Saved Rounds February 2025: Beauty

A few weeks ago, I clicked on an article about the deteriorating condition of the Louvre, which is putting priceless works of art at risk. According to a leaked letter from the museum’s director to the French Minister of Culture, the palace is aging and worn down by the staggering number of visitors—upwards of 10 million a year. It’s safe to say that most of them, moi included, are there for one reason: to see the world’s most famous painting, The Mona Lisa.

There’s now talk of relocating Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece while the Louvre undergoes a much-needed renovation. You can already hear the skeptics grumbling: I heard it was underwhelming. Hard to believe it’s the most written about, sung about, and parodied artwork of all time. And if you’ve ever inched your way through a chaotic crowd just to glimpse the heavily protected, diminutive 30 x 21-inch oil painting — the pinnacle of the Italian Renaissance — you might have wondered the same thing: Why this painting? Why is this the chosen one?

It’s often said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, a phrase that underscores the subjective nature of what we deem beautiful. And while I believe that’s largely true, I also think objective beauty can exist. Speaking of eyes, let’s talk about the ones possessed by da Vinci himself—and how he put them to work, quite literally looking beneath the surface. His insatiable curiosity led him to study cadavers, meticulously dissecting the human form to understand its unseen structures, all to better inform his art. The depth and breadth of his achievements are staggering. How did one man accomplish so much in 67 years? He certainly wasn’t doom-scrolling or watching mindless reels.

It’s hard to believe, but around this time five years ago, Jason and I traveled to Paris for a long weekend to attend a special exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of da Vinci’s death. This time, we purposely skipped the pilgrimage to La Joconde, choosing instead to study the works that came before it—masterpieces in their own right. As we walked through room after room filled with intricate sketches, notes scrawled backwards, and countless unfinished ideas, I had a realization: The Mona Lisa isn’t just a thing of beauty. Maybe that’s the real lesson of The Mona Lisa: that beauty—true mastery—takes time, patience, and relentless curiosity. No shortcuts, no instant gratification. Only years of obsessive refinement.

I can’t help but think about something else I read earlier this year about one of the world’s most successful men admitting that his biggest regret is the loss of the relationship that saw him through it all. “There is a certain wonderfulness to spending your entire adult life with one person because of the memories and depth of things you have done and having kids together,” Mr. Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, told The Times of London in a recent interview.

Perhaps the beauty of it all, be it a work of art or a deep connection with another living being, lies in the struggle and the commitment to keep at it for as long as possible, through all the imperfect drafts, until what you have is something priceless.