MONA LISA, A MYSTERIOUS ART
The Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the history of art. Most people know that Mona Lisa painting is created by Leonardo da Vinci, but the identity of the woman still remains unknown. But the most commonly believed that woman was Lisa del Giocondo, born in 1479. She was a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany, and the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo and she was 24 years old and the mother of two sons when she posed for the painting. The painting is thought to have been commissioned for their new home, and to celebrate the birth of their second son. Leonardo da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa in 1503 or 1504 in Florence, Italy. Now the painting is the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at The Louvre museum in Paris since 1797.
The painting was stolen on 21st August 1991 and the thief was caught after two years, Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia had stolen it. Peruggia was an Italian patriot who believed Leonardo’s painting should be returned to Italy for display in an Italian museum. In 1956, part of the painting was damaged when a vandal threw acid at it. On 30 December of that same year, the painting was damaged again when a rock was thrown at it, resulting in the loss of a speck of pigment near the left elbow, which was later restored.
Mona Lisa painting is the highest insured painting in the world which was seen by 6 million people per year all over the world. Leonardo da Vinci said once the Mona Lisa was his best part of the art and he carried the painting whenever he travelled, if asked why he replied that he found hard to paint the most sublime expression of female beauty. The background behind her face was uneven on the both sides because Mona Lisa looks much larger from left side than from right side. If you see the painting of Mona Lisa from any direction, her eyes will always point you.
Mona Lisa’s smile has repeatedly been a subject of many greatly varying interpretations. Some have described the smile as both innocent and inviting. Many researchers have tried to explain why the smile is seen so differently by people. The explanations range from scientific theories about human vision to curious supposition about Mona Lisa’s identity and feelings. In late 2005, Dutch researchers ran the painting’s image through “emotion recognition” computer software. The technology demonstration found the smile to be 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful, 2% angry, less than 1% neutral, and 0% surprised.
The magnified high-resolution images of the Mona Lisa’s eyes, letters and numbers can be seen. To the naked eye the symbols are not visible but with a magnifying glass they can clearly be seen. In the right eye appear to be the letters LV which could well stand for his name Leonardo Da Vinci while in the left eye there are also symbols but they are not as defined.
Mona Lisa has no clearly visible eyebrows or eyelashes. Some researchers claim that it was common at this time for genteel women to pluck these hairs, as they were considered unsightly but ultra high-resolution scans of the painting provide evidence that Mona Lisa was originally painted with eyelashes and with better visible eyebrows, but that these had gradually disappeared over time, perhaps as a result of over cleaning.
The close view of her left hand reveals a change in the position of the left index and middle finger and the left finger was not completely finished. Some research says that Mona Lisa is actually a self-portrait of da Vinci with the results of a digital analysis of the facial features of the woman in the painting and those of the famous possible self-portrait drawing by Leonardo. When the drawing of self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci is reversed and then merged with an image of the Mona Lisa using a computer, the features of the faces align perfectly and some advanced research wanted to dig da Vinci’s skull and rebuild by the use of CSI-style technology to see if he resemble with Mona Lisa’s face
Still lots of research in progress regarding the Mona Lisa painting even though we had lots of technologies developed and the image was analysed in different ways by different researchers. The mystery of clever art Mona Lisa is unsolved all through the history of times.
Originally published at vikneswaranblog.wordpress.com on November 11, 2015.
