The Louvre is missing big picture

Paris gallery’s decision to move the Mona Lisa away from other artworks is a misguided act of snobbery

Jonathan Jones

What a wonderful headache for a museum to have. The Louvre in Paris gets so many visitors that it is taking drastic measures to cope, which include moving its most famous treasure to a dedicated space where fans can visit without entering the main museum at all. It will no longer suck the oxygen from other art. Nearly 9 million visitors a year stream through the Louvre and it’s believed 80% of them are looking for Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, better known as La Gioconde, better still as the Mona Lisa. I’m worried the Louvre is trying to solve a problem that is not really a problem. Ask Britain’s museums if high visitor numbers are a bad thing: they still haven’t recovered their pre-pandemic crowds.…

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Guardian Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, 7 February 2025

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