The Mona Lisa in 30 seconds

I just heard the tail end of a talk on BBC Radio 3, during which the speaker seemed to lament the very brief period that the average viewer spends in front of one of the world’s most famous paintings, the Mona Lisa.

Apparently, when the painting was in Japan in the 1970s, the average time spent by the viewer was 30 seconds, while at the Louvre (where it is housed), the average time is 15 seconds.

Does this show that the average viewer is not interested in the painting, or that the main interest lies in being able to say that he or she had seen it, as a famous art critic once argued?

Or is there, perhaps, another interpretation as well?

Perhaps part of the reason lies in the power of the visual image, and its ability to give a great deal of knowledge even after a very brief viewing, because the visual brain is so well developed and can acquire so much knowledge over very brief periods of time. After all, volumes of writing on the Mona Lisa will not give the same information and knowledge that a few seconds of actual viewing does.

Some of the most beautiful segments in symphonic works last but a few seconds and yet are experienced as beautiful and emotionally arousing. Why shouldn’t a visual image do the same?

I do not deny the fact that many want to view the Mona Lisa or Michelangelo’s Pietà at St Peter’s Basilica just to be able to say that they have seen it.

But it is equally rash to deny the huge efficiency of the visual brain, which allows the average viewer to obtain a great deal of knowledge through such a brief viewing.