Mona Lisa’s Star! (Pentelbury’s Pentacle Perception Theory of Enduring Art Forms)

Mona Lisa’s Star!
(Pentelbury’s Pentacle Perception Theory of Enduring Art Forms)

Mona Lisa smiles. She embodies the sensual/sexual, action/adventure, romance/sentiment, intellectual/esoteric, and spiritual/wisdom of all ages. And then there's her humor. Ha! We often wonder just what the heck it is that she finds so amusing!

So we diagram a star. It has five fingers, five points.

At each of its respective points we pause to jot down labels.

“You’ll want some action,” Penelope says, with a little smile at the intended double entendre.

So at an arbitrary point we write: Sensual/Sexual.

“That’d be an adventure,” I respond, thinking of knights of the quest, and beating down demons.

And so at another point we write: Action/Adventure.

“But without romance, it wouldn’t appeal to me,” Penelope affirms.

“I can share that sentiment,” I smile.

Given the third point we write: Romance/Sentiment.

“Are you referring to past, or future?” she asks, esoterically. We both know what she means.

So at a fourth point we write: Intellectual/Esoteric.

“Depends,” I say. “It’d need to have significance to a larger whole.”

And at the fifth we write: Spiritual/Wisdom.

She looks at me. “A larger whole. Do you mean the whole to reach for, or the hole to disappear into?” and she winks.

We both burst out laughing!

So we place a little smile in the star's centre.

As such we perceive our stars, our evaluation of things artistic and long-lived. To each of the five points we ascribe the values that keep great art alive. We have our five basic interests, and we yoke these predominant proclivities of ours with an intrinsic humour, like drawing in the star's center a stuck out little tongue. And as with all stars, we lick and stick and keep and signify and value such art forms, wherever we receive or encounter one as worthy of being called star-worthy. And as atavistic in our realization as we are, our innate perception of its pentacle-like form applies to the longevity of things, classically, it seems to me.

Now, try doing it (drawing that star that is) with your own fingers! Mona Lisa, indeed, smiles. Ha!