Art in the Age of Narcissism

   She had flown to Paris in the high season with three friends. They were staying in a typical European economy hotel; a double room meant a double bed and a small sink in the room, shared showers and toilets, a three-story walk up. The four women’s two rooms up different staircases. The rooms not big enough for the four to visit and talk about the creepy people on the plane, in the airports and those French customs people. And drink a little wine. This was France after all. The shot: two twenty-something faces mugging, backed by a bit of dormered window on the left and a quarter of a pillow, some of a metal headboard and a dingy wall on the right.

   Getting to the Louvre had been a nightmare. A taxi driver they approached just stared blankly at them. Using a smart phone they mapped themselves and the Louvre, started off in the wrong direction for a couple of  blocks before checking again, not finding streets names on sign posts, corrected direction and trudged on anew. Then it took twenty more minutes to get there – walking! “My God, we’re only here for a couple of days.” And once, at the Champs they found lines a block long. The shot: four grimacing faces squeezed together against a backdrop of one of humanities favorite activities: waiting in lines and crowds.

   Once inside, the density and intensity of crowds increased. Some of Europe’s masterworks in linseed oil and pulverized stone framing a shuffling mass of pained expectation. The goal is the Mona Lisa, undoubtedly the most famous and certainly the most viewed, albeit in reproduced forms and photos, painting in the West. A remarkable accomplishment for an industrial and military engineer, and meticulous researcher and draftsman, especially appreciable in this time when engineering is the great hope of the middle classes, much as prize fighting was held to be the great hope of the poor Irish a century ago.

   Finally our traveler manages to reach the cordon, forcibly held in place by a substantial matron in a grey guard’s uniform. Pushed and jostled, our traveler turns to face the murmuring crowds, her back to Leonardo’s enigmatic smile. The shot: a young American woman, carefully made up, hair long and flowing, perfectly crafted smile looking directly into the lens, over her left shoulder, an eye, forehead and hair, slightly out of focus, possibly the Mona Lisa.

   On the streets of Paris again, they search out a sidewalk café, where they will sit and noticeably watch people passing, as they nurse their coffees and discuss their plans for conquering Amsterdam. But what now? Window shopping, maybe? “How much money do we have left?”

There is no yesterday and no tomorrow.

There’s only now, and that’s the sorrow.