，都用了佩特的文字来叙述蒙娜莉萨。
Other critics jumped on ⏤ "Mona" was a popular, secular painting that they could analyze.
其他的评论家也陆续跟上，他们分析了《蒙娜莉萨》这幅既风靡大众且又不朽的画作。
Unlike da Vinci's "Last Supper", they could supply all the meaning.
不像达文西另一幅画《最后的晚餐》，他们给了很多这幅画作所要表达的含意。
But even at her peak, "Mona Lisa" was just art-world famous, not the most famous painting of all time.
但即使是在巅峰时期，《蒙娜莉萨》就只是在艺术界有名，并不永远是那最著名的画作。
In 1907, a vandal of the Louvre targeted a picture by Ingres, not da Vinci.
像是 1907 年，罗浮宫有一名捣乱的人士锁定了安格尔的画，而不是达文西的。
And, in 1910, amidst rumors of theft, papers called "Mona" just the second most famous painting in the Louvre, after Raphael's "Sistina Madonna".
而 1910 年，盗画界传闻《蒙娜丽莎》的名气次于拉斐尔《西斯廷圣母》。
It took a real theft to take "Mona" from art syllabus highlight to mass culture icon.
《蒙娜丽莎》真的被偷走后，才从艺术系学生上课才知道的名作，跃升为大众的文化指标。
These are Vincenzo Peruggia's fingerprints.
这些都是文森佐·佩鲁贾的指纹。
This is Vincenzo Peruggia's mugshot.
这个是文森佐·佩鲁贾的照片。
He has one because, on August 21, 1911, the former Louvre worker lifted the "Mona Lisa" off the wall and took it home.
他有这幅画作是因为在 1911 年的 8 月 21 号，当时身为前任卢浮宫的工作人员的他，把《蒙娜丽莎》从墙上拿走，并带到家里。
It took the Louvre a day to even notice, but the media didn't have as subdued of a reaction.
这花了卢浮宫一天才发现，但媒体并没有把这件事情压下来。
The painting went missing for two years, and every time, the press ⏤ often quoting Pater ⏤ called it the greatest portrait there ever was.
这幅画消失了两年，而每次的报导，常常都引用佩特的话来赞扬蒙娜丽莎是史上最伟大的肖像画。
They speculated that Mona's smile had driven the thief mad, they wrote art thief fan fiction, and they constantly daydreamed about "Mona Lisa's" whereabouts.
他们推测那个偷画的人因蒙娜丽莎的微笑而为之疯狂，并杜撰了艺术小偷的小说，也一直都在幻想着蒙娜丽莎可能会在哪里。
Thousands went to the Louvre just to see empty hooks hanging on the wall.
数千人到卢浮宫就只为了看那墙上的吊画挂勾。
The robbery and manhunt were like a two-year ad campaign for the painting.
这起偷窃事件及其搜索行动就好像是在帮那幅画作打了两年的广告一样。
And because you couldn't just Google "'Mona Lisa' before it was stolen", it was hard for people to see the actual painting and say, "What's the big deal?"
而且因为你也没办法只是谷歌“还没失窃前的蒙娜丽莎”就能找到那幅画作，当时是很难看到真实的作品然后再来说“这有什么了不起的吗？”
When Peruggia was caught, he said his goal was to bring "Mona" back to her native Italy.
佩鲁贾被捕后，他坦承自己的目的是要把《蒙娜丽莎》带回祖国意大利。
By then, she was the most famous painting in the world due, in part, to her absence.
某种程度上画作消失之后，蒙娜丽莎就在全世界声名大噪了。
Just as critics could smear prose on her blank face, the press could hang a reputation on those empty hooks in the wall.
正如那些评论家能随便污蔑那幅作品，那新闻报导也可以拉抬蒙娜丽莎的声望。
When "Mona Lisa" was stolen, she left a masterpiece.
《蒙娜丽莎》失窃时，留下的可是传世杰作。
After her recovery and a two-week tour in Florence, she returned to the Louvre bigger than just art.
再度出现时，她已周游了佛罗伦萨两周，之后回到卢浮宫，就不仅仅是一件艺术作品了。
She was a story and a legend and prominently shown in every paper that reported her recovery.
她传奇的故事也就突然刊登在各个报章上，并报导其失而复得的过程。
It was the big reveal after two years of suspense, now with a story that merited Walter Pater's hyperbole.
消失了两年后，现在她的故事很能呼应沃尔特‧佩特对其夸张的叙述。
From that point on, she attracted presidential speeches and parodies.
从那时候开始，总统的致词也开始和蒙娜丽莎有关。
"...also come to pay homage to this great creation of the civilization which we share."
“⋯也来致敬这最伟大的画作创造了我们所共享的文明。”
The momentum never stopped.
这样的发展从未停止。
In the end, the cynics' interpretation and the gob-smacked critics' interpretation have something in common.
最后，关于蒙娜丽莎画作的解读，那些愤世嫉俗的人和那些令人惊叹的评论家都有共同之处。
"Mona Lisa" isn't a portrait, but a blank face.
就是《蒙娜丽莎》并不是一幅肖像画，反而是一张面无表情的脸。
A place for critics to paint meaning, and people to find mystery.
这给了评论家一个能自行解读的空间，还有让人们能自己去探索其神秘之处。
That's why she was so famous, not because of how she's painted, but what we see in her.
这也就是为什么蒙娜丽莎这么有名—并不是因为是怎么样画的，而是我们如何去看她。
If that's not art, then what is?
如果这不是艺术，那什么才是呢？
I found one 1909 description of the "Mona Lisa" that seemed particularly prescient.
我找到一段 1909 年对于《蒙娜丽莎》的叙述，感觉很有先见之明。
The writer said, "Even those whose first expressions is 'huh' and proclaimed frankly that they cannot see her beauty or her interest find themselves disputing hotly over both."
作者认为：“即使那些一开始对于蒙娜丽莎的印象就只是‘嗯’的人，很直接地说自己并没有看到其中的美还有什么吸引人的地方，他们却会很激动地与彼此争辩。”
That's probably still the case today.
或许今天一样也会有这样的情况发生。
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