White on White

White on White

Today, I’ll be in the Grand Galerie for White on White.

Here we have, it seems, a group of visitors silently admiring a work of Modern art, white on white, in the Grande Galerie (Denon, salle 710)? But no, this isn’t a Malevich secretly acquired by the Louvre; it’s a painting from the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, still covered in fabric a few days before its unveiling for the exhibition opening. The doorway to the left leads to the Salle des États, always packed, that besides the Venetian paintings, the Titians, Tintorettos, and Veroneses, holds the Mona Lisa (Denon, room 711). These are tourists from China who are looking not at a white-on-white painting but at their guide, a young woman who has found a convenient spot here to teach them about Leonardo’s masterpiece, a photograph of which she holds in her hand as she delivers her commentary. After their lesson, they will obediently line up in front of the Mona Lisa. I like the fold that crosses the canvas from one corner to another: fold on fold, the height of Modernism