TO LIVE IS CHRIST
(Vivre c'est le Christ)
SECTION 1: "Lisa, Wasn't Leonard Weird?"
They are reporting everywhere, from the late-night news program to New York Times Online, that the model of Leonard da Vinci's famous picture of a lady, 500 years ago, has been confirmed as "Lisa del Giocondo, wife of Florentine businessman Francesco del Giocondo."
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Art-Mona-Who.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Da+Vinci&oref=slogin
I cannot feel any light of faithfulness to God in works of Leonard da Vinci. But, his touch of a pagan spirit, however, with modern exactness has really appealed to Europeans for centuries or 500 years to the extent that Leonard is regarded as anti-Christ.
I don't know what exchange of words or emotions was done between the painter and the sitter.
But what matters to an artist must be his talent, through which he can connect himself to God, but neither his work nor a model. If an artist sticks to a work portraying a certain model, it is no more a painting of art for the interest of society but a picture of his personal memory.
You had better stop to show a mean interest or curiosity in a remnant of emotional exchange between a faithless painter and a pious lady 500 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_del_Giocondo
SECTION 2: LAST SUPPER
Leonard da Vinci did not respect Jesus Christ. But, he painted the Last Supper.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Last_supper_copy_by_unknown_artist.jpg
Mar 14:17 And in the evening he cometh with the twelve.
Mar 14:18 And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, One of you which eateth with me shall betray me.
Mar 14:19 And they began to be sorrowful, and to say unto him one by one, Is it I? and another said, Is it I?
Mar 14:20 And he answered and said unto them, It is one of the twelve, that dippeth with me in the dish.
Mar 14:21 The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born.
Mar 14:22 And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.
Mar 14:23 And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it.
Mar 14:24 And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.
Mar 14:25 Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.
Mar 14:26 And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.
Jesus Christ did not tell anybody not to betray Him, or tell others to hold and stop the betrayer.
Jesus Christ, however, completely suppressed their commotion at the last supper by performing a ritual with bread and wine and by singing a hymn.
The meaning of "betrayal" might have been misunderstood for 2000 years, since it is impossible to believe that He could not persuade one of His elite disciples having been trained and educated so much to follow God but not the Satan.
Then blame should be placed on the Church not on the painter of the "Last Supper," since it was almost 900 years after the emergence of Islam.
SECTION 3: Economics without Ethics
I checked a book containing writings by scores of Japanese economists and professors.
(http://www.junkudo.co.jp/detail2.jsp?ID=0248006400 )
It is clear that no experts in this field have the ability to argue ethics as the most important factor in human activities including economic performance and business life.
Just like I don't feel any sincere quest of ethics in works of art created by Leonard da Vinci, I feel a kind of flaw in intelligence or personality, which should be based on ethics, of most of those economists and scholars in terms of ethics, though the authors of texts in the book are all Japanese but not Europeans and Americans in this profession.
Economy is to make your neighbors, but not yourself, happy, according to a principle of Jesus' Economy.
* * *
What is reflected in the picture of Mona Lisa is the feeling the model had to the painter Leonard da Vinci. She must have understood him but not loved him at all, since he looked weird somehow, in my view. An angel must have been on her side but not on da Vinci's side.
Modern economists all look like da Vinci.
No ethics but technicality only.
While da Vinci was painting Mona Lisa, Columbus had discovered the new continent America where no one would feel like painting such pictures, though they might face great temptation of gold and oil which would take away such an expression of woman's emotion from the civilization, however, centuries later.
Conversely, it was the age when such an expression was getting rare even among Italian ladies, in my humble view; hence we could regard Mona Lisa as such a historical record.
(According to one theory, change in prices of some luxury goods might be correlated with a change in the stock market price index.
I suppose that a change in popularity of da Vinci's works might be correlated with a change in a kind of social trends, not so favorable to both believers and the Church.
Therefore, Mesdemoiselles, you had better be taken as an analogy of Mother Mary, Jean of Arc, or, say, Marie Curie, but not Mona Liza, since bad guys seem to have been all around Lisa del Giocondo for 500 years.)
"..worked with one hand and kept the weapon in another..."
(arbeitete mit einer Hand gehalten und die Waffe in einem anderen)