That Mona Lisa Strangeness
500 years ago Leonardo (di ser Piero) da Vinci left us the enigmatic painting known as ‘Mona Lisa’ or ‘La Gioconda’ (1503–1519). It’s now the most famous painting in the world, but is it really that great?
Well, yes…
Leonardo worked on the Mona Lisa for fifteen years or more and died in its presence. The King of France acquired the painting and it remained in the royal collection, hanging first at the Palace of Fontainebleau and then Versailles until the people’s revolution overthrew the monarchy in 1792 and made the painting a state owned, public art treasure — to become the centrepiece of the Louvre collection.
It may not be to your taste, but it embodies many technical innovations that had not been seen before, though have been used by nearly all portrait painters since. It also has an enigma surrounding it and lots of entertaining stories and speculation. It has become more than a historically important work of art, being elevated to the status of cultural icon, a ‘household name’.
When it was first shown to the public, many people thought that some magic had been used in its making, that somehow a real woman had been captured in oils, her very soul animating the picture… This was…
