Mona Lisa Less than Half Way

Sunday Scribblings offers the theme, Half-Way and as I wrote my morning pages, this is what unfolded itself more than half-way so that I could share my words here.

 

Mona Lisa Less than Half Way

 

Would Mona Lisa's smile be considered

a half-smile or a one-eighth smile?

 

I remember as a child, I didn't notice

a smile on her Italian face at all -

 

She seemed angry, frowning and

certainly not ready to embrace

 

The twelve-year-old half way to

twenty-four eyes that surveyed

 

Her image, in paint, in a book -

Not half way to her home in France

 

What does her non-smile/half-smile

is it an eighth-smile tell me?

 

The then-me and the now-me

Converge and consider

 

Is it "the size of the smile doesn't matter

it is the memorable nature of the smile which does?"

 

Is it "I have crooked teeth and am ashamed

to show them?" that causes the mystery

 

Or is it just "It is easier to sit and be painted

with a not-quite smile than the usual

 

Overbearing American grin that covers

your "trying too hard" face?

 

The me-now smiles like Mona Lisa

and stops pondering and

 

starts accepting the unknowing mystery

of the half-eight-way-there-smile

Comments

[Jae Rose]

Hi Julie..I am glad you have accepted the 'half-eight-way-there-smile' (this phrase made me smile all the way there!)..I think she would have a lot to say. Maybe she was about to say it..maybe she has left the space for us to imagine what she could see..lovely piece and interpretation of the prompt..Jae

[Nara Malone]

It reminds me of the smile you get when someone has said something you shouldn't smile at, but the smile is trying to sneak through anyway. One eighth smile really suits what we see.

[John]

Always prefer the almost smile but then I'm English so agree re overbearing.... My Sunday Scribble

[BJ Roan]

I like the "half-eight-way-there-smile", but disagree that an American grin is "overbearing". I have a wide smile and laugh lines to prove it. A full smile is a warm welcome, good to see you kind of thing, but then my smile encompasses my eyes and my heart, not just my mouth. There are those, in all countries, who hide their disdain behind a fake smile.

[Leo]

very thoughtful.. i wondered of this a lot myself :)

[Linda may]

I think she is 1/8th smiling thinking, Oh God please someone invent a camera so i don't have to sit here for so long and can go to the loo. Lol.

[b]

I had not thought of this...could is also be that she was simply a happy and pleasant woman and the half smile was at ease on her face? Well done.

b

http://www.itcrossedmymindblog.com/2010/08/setting-out-poetry-for-sunday.html

[RiikaInfinityy]

True indeed, a beautiful painting and the mysterious behind it, that was a question I asked my parents before, and one eighth smile is just great=D

[Old Egg]

Da Vinci was notoriously long in his execution of paintings so what may have started as a happy beaming smile has deteriorated to the barest sign of one as the painting progressed.

Great post.