Author: Yanxuan Lin

I think the reason that people disappoint to “Mona Lisa” is they need to wait for a such long line to reach out a painting which they may already see a hundred times on media or internet. A  simply hanging painting cannot make them satisfied anymore. I don’t feel like that building a pavilion for her is a perfect way to solve. Because of the reputation of Mona Lisa, people will still swarm to visit her. But it may be the most available way. Of course, it’s also a good way to make money. When the Mona Lisa was housed alone, people had to pay more to see it. And restrictions can arouse people’s curiosity. But this is just a palliative way.

First I noticed that the gothic church was fired, I was regretful. It was carrying thousands of years of history and art. I done think that rebuilding it in modern style is a good idea.  Because as time goes, people will gradually forget its original. And nobody will ever know about the gothic church. I remember few days ago that shuri castle, which is Japanese rebuilt castle ,was destroyed again by fire. Why do people want to rebuild those historic buildings again and again. They want to keep their history and their art to let people know about that.

       The Bust of Commodus as Hercules is showing how Commodus wanted power. On the sculpture, Commodus is covered by lion skin. There is a mace on his right hand and some fruits on his left. And the sculpture was finely sculpted muscle texture. Symbols of power are everywhere. According to “the Life of Commodus in Lampridius’s biography Historia Augusta”, shows how Commodus did every sort of evil thing. He got the fund for gaming but lying to people. In Section 10, “For example, he put a starling on the head of one man who, as he noticed, had a few white hairs, resembling worms, among the black, and caused his head to fester through the continual pecking of the bird’s beak — the bird, of course, imagining that it was pursuing worms. One corpulent person, he cut open down the middle of his belly, so that his intestines gushed forth.” He arbitrarily killed people. He was vicious and didn’t care about people’s life. Therefore, Commodus grew weary of the emperor’s work and suspected the upper classes of plotting against him. He asked the prefect of the guards to take care of his affairs. But He indulged in hunting and recreation and was quite keen on gladiatorial activities. I think that the twilight of Commodus’s reign was the prelude to the fall of the Roman empire.