James Gardner writing in The Wall Street Journal believes that we are unable to see the Mona Lisa for what it is, because “like the dollar bill and the American flag, it has assumed a pall of such impenetrable familiarity that we no longer see it at all.”

I saw it for the first time a couple of years ago in the cavernous labyrinth that is the Louvre and I remember being underwhelmed by it, a response which Gardner calls “vague disappointment.” I expected it to be quite a large portait, but it’s really quite small. And crowds buzz around it.

Not all are blind to it. Jules Michelet wrote “this canvas attracts me, entices me, invades me and absorbs me. And I go to her in spite of myself, as the bird to the snake.” While another 19th century essayist described it thus: “She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave.