EPILOGUE: FINAL BOWS
Jacqueline Kennedy was proven right: no harm came to the Mona Lisa, and the exhibit contributed to a widespread cultural awakening for many Americans. Six years after the exhibition, John Walker wrote in his memoir that he was wrong about the likelihood that the portrait would be damaged.
“The visit of the Mona Lisa proved one thing,” he said. “If you are willing to spend the money, you can move the most fragile object back and forth across the ocean without damage, provided you take sufficient care and put into effect certain precautions.”
It may seem inconceivable in today’s world, but not one credible threat was made against the Mona Lisa from the moment the masterpiece left the Louvre until it was safely returned eighty-eight days later. Nearly 2,000,000 Americans came to see her. In many respects, the exhibition changed the nature of museums and their relationship with the public.
The word “blockbuster” entered the lexicon in the late 1970s as a term describing popular art exhibitions that delivered massive numbers of visitors and ticket sales. The term was first widely used in connection with the wildly successful “ Treasures of Tutankhamun” exhibition, which opened on November 17, 1976, at the National Gallery. By almost any measure, however, the phenomenon unleashed by the American visit of the Mona Lisa in 1963 surpassed the three-year national tour of ancient objects from King Tut’s tomb.
The exhibition of the artifacts of the Egyptian boy king and the Mona Lisa shared a strong element of international cultural diplomacy, however. “Ambassador Tut became a force of moderation,” noted Christopher Knight in the Los Angeles Times. “His glittering mask helped soften callused perceptions in the eyes of bedazzled Americans. Making Egypt less of a boogeyman, the golden teenager helped ease public suspicions about Arab motivations in negotiations with Israel.” On the spring day in 1979 that Egypt and Israel signed a formal treaty ending three decades of war and establishing diplomatic relations, Knight observed, Ambassador Tut was in New York greeting enthusiastic crowds at the Metropolitan Museum. (King Tut’s objects of the afterlife returned to America once again in 2005 to meet teeming throngs.)
The powerful cultural impact of the blockbuster exhibition in terms of education and aesthetic enjoyment is undeniable. But art officials caution that increased attendance and revenue alone are not enough to justify an art exhibition. One treatise on museum management states that public programs should encompass activities that enrich the visitor’s experience, attract new audiences, and encourage return visits. The record crowds that descended on Washington, D.C. and New York to view the Mona Lisa proved that Jacqueline Kennedy understood these principles and, through her adept staging, she pioneered the modern phenomenon of the blockbuster museum exhibition. Mona Lisa’s visit triggered a lingering national love affair with the arts in which culture was no longer the privileged domain of a few educated connoisseurs, but rather central in the life of all Americans.
The 1960s opened with a frenzy of plans to build an arts infrastructure (the Los Angeles Music Center was completed in 1964, for example, and New York’s Lincoln Center in 1968) amid a growing belief that art was economically viable and beneficial for mankind, which suggested a faith and optimism at odds with the pervasive Cold War anxiety.
Mrs. Kennedy’s vision for an American ministry of the arts inspired by André Malraux never came to pass, but she did see government support for the arts grow. In 1965, under the Lyndon Johnson administration, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities were created as independent federal agencies. They weren’t run by cabinet-level officials as Jackie had envisioned, but they did provide much of the funding and support she had long sought for artists.
In her post-presidential life, Mrs. Kennedy became a leader in promoting the appreciation of America’s heritage. She sought President Lyndon Johnson’s support for the revitalization of Pennsylvania Avenue and continued her work to preserve Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. According to John Carl Warnecke, the architect who worked closely with Jackie on the project, it was the first time in the modern period of design that the public saw new, large buildings designed in context with old, historic buildings. “She refused to give up,” Warnecke recalled. “A lot of other people have taken credit for Lafayette Square, but she was the true savior.” Later, working with the New York Municipal Arts Society, Jackie led a passionate campaign to preserve New York City’s historic Grand Central Terminal from demolition.
Jackie continued her lifelong interest in the arts and letters when she joined Viking Press in 1975, and worked as a nonfiction book editor. “I’m drawn to books that are out of regular experience,” she said in an interview with Publishers Weekly. “Books of other cultures, ancient histories. I’m interested in the arts in general, especially the creative process. I’m fascinated by hearing artists talk about their craft. To me, a wonderful book is one that takes me on a journey into something I didn’t know before.” In 1978, she was named associate editor at Doubleday. “As she had in the White House, Jackie quickly mastered the gamesmanship of publishing,” noted one writer. During her stay at Doubleday, Jackie published many significant titles, including Joseph Campbell’s acclaimed work, The Power of Myth.
She continued to devote her time to causes that were important to her, including the American Ballet Theater, the Municipal Arts Society, and the New York Public Library. She was the guiding benevolent force behind the creation of the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. Designed by renowned architect I. M. Pei, who also designed a new wing for the National Gallery, the library opened to the public in October 1979. The glass pavilion of the Presidential Library rises grandly from the edge of the Columbia Point Peninsula and offers a sweeping view of Boston Harbor.
In January 1994, at the age of sixty-four, Jackie was diagnosed with a form of cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Her health soon faded and she made her last trip home from the hospital on May 18, 1994. Well-wishers and reporters gathered on the street outside her Fifth Avenue apartment before she died the following day. Her funeral was at St. Ignatius Loyola Roman Catholic Church in Manhattan, the same church where she was baptized in 1929. The New York Daily News captured the national outpouring of grief in a simple headline: “Missing Her.”
The former First Lady chose to be buried in Arlington Cemetery with John F. Kennedy and their two children, the unnamed stillborn daughter who died in 1956, and Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. “In a public sea she steered a private course . . . in the age of confession, she kept her own counsel,” observed the New York Times at the time of her death.
Theodore Sorensen, Special Counsel to the President, closely observed the First Lady’s impact: “By maintaining her own unique identity and provocative personality . . . by refusing to appear more folksy at political rallies or less glamorous in power nations, by carrying her pursuit of excellence and beauty into the White House dinners . . . she became a world-wide symbol of American culture and good taste, and offered proof in the modern age that the female sex can succeed by merely remaining feminine.”
Hugh Sidey of Time magazine noted, “I would say that in some ways, Jackie was about as influential a woman in terms of culture as we’ve had in this century—intelligent, cultured, and with an eye and a sense of what needed to be done.”
In 2001, Caroline Kennedy published a book of her mother’s favorite poetry, observing, “Throughout her life, my mother took great pride in the role of poetry and the arts in my father’s administration. She celebrated American arts and artists in the White House, believing as my father did, that America’s artistic achievements were equal to her political and military power, and that American civilization had come of age.”
John Walker and Jackie maintained a correspondence with one another for the rest of their lives. On October 6, 1965, she confided to him that she needed more time before the official portrait of President Kennedy was to be unveiled. “Thank you for writing me about the President’s portrait,” she wrote. “I have the feeling, however, that it is still too soon to hang any portrait of President Kennedy in the White House.
“Everyone knows that the White House Historical Association will be giving the portrait—and that means so much to me—but I still would rather have some more time pass by before anything is actually hung there.
“That day will be such an important one—and I know that I should be there—but, dear Mr. Walker, I do not think I could bring myself to go back to Washington yet. I do hope you will understand.” She signed the letter as she did always in her notes to Walker, “Affectionately, Jackie.”
In 1969, Walker retired as director of the National Gallery and passed the baton to his talented assistant, J. Carter Brown, who would lead the Gallery into a new era. Walker penned his memoirs, Self-Portrait with Donors: Confessions of an Art Collector, which detailed his relentless pursuit of masterpieces for the Gallery and his close relationships with Francis Watson, John Pope Hennessey, and Kenneth Clark.
In 1976, he was awarded the Gallery’s medal for distinguished service from Paul Mellon. His last visit to the museum was in 1991 to celebrate the institution’s fiftieth anniversary. Suffering from the long-standing effects of paralysis when he was a child, Walker arrived at the Gallery seated in what the Guardian newspaper called a “brilliant red wheelchair.”
Until the end, Walker remembered the exhibition of the Mona Lisa as the most trying period of his professional life. In second place was the arduous task of securing Chester Dale’s fine collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French paintings in perpetuity for the National Gallery. According to his successor, J. Carter Brown, Walker’s pursuit of “CHESTERDALE” was so taxing that it turned his gray hair white and “left him on tranquilizers for the rest of his life.” Ironically, in his last will and testament, Dale left Walker a sizeable sum of money. Surprised and deeply touched, Walker used the funds to purchase a home in Fisher’s Island, New York. Walker affectionately called the property “Will O’Dale.”
The two master paintings by Paul Cézanne, from the collection of Charles A. Loeser, cherished by Jacqueline Kennedy and protected by Director John Walker, endured travels of their own. On July 25, 1985, House on the Marne and The Forest were removed from the White House and returned to the National Gallery where they were periodically placed on display. Twenty years later, during the administration of George W. Bush, one of the pictures, The Forest, was returned to the White House where it remains today.
John Walker died on October 16, 1995, at the age of eighty-eight of cardiopulmonary arrest at his home in Amberley, Sussex, England. Shortly before his death, he had been hospitalized with a broken leg and a lung ailment. His only son, John Anthony, had died suddenly and unexpectedly in 1986; Lady Margaret died one year later in 1987. He was survived by his daughter Gillian, wife of noted filmmaker Albert Maysles, and three grandchildren.
André Malraux dedicated his autobiography Anti-Memoirs, published in 1968, to Jacqueline Kennedy. He died of lung cancer at the age of seventy-seven, and was buried at the cemetery of Verrieres-le-Buisson. Twenty years later, Malraux’s body was exhumed and was reinterred in Paris at the Panthéon, the French burial site for national heroes. Over the years, many Malraux biographers have taken great pains to sort out the facts concerning Malraux’s life story, debating what was true and what was fabricated. “For the most part,” Malraux claimed, “man is what he hides.”
Edward Folliard continued working as a reporter for the Washington Post until his retirement in 1966. His career in journalism spanned more than fifty years through the extreme transitions of “The American Century.”
In his oral history for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Folliard said he believed that newspapermen were the link between government and the great “mass rank and file” of Americans. He considered his role as that of a public servant. “ That’s the way I’ve always thought of myself,” he said.
Covering the assassination of President Kennedy was the most excruciating experience of his professional life. “Every big story I’ve ever covered, I’ve written under difficulty,” he recalled. “That’s the one story I just wish to God none of us had ever had to cover.” Folliard later reflected on the leader whose life had ended so abruptly: “My admiration of Kennedy is without limit. I think he was probably the most brilliant President of our time.”
Over the years, Folliard continued his close association with former Presidents Eisenhower and Truman. In 1969, President Nixon asked Folliard to accompany him on Air Force One to Independence, Missouri, on the occasion of Truman’s eighty-fifth birthday. On April 22, 1970, Folliard was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, following a white-tie dinner at the White House. At the ceremony, President Nixon credited Folliard with playing a role in the reconciliation between himself and President Truman several years earlier.
Folliard died at his Washington home from cancer on November 25, 1976; he was seventy-seven years old. His lengthy obituary was printed on the front page of the Washington Post. When he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947 for national reporting, the newspaper wrote: “Broadly speaking, good newspaper reporters fall into one of three categories—those whose primary value lies in their ability to uncover important news; those whose value lies primarily in their skill in writing the news, and finally those who have a special aptitude for interpreting the news, that is, for discerning and clarifying the meaning that underlies the superficial facts. Mr. Folliard is one of those rare and invaluable journalists who combines in themselves all three gifts.”
The Mass of Christian Burial was conducted for the newsman at the Church of the Annunciation in Northwest Washington on November 29, where his casket was carried by his son, Michael, and fellow reporters from the Post. He was survived by his wife Mary Helen, two adult children, and eight grandchildren.
America was not the final stop for Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The picture left the Louvre again in 1974; first on loan to the Museum of Art in Tokyo, where she was displayed from April through June 2, and then to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art in Moscow, where she was exhibited for eleven days beginning on June 13. The question of how best to protect the picture was again the task of Madame Madeleine Hours of the Louvre.
Once the decision was made that the picture would travel by airplane, Madame Hours was confronted with a new set of problems including the possibility of rapid depressurization or fire aboard the aircraft. The first travel box made for her trip to America had aged, and the Klegecell panels and the rubber seals were no longer effective. The Centre d’Electronique de l’Armement was asked to design a new container that provided “an additional envelope” for Mona Lisa’s safety. Inside the wood crate was added a layer of a bricklike material that could protect the Mona Lisa for thirty minutes before it could be damaged by flames.
Curators at the Louvre requested the same temperature and humidity be replicated in Japan as had been achieved in America to protect the fragile picture. A special glass box was constructed to display the painting in order to avoid any risk of overheating and excessive dryness due to the artificial lighting. The exhibition was flawless, and more than 1,000,000 visitors came to see Leonardo’s masterpiece.
When it came time to leave, Madame Hours supervised the removal of the painting and its placement inside the custom catafalque. Tokyo authorities banned all traffic on the road leading to the airport in preparation for Mona Lisa’s departure. The traveling case was delicately placed inside the aircraft and hooked by straps connected to the floor. Madame Hours watched with great emotion as the plane slowly taxied onto the runway as a long line of government officials stood under large black umbrellas and bowed, a final salute to the masterwork of the old Italian artist.
During the long flight from Tokyo to Moscow, Madame Hours was the only passenger. One hour before the aircraft reached the Ural Mountains and the European border, Mona Lisa and her escort experienced a frightening encounter: “I saw a bright red light like a rocket taking off from the ground, and suddenly, at our level there was a bright ball of fire. I thought it was an explosion or a flying saucer. I paused, having lost my breath, but tried to find an explanation. I then saw a capsule, a space ship, emerging from a cloud that seemed to be at our altitude. It disappeared as quickly as lightning into the dark sky.”
Moments later the flight commander jumped from the cockpit and ran toward Madame Hours. “Did you see it?” he gasped. The pilot explained that he had been instructed to change course just minutes earlier. “The dear man was just as stupefied as I was,” Madame Hours said of the Soviet spaceship that mysteriously crossed Mona Lisa’s path.
Once the painting was returned to the Louvre, Madame Hours examined the Mona Lisa and found that she did not suffer from her travels. She experienced “some play” on the flexible frame on her back, but not enough to warrant concern, and she was returned to her bulletproof, temperature-controlled glass case.
The Mona Lisa’s journey to Tokyo and Moscow would be her last. During a luncheon to celebrate the Louvre Museum’s 200th anniversary in 1994, museum officials assured reporters that the Mona Lisa would never again leave the Louvre. “It’s much too fragile,” officials announced.
Scientific investigations in the twenty-first century have shed further light on details about the painting. As she sat for her portrait, Mona Lisa was apparently wearing a gauzy overdress common to women who were expecting a baby or nursing, and some of her hair was rolled up and tucked into a small bonnet that had an attached veil. The overdress and hat were lost from view over time as now-discolored layers of lacquer were added but they can still be seen in infrared photographs, according to French and Canadian researchers. “ This remarkable painting is actually more remarkable than we believed,” said John M. Taylor, an imaging scientist and conservator with the National Research Council of Canada.
French engineer and inventor Pascal Cotte, founder of Lumière Technology of Paris, developed a new high-tech multispectral camera capable of penetrating layers of varnish and paint, and announced that Mona Lisa once had eyelashes, eyebrows, a wider smile, and was painted with a fur-lined coat resting on her knees. Images of the scanned painting from the 240-megapixel camera “peeled away the centuries” and enabled new examination of the pigments on the painting’s surface with scientific precision. Cotte’s infrared images also revealed the artist’s preparatory drawings hidden behind multiple layers of paint. “If you look at the left hand you see the first position of the finger, and he changed his mind for another position,” Cotte told reporters.
The precise method of da Vinci’s mastery of the wondrous smoky sfumato brush technique of applying paint, however, still continues to elude experts, and as Madame Hours once observed, it defies technical analysis.
In 2005, the Mona Lisa was given a new place of honor inside the Louvre. After a four-year renovation, the nineteenth-century Salle des États was redesigned to accommodate the enormous crowds and provide a superior display. Designed by architect Lorenzo Piqueras, the gallery is lit from the ceiling with natural light. The Mona Lisa now sits alone on a freestanding wall that divides the gallery. Before she was “wheeled away” to be hung inside her new home in the large rectangular wing, only 750 feet away, curators delicately wrapped the picture in tissue paper. Jean Habert, the Louvre’s chief curator of Venetian paintings, said the painting’s every move is scrutinized and there is always a camera nearby. “She’s like a living person,” he said. “She was surrounded by photographers the second she re-opened. They were acting like the paparazzi—kneeling in front of her, craning to get the best spot, standing up, sitting down.”
Journalists from around the world reported that the Florentine Lady never looked better. She now looked “positively rejuvenated, with the new ceiling allowing daylight in from above, and subtle spotlights getting rid of the greenish tinge of age.”
The Mona Lisa still sits inside her bulletproof box mounted on the walls of the Louvre where she is seen by millions of museum visitors each year. Inside the box, the temperature is kept at a constant 68°F and 55 percent humidity. Once a year, officials at the Louvre delicately remove the painting from her isothermic container, and her condition is closely examined. In 2009, the Louvre expects as many as 9,000,000 visitors will come to see her, easily ensuring that she is the most observed woman in history.