The 500 year old, most exalted lady sitting right there in the famous gallary of Louvre Museum of Paris - Mona Lisa. This half potrait of a woman was painted generously enough by the greatest italian painter, Leonardo Da Vinci between 1503 and 1506. The painting has been displayed in Louvre Museum since 1797.
The sitter's mysterious smile and her unproven identity have made the painting the most talked about, the most seen, the most famous and the most fascinating artwork of all time. Many believe that it is a potrait of Lisa del Giocondo, wife of Francesco Del Giocondo. There are also rumours that it is a self portrait of Leonardo Da Vinci, while some suggest that there was no model at all, and that Leonardo was painting an ideal woman.
The ambigious smile, is the parodied work in the whole potrait and it is recently revealed by the scientists that the smile becomes mysterious because of the viewer's eyes. At the first gaze your eyes's fovea will be at the sitter's eyes while your imprecise peripherial vision will pick up the image of the lips. But here the peripherial image cannot distinguish fine details and hence it mistakes it as a smile by looking at the shadow of the cheekbones. But as soon as you return your gaze to the lips, your fovea sees the fine details. Ureca! the beautiful imaginary smile turns upside down. So in simple words, when you look at her eyes, she looks like smiling, but when you look at her lips, she isn't smiling.
A French Engineer, Pascal Cotte, spent more than 10 years of research on the scanned painting with a 240 megapixel multi spectral camera which he invented. The camera uses 13 wavelength from ultraviolet light to infrared. He has peeled the painting like an onion taking out all the layers, hence trying to decipher the steps that leonardo took while painting this portrait. People have questioned in past, why are there no eyebrows or eyelashes, to which Pascal found that eyebrows were painted, but it was just a single brushstroke, hence appears very light.
Some Conclusions about the Painting
- The subject's right arm which lies across her stomach is holding a cover with her wrist.
- Mona lisa is wearing a veil(little transparent) which is painted to cover the mountains.
- There is a change in the position of the left index and middle finger.
- There are many repairs done in the painting out of which one is her elbow which gpot damaged due to a stone thrown at the painting during 1956.
- There is a blanket which covers Mona Lisa's knees as well as her stomach.
- The way she put her right hand around her stomach, could have some meaning as well, but artists around the world just happily accepted it to be the portrait pose and still is.
Some other Versions
Mona Lisa have had many other versions over its lifetime claiming to be real or painted alongside Leonardo with the original. Picture 1 shows the version which is displaed in Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, showing columns on both sides of the subject. Picture 2 is a restored copy of La Gioconda, believed to be painted by apprentice of Leonardo alongside him painting the original Monalisa.
The uncatchable mystery is unfolding gradually with increase in technology and research. But yes, getting this solved doesn't make the Mona Lisa to be less fascinating around the world. It is believed to be the painting that every street's corner house kid knows about and always will. Vive le Mona lisa!
