The Hell of Tourism

Reading through Walker Percy's "The Loss of the Creature," I immediately registered that this piece was heavily philosophic in nature. Part of this impression stemmed from the fact that I simply had trouble understanding what he was getting at, and I am all too familiar with the mental aerobics that philosophy will put your brain through. 

Instead of trying to make sense of everything my mind has been drowning in for the past half hour, I will briefly (hopefully, I know) discuss what I consider to be the most approachable idea Percy presented to us. And that is, of course, the idea that sightseers will never witness a sight as authentically as the person who discovered/created/established it. He claims that one of the reasons behind this is that the sightseer will always be more concerned with their prior expectations of that thing over the thing itself.

I, unfortunately, found myself relating to this phenomenon, and there is no greater example of this than the Mona Lisa. I saw the painting of the Mona Lisa (or have I? I hear they sporadically switch her out with a replica to deter art thieves) a few years back and it was immensely disappointing. Not only did I have to elbow my way through a sea of tourists stuffed wall-to-wall of the large display hall in the Louvre (long before social distancing was the norm); but I could hardly see over the heads of the sturdier patrons who didn't allow further progression forward. My Spanish teacher ended up holding my phone high above the heads of the other visitors so I could finally see the Mona Lisa - through the screen of my iPhone. 

Now, you must be thinking, "You could have looked at a far better-quality photo of this famed da Vinci painting on a phone back in the States." And I would have to agree with you. 

Would it have been better if that room was empty, and I could be alone with the painting in all its glory? To a certain degree, probably. At least I would have been able to see the thing itself. Percy even poses the question, "Does access to the place [thing] require the exclusion of others?" I think the surrounding masses certainly made the painting's overall impact feel even more distant and unobtainable than that of a cheap printout at the gift shop. But even if I were face-to-face with the Mona Lisa, I would likely have still felt the exact experience detailed in "The Loss of the Creature": an inherent loss of value based on my own preconceived notions.

The very photo that served as my only exposure to one of the most famous paintings in the world. The funny thing is, I didn't edit it much; it was originally just as blurry.