MILES KINGTON INTERVIEWS
2.MONA LISA
First transmitted on R4 19/01/1993
with Miranda Richardson
MILES You have perhaps the most famous face in the world, yet nobody knows your name…
MONA LISA That is not exactly true, surely. Every one knows the name Mona Lisa.
MILES But it is not your name. Not your real name.
MONA LISA No. Only a nickname. Not even that. It is a trade name, a brand name. I was never called that, but I have always been sold as that.
MILES And the name La Gioconda...
MONA LISA Another nickname.
MILES So your real name is… ?
MONA LISA Why do you wish to know?
MILES Well, so that I know what to call you.
MONA LISA There is no need to call me anything. Just talk. I never called Leonardo da Vinci anything. Mark you, I never got much chance. How that man talked.
MILES You didn't call him Leonardo?
MONA LISA No. It was too familiar. After all, the man was a… I was going to say "tradesman", but that is not fair. He was a craftsman. You do not go around calling craftsmen by their first names.
MILES But he was also a great artist.
MONA LISA No, he wasn't. He became that later, after he died. Now he is a great artist, yes. But then he was a craftsman. He was doing a job. He was painting my portrait. Do you call your plumber by his first name?
MILES Only if he stays a very long time.
MONA LISA Towards the end I called him Signor Leonardo.
MILES Never Signor da Vinci?
MONA LISA I don't think that was his name. I think that was where he came from. Vinci is a small village in the country, you know. One can't call a man by his address. Would you call your Shakespeare "Mr from Stratford" ?
MILES No, I see…
MONA LISA And he had a very muddled background, you know. I think he was illegitimate. So I heard later.
MILES That doesn't put him beyond the social pale,surely?
MONA LISA Of course not. But it makes it harder to work out what your real name is.
MILES What did he call you?
MONA LISA Signora.
MILES Signora what?
MONA LISA I'm sorry, but I would really rather not use my name.
MILES Why not?
MONA LISA Because it is my own affair. Just as the painting was my own affair.
MILES But it is known to everyone! It is the most famous picture in the world!
MONA LISA Unfortunately.
MILES Why unfortunately?
MONA LISA Because it was never intended to be seen by the public. You know in those days there were no public art galleries at all? None! You could only see paintings in churches or in people's houses. And that was the idea for my portrait - it was commissioned to hang in our house, next to the other pictures of our family, for our family and friends to see. We didn't get people knocking on the door, saying, ‘Oh, sorry, to bother you but we just wanted to have a look at your new picture by Leonardo da Vinci.’
MILES And yet you didn't get just a picture. You got the most famous painting in the world.
MONA LISA So you keep saying. It wasn't the most famous when we got it. It was just a picture of me. You have to remember that we were not commissioning a work of art. There was no such thing as an artist then. Only clever people who painted pictures, for money. If you wanted a picture of yourself, you paid someone to do it. If you wanted a picture of the Virgin Mary for your church, you paid someone to do it. And of course you went to the best person you could find, and he did it.
MILES Did you ever pose for any other paintings, such as a Madonna?
MONA LISA I'm not sure you have grasped what I am saying yet. If an artist wanted a face for a Madonna, he got a model. I am not a model. I happen to be, if you will pardon the expression, a lady. I posed once in my life. That was enough. A lady poses for pictures of herself, not for pictures of others.
MILES Not even the Mother of Jesus?
MONA LISA Especially not the mother of Jesus! They were two a penny. A model does it for money and an artist does it for money. Does a model pose for fun? For artistic expression? Does an artist paint for fun? For the sheer creative hell of it?
MILES Well, yes…
MONA LISA Well, no, they don't! Or they didn't in my day. Today everyone has gone mad and started to revere artists, and it has gone to the artists' heads, and they have started behaving like artists, but it didn't happen in my day, I can tell you.
MILES So you have been keeping up with modern trends?
MONA LISA There isn't a lot else to do… Perhaps there is one way I can get you to understand. Nowadays you have things called video recorders, yes?
MILES Yes.
MONA LISA You can use these to make a record of your home life, your family, your friends and holidays, yes?
MILES Yes. But they are never any good.
MONA LISA In our day, we did not have videos. We had paintings, instead. But we did not make our own paintings, or they would have been, as you say, not any good. So we got an expert instead. For me, we got Leonardo da Vinci. Now, for your home video films, why do you not hire a famous film director, the equivalent of Leonardo da Vinci? Would he not make a wonderful job of your home life?
MILES Maybe. But he would be very expensive.
MONA LISA You think Leonardo was not expensive?
MILES I suppose…
MONA LISA He was very expensive! But then, that was half the point. When you put up a painting of yourself by Leonardo, you are making a statement as you say. And the statement you are making is : Look, I am rich enough to hire Leonardo ! Look, says the Pope - I have enough money to keep Michaelangelo lying on his back in the Sistine Chapel for two years!
MILES Did you like the painting?
MONA LISA I don't know. I have never been to the Sistine Chapel.
MILES No - I mean Leonardo's portrait of you.
MONA LISA Oh, that. (PAUSE) It's all right.
MILES Only all right? ?
MONA LISA You look shocked. (LAUGHS) Perhaps that is why I said it. But it is so easy to shock people over my painting! There is so much respect and adoration that one just longs to blow it away. You understand? And don't forget - it's difficult to say " Oh, that's wonderful!" When you are looking at a picture of your own face. When you look in the mirror, do you say, How marvellous! Well, I don't. And I really feel that if anyone is entitled to be cool about the Mona Lisa, it's me. So I say… it's all right.
MILES Do you think it is a good likeness?
MONA LISA That is not for me to say. Do you think it is?
MILES You've . . . changed.
MONA LISA How do you know? You have only the painting to go by. How do you know he got me right?
MILES It's very difficult to tell. Here, now, your face is moving, smiling, frowning… in the painting you are frozen. You have only the one expression, the mysterious smile.
MONA LISA I wondered when we'd come to that! The famous mysterious smile! Dear God, how tired I am of that famous smile!
MILES Well, perhaps we can talk of something else. There’s something you said earlier, when you remarked that artists don’t paint for fun. That’ s not true of Leonardo, is it?
MONA LISA I never heard of him painting a picture for fun. A painting is a major investment. Does a film director make a film for fun?
MILES He might make home videos for fun, for himself.
MONA LISA I doubt it. You might as well say that a merchant relaxes by buying and selling, or a soldier by fighting. It is the last thing he wants to do.
MILES In Leonardo's case, I was thinking of his notebooks, which he did for himself, not for money.
MONA LISA Oh, those wretched notebooks!
MILES You saw them then?
MONA LISA He had them lying round the whole time. Not to be looked at - to be written in. If an idea came to him, he would stop painting me and go straight to the notebook. I once said to him: I really think you think your little drawings are more important than me ! And he said, with all respect, a society lady cannot compare in importance with an invention which might revolutionise warfare.
MILES Which invention was that?
MONA LISA Oh, I don't know - there were so many. It might have been the improved catapult, or the machine that bored tunnels underneath besieged castles, or his flying machine like the helicopter… It never occurred to him to work out a washing machine, to ease the load of the ladies.
MILES But ladies didn't wash their own clothes anyway.
MONA LISA I was speaking symbolically.
MILES Did you learn about these fighting machines from reading the notebooks?
MONA LISA I didn't have to. He told me about them.
MILES He talked to you about his inventions?
MONA LISA Have you ever been painted?
MILES No.
MONA LISA Then you don't realise that artists tend to chatter away while they are painting - I don't know what part of the brain a man paints with, but it isn't the same part as he talks with, and it is possible to do both quite easily. Leonardo talked non-stop. Speculating... calculating… reminiscing… theorising… his conversation flowed like… like…
MILES A river?
MONA LISA No - like a flood over a plain. He was interested in everything, you know. Not just painting, not just science, but also poetry, which he wrote, and music, which he wrote. He was interested in everything and talked about everything. He was what you might call… umm…
MILES Renaissance man?
MONA LISA Yessss… No ! You can't call him Renaissance man. We were all Renaissance people. But he was so vast in his interests that…
MILES He was once described as a one-man China.
MONA LISA What does that mean ?
MILES China is the biggest country on earth, but for hundreds of years it was unknown in the West. When we discovered it, we found that some of the inventions we were most proud of, like paper, and gunpowder and fireworks, had been known to the Chinese for hundreds of years.
MONA LISA No washing machines?
MILES No…
MONA LISA All things that go bang?
MILES A lot of them, yes.
MONA LISA Yes, it sounds like Leonardo all right.
MILES I have to say that you don't sound enamoured of Leonardo…
MONA LISA Do you mean that literally?
MILES No… I don't… I mean…
MONA LISA You know he was a homosexual?
MILES Yes, at least, I knew he was supposed to more inclined…
MONA LISA Yes, he was. Nor was he very discreet about it. Unlike Michalangelo.
MILES Who was also… ?
MONA LISA I think so. Leonardo always said he was. He used to say that the reason Michelangelo lay on his back on top of that huge tower to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was so that he could smuggle young boys up there.
MILES Do you believe that?
MONA LISA No. But it makes a good story.
MILES Did you meet Leonardo again afterwards?
MONA LISA After what ?
MILES After the painting was finished.
MONA LISA No. Why should I? There was no need to. He never painted me again.
MILES I was thinking that you might have met socially.
MONA LISA I didn't meet painters socially. In my society, the only people you met at dinner were people who were trying to marry you, or buy you, or poison you.
MILES Poison you?
MONA LISA The Borgia family were not the only ones who poisoned their way to the top. They were just the most famous, that's all.
MILES At least Leonardo never tried to poison you.
MONA LISA No. He just tried to talk me to death.
MILES I have to say that you don't seem to have very fond memories of your encounter with Leonardo.
MONA LISA Leonardo was a great man. A sage. A seer. A man of infinite knowledge. Do you know what that means?
MILES Well, I suppose it means…
MONA LISA He was insufferable. He knew more than any man I have ever met, and any woman, and he knew it, and he treated me as a sounding board - no, as a dog, or a cat. You know how people, when alone, talk to their pets? With fondness yet basically contempt? Because they can talk to their pet, but the pet can never talk back, so it's all one way? That was me and Leonado. "If a pair of wooden wings was not to flap, but to revolve, what then?", he would say. "A bird can never revolve wings only flap them faster and faster, but we can build a bird with revolving wings. What is the advantage of that? The advantage is that the wings never have to stop and can thus accelerate, which a bird's wings, having to halt every few seconds, can never do…" You see? He would leave gaps for me to answer, but he would never expect me or allow me to answer… For a while I tried to keep up with him, but then I grew bored. Why should I listen? I thought, when he is not talking at me but through me? So I switched off.
MILES I see.
MONA LISA And no doubt missed lots of pearls of information. But to keep my sanity I had to stop listening.
MILES I see.
MONA LISA Which explains it.
MILES I'm sorry…?
MONA LISA Explains the mystery.
MILES Mystery?
MONA LISA The mysterious smile.
MILES Ah!
MONA LISA It has never occurred to anyone, has it, that the smile hovering on my lips, the supposedly mysterious and evocative smile, was actually the half-smile of someone who is half-listening to a one-sided conversation and trying not to be impolite by yawning or staring into the distance. The one thing you get when you paint the portraits of society ladies, like me, is well-bred attention. Unlike the daughters of innkeepers who pose for Madonnas. No wonder they all look so long-suffering and meek. They're bored out of their minds.
MILES I see.
MONA LISA I was bored to distraction too, but I didn't show it. Occasionally the urge to yawn swept over me, but it merged with my smile. Leonardo never noticed any of this, not conversationally speaking, but visually it must have got through to him, because it's all there in the painting. But you can't actually call a painting "Portrait of a Young Lady Trying to Understand the Principles that would make a Helicopter Fly, and Signally Failing" could you?
MILES No.
MONA LISA No, you couldn't. (PAUSE.) I'm sorry, I've been boring you.
MILES Not at all !
MONA LISA I recognise the symptoms. Don't worry. It's been fun for me to do so much talking, and let someone else do all the listening.
MILES It's been my pleasure, Signora… ?
MONA LISA Not at all, Signor.
ENDS
