Hacker News Reader

Comment by ACS_Solver | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised the Louvre hasn't done just that. Currently the Mona Lisa is pretty much in the middle of a section devoted to French and Italian paintings. Which makes sense, but doesn't work well in practice. The Mona Lisa crowds can get so big it's hard to even get a look at the other painting in the same room.

Move it to a separate room, install turnstiles that limit the amount of people in the room to something reasonable, and it will be a better experience for everyone. Even the people who are only there to take a picture of the Mona Lisa will be able to do it faster.

Many other museums seem better at limiting the amount of people near some attraction. To see Da Vinci's next most famous work, The Last Supper, you purchase a ticket that corresponds to a 15-minute slot. The Bust of Nefertiti, one of the most famous antique items, is kept in a separate room of the Neues Museum, with the staff not letting people in if it gets too crowded.

View on HN

This sounds like a very sensible idea. Why not move it to its own area where the tourist crowds can have their selfies and, if they're done at that point, go do something else without clogging things up for the rest of the visitors?

From what little I've been exposed to about art management, it's also not great for the works in general to have crowds around them - aside from obvious things like people touching them, it puts an extra burden on the climate control system.

> it puts an extra burden on the climate control system

The Louvre doesn't have climate control throughout the compound. There's some sections that have it. But during August one should expect their visit to be fairly sweltering.

They could do what the UK does with the crown jewels and literally install a conveyor belt system that makes it nearly impossible to stand there for long periods of time.

Another option is to charge a dynamic fee to see the painting based on crowd size.

La Joconde has been at the Louvre since 1797. Since 1878, it has been displayed in the Salle des États - a room originally used by Napoleon III for legislative sessions. As you mention, the room hosts many Venetian works, and has been recently renovated to complement the paintings it showcases. For instance, the walls were painted a deep Prussian blue to contrast with the golden frames and highlight the vivid pigments typical of these works.

This legacy and continuity matter to the curators and art historians who maintain the museum.

As part of the renovations, the flow of the room was redesigned to accommodate for the fact that visitors spend more time in front of the Joconde (curators mention that a visitor spends on average 50 seconds looking at La Joconde, versus 4 seconds for other paintings).

The most amazing thing about the Mona Lisa to me was the rest of the room. It also wasn't that crowded (2009ish).

I was at the Louvre for the first time just a couple weeks ago. The Mona Lisa room was so crowded that I didn't bother lining up or looking at anything else in the room. Definitely a bad experience for people who don't like crowded museums.

"Liberty Leading the People" was near the Mona Lisa when I was there. It looks very drab on a computer screen but amazing in person.

It was in a different wing with other 19th century French art when I visited in 2016, but yes, it was huge, imposing, and very moving

Interesting, I was there in 2004 and it was ass to elbows and impossible to shove through to the next room. The paintings nearby were amazing though.

Might have something to do with economic cycles; 2004 was a better time in world economics then 2009.

It also might just have been lucky 15min for the first guy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com