the 4th ninja turtle...

this weekend fate, and the chunnel, brought me to paris. paris is truly a beautiful city... the french attitude, on the other hand, i could do without. anyhow, i don't really care to discuss the french... i'm more interested in turtles.

i spent today day strolling through the Louvre, and for the first time i saw it: mona lisa's smle. =] . and i finally realized the power of that smile that has fascinated all her admirers, not to mention the profound skill of leonardo da vinci. mona lisa looks at you as if she knows something about you, and she's sending you a knowing smile, or perhaps it's even a smirk. the more you look at that painting, the more it messes with your head. she's smiling, then she's not smiling, smile, no, yes, no... it's pretty cool, but you feel like you're going crazy.

in the end i concluded that it's definitely a smile, so i moved on. i was in the section of italian renaissance art, and i began searching for the masterpieces. sadly, my knowledge of art history is quite limited, but i do remember one thing well: the teenage mutant ninja turtles. as everyone certainly knows, those courageous freaks of nature were named after master italian renaissance artists. i figured that if i could find all of the works made by the four ninja turle namesakes i'd cover my bases and see the best of what the renaissance had to offer. only one problem: what the heck was the name of the fourth ninja turtle? Leonardo, Donatello, Michealangelo...