Stealing The Mona Lisa ─ What Art Stops Us From Seeing

When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, it was over twenty-four hours before anyone noticed it was missing. Afterward, countless people flocked to see the empty space where it had once been on display. What could have drawn these crowds to stare at a blank wall? Many of them had never seen the painting in the first place. Can their behavior tell us something about why we look at art, why artists create it, and why it has to be so expensive? Taking this intriguing story as his starting point, Darian Leader explores the psychology of looking at visual art. He combines anecdote, observation, and analysis, with examples taken from classical and contemporary art. This is a book about why we look at art and what, indeed, we might be hoping to find.

Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst and founding member of the Center for Freudian Analysis and Research in London.