See Paris through Mona’s Eyes

Submitted: 10th November 2025

Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser

Reading this book will give you a renewed sense of what it’s like to visit a museum and really see what you find there. Have you been to modern art museums? Ones with famous paintings and iconic statues? Can you say that you really saw what you looked at there? Did it speak to you?

Mona's Eyes Thomas Schlesser

In Mona’s Eyes, we visit the famous Louvre Museum in Paris:

You might want to take the lessons that are explored by Mona’s grandfather. He takes the young girl to a museum to look at just one work of art. Just one. Every time they visit, they will look at one work of art, talk about it, consider it and remember it. To really appreciate what they are seeing and to avoid rushing through them all like the large crowds are apt to do.

This way of art appreciation has a sad backstory however – Mona’s grandfather is doing this as the poor girl is going blind and he wants to imprint the beauty of as much art as he can in her mind so that she will be able to see and remember it once she looses her sight.

The grandfather says:

“Mona, every week we’ll go to the museum together to see a work of art – a single work of art, only one. These people around us want to gobble it all up in one go, and they get lost not knowing how to moderate their desires. We’ll be much wiser, much more reasonable.”

They go to see this famous Botticelli painting of Venus and the Three Graces

Venus and the Three Graces (c) Wikipedia

Mona’s grandfather tells us to look at them closely, telling her that they don’t exist in real life but that they are deities representing the three stages of what it means to be human – how to give, how to receive and how to give back.

She is shown the painting she shares a name with – the famous Mona Lisa. It’s such an iconic image now but do you really see it?

Mona Lisa (c) Wikipedia

He encourages her to look at not just the smile but the colours and how the painting makes her feel. What’s interesting is that he invites her to look at the background….something that not many of us would ever think of really and think of why the colours are so dark and why the sky could never be electric blue ( no electricity at the time and artists painted by candelight)

They also visit this famous museum across the river:

It’s here that she learns to appreciate statues and the meaning of life and death…

Also featured is the Beauborg area where the ateliers are and the Pompidou centre:

This book is like a guide of art appreciation as well as a tour of Paris’ artistic treasures. One to take on holiday and also a memory of what you have seen when you return.

A unique art lesson in novel form.