Kitsch

Kitsch

What could be more kitsch than the Mona Lisa, reproduced in a thousand-and-one ways by the knick-knack industry? Postcards, posters, caricatures, pens, pencils, pin buttons, plates, mugs, figurines of all shapes and sizes, lampshades, candles, vases, keychains, and even IUDs. A man named Jean Margat spent a lifetime collecting Mona Lisas. He amassed a prodigious cabinet of curiosities. He donated it to the Louvre, which has catalogued the collection, but has not yet decided what to do with it. I have seen this swarm of Mona Lisas in the curators’ offices. This panoply of “tie-in products,” as they are called today, is at once monstrous and admirable. They exploit the Mona Lisa in the marketplace, but not without paying homage. And nothing can diminish her sovereignty.