How are you?
On every Thursday, I am
introducing the stories about various artists and their paintings with the
title “Interesting Art Stories”.
The 3rd story for this week is
"Mona Lisa" by Italian artist of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci.
The Mona Lisa is a portrait
painted by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is considered an archetypal
masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, and the most famous, the most visited,
the most written about, and the most parodied artwork in the world. The portrait was taken over by
King Francis I of France and has been displayed at the Louvre Museum in Paris
since 1797.
Mona Lisa in Louvre Museum
The title of the painting, “Mona
Lisa,” came from an Italian polite expression “Mona,” which is similar to
“Madam,” and the name “Lisa”.
However, the confirmation that Da
Vinci was an actual painter of the “Mona Lisa” and when it was created was only
made recently. It was estimated that Da Vinci
had painted it from 1503 to 1506, but there are claims that he may have
continued working until 1517, or that it would not have been even started
before 1513.
This fascinating portrait of Da
Vinci has become one of the most famous paintings in the world since the day of
its creation, but it also contains many mysteries that have not been resolved
to date.
One of them is “Who is the
model?”, and this question has raised huge controversy. There are many claims
about the model in the painting over the years, but art historians have not
confirmed the identity of the model in the painting yet.
The figures suggested as the
model include Da Vinci’s mother Caterina, Princess Isabella of Naples, Spanish
Costanza d’Avalos, an assistant of Da Vinci, or one of his male lovers, and
some claim that it is a self-portrait of the artist.
But in 2005, after art historians
discovered a note written by Da Vinci, the highest possibility became “Lisa del
Giocondo (Lisa Gherardini)”, an Italian noblewoman who was a member of
Gherardini Family and the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a wealthy businessman
from Florence.
Because the note says that Da
Vinci is working on a portrait at the request of her husband who wanted to
celebrate the birth of second child. Francesco, who lived near Da
Vinci, seems to have commissioned that the painting be made to celebrate the
birth of their second son, Andrea, after moving to a new house.
The painting is also famous for
its mysterious smile that disappears depending on the viewing angle, and the
mystery of the famous smile has excited people for centuries.
The cause of this smile seems to
be due to a technique called "sfumato", blending paint pigments
around the model's eyes and mouth, used by Da Vinci, who was a scientist as
well as a painter. The term “sfumato” came from an
Italian word “fumo (smoke)” and is a technical method of softening transitions
between colors without distinguishing them clearly in the painting.According to the infrared
inspection of the painting, it turned out that the smile seems to be flickering
due to the technique when people blink.
Mona Lisa using sfumato, particularly in the shading around the eyes
Experts also argue that as a
result of magnifying the eyes of the “Mona Lisa” with a microscope, they were
able to see small letters and numbers similar to those in the “Da Vinci Code”
made of both novel and film. That is, the letter LV is visible in the right
eye, and many undefined symbols are visible in the other eye.
Even more surprising, in 2015, a
French scientist who analyzed the Mona Lisa using reflective light technology
claimed to have found another woman's portrait underneath the Mona Lisa
painting. The consensus is that it was Da
Vinci's "first draft" and he painted the Mona Lisa on it.
The image of another woman underneath Mona Lisa
There are several versions of
Mona Lisa, two of which are “Prado Mona Lisa” and “Isleworth Mona Lisa”.
Prado Mona Lisa is a version of
the Mona Lisa held by the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, and has been
considered the work of Da Vinci for centuries. However, since its restoration
in 2012, it was alleged that one of the pupils of Da Vinci painted it in his
studio at the same time when Da Vinci was drawing the Mona Lisa.
Mona Lisa (Prado)
Isleworth Mona Lisa, also known
as the "Earlier Mona Lisa", was claimed to be the unfinished work of
the Mona Lisa partially painted by Da Vinci, and the Mona Lisa at the Louvre
was later version of it.
Isleworth Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa is one of the most
valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guinness World Record with the
highest insurance valuation in history at US$100 million in 1962 (equivalent to
US$650 million in 2018).
Thank you.
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