May 6th, 2017

Her enigmatic smile is mesmerizing. Some see it as divine beauty, others - secret signs, others - a challenge to norms and society. But everyone agrees on one thing - there is something mysterious and attractive in it.

What is the secret of the Mona Lisa? Versions are countless. Here are the most common and intriguing.

This enigmatic masterpiece has puzzled researchers and art historians for centuries. Now, Italian scientists have added another aspect of intrigue by claiming that da Vinci left a series of very small letters and numbers in the painting. When viewed under a microscope, the letters LV can be seen in Mona Lisa's right eye.

And in the left eye there are also some symbols, but not as noticeable as the others. They resemble the letters CE or the letter B.

On the arch of the bridge, against the background of the picture, there is an inscription either “72”, or “L2” or the letter L, and the number 2. Also in the picture there is the number 149 and the fourth erased number after them.

Today, this painting, 77x53 cm in size, is stored in the Louvre behind thick bulletproof glass. The image, made on a poplar board, is covered with a grid of craquelures. It survived a number of not very successful restorations and darkened noticeably over five centuries. However, the older the picture becomes, the more people it attracts: the Louvre is visited annually by 8-9 million people.

Yes, and Leonardo himself did not want to part with the Mona Lisa, and perhaps this is the first time in history when the author did not give the work to the customer, despite the fact that he took the fee. The first owner of the picture - after the author - King Francis I of France was also delighted with the portrait. He bought it from da Vinci for incredible money at that time - 4000 gold coins and placed it in Fontainebleau.

Napoleon was also fascinated by Madame Lisa (as he called Gioconda) and transferred her to his chambers in the Tuileries Palace. And the Italian Vincenzo Peruggia in 1911 stole a masterpiece from the Louvre, took it to his homeland and hid with her for two whole years until he was detained while trying to transfer the picture to the director of the Uffizi Gallery ... In a word, at all times the portrait of a Florentine lady attracted, hypnotized, delighted. ..

What is the secret of her attraction?

Version #1: classic

The first mention of the Mona Lisa we find in the author of the famous "Biographies" Giorgio Vasari. From his work, we learn that Leonardo undertook "to complete for Francesco del Giocondo a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, and after working on it for four years, left it incomplete."

The writer admired the skill of the artist, his ability to show "the smallest details that the subtlety of painting can convey", and most importantly, the smile, which "is so pleasant that it seems as if you are contemplating a divine rather than a human being." The art historian explains the secret of her charm by the fact that “while painting the portrait, he (Leonardo) kept people who played the lyre or sang, and there were always jesters who supported her cheerfulness and removed the melancholy that painting usually imparts to the portraits performed.” There is no doubt: Leonardo is an unsurpassed master, and the crown of his skill is this divine portrait. In the image of his heroine there is a duality inherent in life itself: the modesty of the pose is combined with a bold smile, which becomes a kind of challenge to society, canons, art ...

But is it really the wife of the silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, whose surname became the second name of this mysterious lady? Is the story about the musicians who created the right mood for our heroine true? Skeptics dispute all this, referring to the fact that Vasari was an 8-year-old boy when Leonardo died. He could not personally know the artist or his model, so he presented only information given by the anonymous author of the first biography of Leonardo. Meanwhile, the writer and in other biographies there are controversial places. Take, for example, the story of Michelangelo's broken nose. Vasari writes that Pietro Torrigiani hit a classmate because of his talent, and Benvenuto Cellini explains the injury with his arrogance and arrogance: copying the frescoes of Masaccio, in the lesson he ridiculed every image, for which he got in the nose from Torrigiani. In favor of Cellini's version is the complex character of Buonarroti, about whom there were legends.

Version #2: Chinese mother

Lisa del Giocondo (nee Gherardini) really existed. Italian archaeologists even claim to have found her tomb in the monastery of Saint Ursula in Florence. But is she in the picture? A number of researchers claim that Leonardo painted the portrait from several models, because when he refused to give the painting to the Giocondo cloth merchant, it remained unfinished. The master improved his work all his life, adding features and other models - thus he received a collective portrait of the ideal woman of his era.

The Italian scientist Angelo Paratico went further. He is sure that Mona Lisa is Leonardo's mother, who was actually ... Chinese. The researcher spent 20 years in the East, studying the connection of local traditions with the Italian Renaissance, and found documents showing that Leonardo's father, the notary Piero, had a wealthy client, and that he had a slave that he brought from China. Her name was Katerina - she became the mother of a Renaissance genius. It is precisely by the fact that Eastern blood flowed in Leonardo's veins that the researcher explains the famous "Leonardo's handwriting" - the ability of the master to write from right to left (this is how entries in his diaries were made). The researcher also saw oriental features in the face of the model, and in the landscape behind her. Paratico proposes to exhume Leonardo's remains and analyze his DNA to confirm his theory.

The official version says that Leonardo was the son of the notary Piero and the "local peasant woman" Katerina. He could not marry a rootless woman, but married a girl from a noble family with a dowry, but she turned out to be barren. Katerina raised the child for the first few years of his life, and then the father took his son to his house. Almost nothing is known about Leonardo's mother. But, indeed, there is an opinion that the artist, separated from his mother in early childhood, tried all his life to recreate the image and smile of his mother in his paintings. This assumption was made by Sigmund Freud in the book “Childhood Memories. Leonardo da Vinci" and it has won many supporters among art historians.

Version #3: Mona Lisa is a man

Viewers often note that in the image of Mona Lisa, despite all the tenderness and modesty, there is some kind of masculinity, and the face of the young model, almost devoid of eyebrows and eyelashes, seems boyish. The famous researcher of the Mona Lisa Silvano Vincenti believes that this is no accident. He is sure that Leonardo posed ... a young man in a woman's dress. And this is none other than Salai, a student of da Vinci, painted by him in the paintings “John the Baptist” and “Angel in the Flesh”, where the young man is endowed with the same smile as Mona Lisa. The art historian, however, made such a conclusion not only because of the external similarity of the models, but after studying high-resolution photographs, which made it possible to discern Vincenti in the eyes of the model L and S - the first letters of the names of the author of the picture and the young man depicted on it, according to the expert .

"John the Baptist" Leonardo Da Vinci (Louvre)

This version is also supported by a special relationship - Vasari hinted at them - a model and an artist, which, perhaps, connected Leonardo and Salai. Da Vinci was unmarried and had no children. At the same time, there is a denunciation document where an anonymous person accuses the artist of sodomy over a certain 17-year-old boy, Jacopo Saltarelli.

Leonardo had several students, with some of them he was more than close, according to a number of researchers. Freud also talks about homosexuality of Leonardo, who supports this version with a psychiatric analysis of the biography and the diary of the genius of the Renaissance. Da Vinci's notes about Salai are also seen as an argument in favor. There is even a version that da Vinci left a portrait of Salai (since the painting is mentioned in the will of the master’s student), and from him the painting came to Francis I.

By the way, the same Silvano Vincenti put forward another assumption: as if the picture depicts a certain woman from the retinue of Ludovik Sforza, at whose court in Milan Leonardo worked as an architect and engineer in 1482-1499. This version appeared after Vincenti saw the numbers 149 on the back of the canvas. According to the researcher, this is the date the painting was painted, only the last number was erased. Traditionally, it is believed that the master began to paint Gioconda in 1503.

However, there are many other candidates for the title of Mona Lisa who compete with Salai: these are Isabella Gualandi, Ginevra Benci, Constanta d'Avalos, the whore Caterina Sforza, a certain secret mistress of Lorenzo Medici and even Leonardo's nurse.

Version number 4: Gioconda is Leonardo

Another unexpected theory hinted at by Freud was confirmed in the studies of the American Lillian Schwartz. Mona Lisa is a self-portrait, Lilian is sure. An artist and graphic consultant at the School of Visual Arts in New York in the 1980s compared the famous "Turin Self-Portrait" of a now quite elderly artist and a portrait of Mona Lisa and found that the proportions of the faces (head shape, distance between the eyes, forehead height) are the same.

And in 2009, Lillian, along with amateur historian Lynn Picknett, presented the public with another incredible sensation: she claims that the Shroud of Turin is nothing more than a print of Leonardo's face, made using silver sulfate on the principle of a camera obscura.

However, not many supported Lillian in her research - these theories are not among the most popular, in contrast to the following assumption.

Version #5: Down Syndrome Masterpiece

Gioconda suffered from Down's disease - this was the conclusion in the 1970s by the English photographer Leo Vala after he came up with a method that allows you to "turn" the Mona Lisa in profile.

At the same time, the Danish doctor Finn Becker-Christianson diagnosed Gioconda with his diagnosis: congenital facial paralysis. An asymmetrical smile, in his opinion, speaks of mental disorders up to idiocy.

In 1991, the French sculptor Alain Roche decided to embody the Mona Lisa in marble, but nothing came of it. It turned out that from a physiological point of view, everything in the model is wrong: the face, the arms, and the shoulders. Then the sculptor turned to the physiologist, Professor Henri Greppo, who attracted Jean-Jacques Conte, a specialist in hand microsurgery. Together they came to the conclusion that the right hand of the mysterious woman does not rest on the left, because it is possibly shorter and could be prone to convulsions. Conclusion: the right half of the model's body is paralyzed, which means that the mysterious smile is also just a cramp.

The gynecologist Julio Cruz and Ermida collected a complete "medical record" of Gioconda in his book "A look at Gioconda through the eyes of a doctor." The result is such a terrible picture that it is not clear how this woman lived at all. According to various researchers, she suffered from alopecia (hair loss), high blood cholesterol, exposure of the neck of her teeth, loosening and falling out, and even alcoholism. She had Parkinson's disease, lipoma (a benign fatty tumor on her right arm), strabismus, cataracts and iris heterochromia (different eye color) and asthma.

However, who said that Leonardo was anatomically accurate - what if the secret of genius is precisely in this disproportion?

Version number 6: a child under the heart

There is another polar "medical" version - pregnancy. American gynecologist Kenneth D. Keel is sure that Mona Lisa crossed her arms over her stomach reflexively trying to protect her unborn baby. The probability is high, because Lisa Gherardini had five children (the first-born, by the way, was named Piero). A hint of the legitimacy of this version can be found in the title of the portrait: Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo (Italian) - "Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo." Monna is an abbreviation for ma donna - Madonna, mother of God (although it also means "my lady", lady). Art critics often explain the genius of the painting just by the fact that it depicts an earthly woman in the image of the Mother of God.

Version #7: Iconographic

However, the theory that the Mona Lisa is an icon where an earthly woman took the place of the Mother of God is popular in itself. This is the genius of the work and therefore it has become a symbol of the beginning of a new era in art. Previously, art served the church, power and nobility. Leonardo proves that the artist is above all this, that the most valuable thing is the creative idea of ​​the master. And the great idea is to show the duality of the world, and the image of Mona Lisa, which combines divine and earthly beauty, serves as a means for this.

Version #8: Leonardo is the creator of 3D

This combination was achieved using a special technique invented by Leonardo - sfumato (from Italian - "disappearing like smoke"). It was this pictorial technique, when paints are applied layer by layer, that allowed Leonardo to create an aerial perspective in the picture. The artist applied countless layers of these layers, and each was almost transparent. Thanks to this technique, light is reflected and scattered across the canvas in different ways - depending on the angle of view and the angle of incidence of light. Therefore, the facial expression of the model is constantly changing.

Mona Lisa is the first 3D painting in history, the researchers conclude. Another technical breakthrough of a genius who foresaw and tried to bring to life many inventions embodied centuries later (aircraft, tank, diving suit, etc.). This is also evidenced by the version of the portrait kept in the Madrid Prado Museum, written either by da Vinci himself or by his student. It depicts the same model - only the angle is shifted by 69 cm. Thus, experts believe, they were looking for the right point in the image, which will give the 3D effect.

Version number 9: secret signs

Secret signs are a favorite topic of Mona Lisa researchers. Leonardo is not just an artist, he is an engineer, inventor, scientist, writer, and he probably encoded some universal secrets in his best pictorial creation. The most daring and incredible version was made in the book, and then in the movie The Da Vinci Code. This is, of course, a fictional novel. However, researchers are constantly building no less fantastic assumptions based on certain symbols found in the picture.

Many assumptions are connected with the fact that another one is hidden under the image of Mona Lisa. For example, the figure of an angel, or a feather in the hands of a model. There is also a curious version of Valery Chudinov, who discovered in the Mona Lisa the words Yara Mara - the name of the Russian pagan goddess.

Version #10: cropped landscape

Many versions are connected with the landscape, against which the Mona Lisa is depicted. The researcher Igor Ladov discovered a cyclicity in it: it seems that it is worth drawing several lines to connect the edges of the landscape. Just a couple of centimeters is not enough for everything to fit together. But after all, on the version of the painting from the Prado Museum there are columns that, apparently, were in the original. Nobody knows who cut the picture. If they are returned, the image becomes a cyclical landscape, which symbolizes that human life (in the global sense) is enchanted just like everything else in nature...

It seems that there are as many versions of the mystery of the Mona Lisa as there are people trying to explore the masterpiece. There was a place for everything: from admiration for unearthly beauty to the recognition of complete pathology. Everyone finds something of their own in Gioconda, and perhaps this is where the multidimensionality and semantic layering of the canvas manifested itself, which gives everyone the opportunity to turn on their imagination. Meanwhile, the secret of Mona Lisa remains the property of this mysterious lady, with a slight smile on her lips...

Today, experts say that the elusive half-smile of the Gioconda is a deliberately created effect that Leonardo da Vinci used more than once. This version arose after the recent discovery of an early work, La Bella Principessa (The Beautiful Princess), in which the artist uses a similar optical illusion.

The mystery of Mona Lisa's smile is that it is noticeable only when the viewer looks above the woman's mouth in the portrait, but once you look at the smile itself, it disappears. Scientists explain this with an optical illusion, which is created by a complex combination of colors and shades. This is facilitated by the features of the peripheral vision of a person.

Da Vinci created the effect of an elusive smile through the use of the so-called “sfumato” (“obscure”, “indefinite”) technique - blurry outlines and specially applied shadows around the lips and eyes visually change depending on the angle from which a person looks at the picture. So the smile comes and goes.

For a long time, scientists argued about whether this effect was created consciously and intentionally. Discovered in 2009, the portrait of La Bella Principessa proves that da Vinci practiced this technique long before the creation of the Mona Lisa. On the face of the girl - the same barely noticeable half-smile, like Mona Lisa.

Comparing the two paintings, scientists concluded that da Vinci also applied the effect of peripheral vision there: the shape of the lips visually changes depending on the angle of view. If you look directly at the lips - the smile is not noticeable, but if you look higher - the corners of the mouth seem to rise up, and the smile appears again.

Professor of psychology and expert in visual perception Alessandro Soranzo (Great Britain) writes: "A smile disappears as soon as the viewer tries to catch it." Under his leadership, scientists conducted a series of experiments.

To demonstrate the optical illusion in action, volunteers were asked to look at da Vinci's canvases from different distances and, for comparison, at the painting by his contemporary Pollaiolo "Portrait of a Girl". The smile was only noticeable in da Vinci paintings, depending on a certain angle of view. When blurring images, the same effect was observed. Professor Soranzo has no doubt that this is an optical illusion deliberately created by da Vinci, and he developed this technique over several years.

sources

A lot of great works were created by artists in different eras. Madame Lisa del Giocondo, depicted more than five hundred years ago, is surrounded by such fame that it is perhaps the most famous work in the absolute sense of the word. There is no exaggeration here. But what do we know about the life that Lisa del Giocondo led? Her biography will be presented to your attention.

Family

Antonmaria di Noldo Gherardini - Lisa's father, twice widowed. In his first marriage he was married to Lisa di Giovanni Filippo de Carducci, and in his second to Caterina di Mariotto Rucellia, both of whom died in childbirth. The third marriage took place in 1476 with Lucrezia del Cacio. The Gherardini family was ancient, aristocratic, but impoverished and lost its influence in Florence. It was quite wealthy and enjoyed the income of farms in Chianti, which produced olive oil, wine, wheat and cattle.

Lisa Gherardini was the oldest child and was born on June 15, 1479 on the Via Maggio. She was named after her paternal grandmother. In addition to her, the family had three sisters and three brothers.

The family, living in Florence, moved several times and finally settled next door to Piero da Vinci, Leonardo's father.

Lisa's marriage

March 5, 1495, when the girl was 15 years old, Lisa married Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo.

She became his third wife. Her dowry was modest and consisted of 170 florins and the San Silvestro farm, which was located near the country house of the Giocondo family. One might think that the groom did not pursue wealth, but simply fell in love with a modest girl from a family that did not have a significant fortune. In addition, he was much older than his young wife - at the time of marriage he was 30 years old.

What did the Giocondo family do?

They were silk and clothing merchants. In addition, Francesco del Giocondo owned farms, which were located in Castellina in Chianti and San Donato in Poggio, next to two farms that later became the property of Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Francesco began to climb higher up the social ladder and in 1512 was elected to the Signoria of Florence.

He probably had connections with the political and commercial interests of the powerful Medici family, because when the Florentine government feared their return from exile, Francesco was fined 1,000 florins and imprisoned. However, it was released when the power of the Medici was restored.

Family life

Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo lived her life in peace and harmony with her husband. She raised his son from his first wife, Camilla Ruchelai. Lisa's stepmother, Katerina and Camilla were sisters.

Lisa del Giocondo raised her own social status by her marriage, since the family into which she entered was significantly more wealthy than her own. Eight years later, in 1503, Francesco bought a new house for his family in Via della Stafa, next to his old house.

On the map of the historic center of Florence, the house where Francesco and Lisa lived is marked in red, and the houses of Lisa's parents are marked in purple. Initially, they were on the north bank, closer to the Arno River, and then south on the other coast.

The couple had five children: Piero, Camilla, Andrea, Giocondo and Marietta. Subsequently, Camilla and Marietta will be tonsured as nuns. Camilla, who took the name Beatrice during tonsure, died at the age of 18 and was buried in Santa Maria Novella. Marietta took the name Louis and became a respected member of the monastery of Sant'Orsola.

Illness and death

In 1538, Francesco died when the plague came to the city. Before his death, he ordered to return to his beloved wife her dowry, clothes and jewelry: Lisa del Giocondo, as a faithful and exemplary wife, should be provided with everything.

The exact date of Mrs. Lisa's death has not been established. There are suggestions that she died in 1542 at the age of 63. Another date of her death is approximately 1551, when she was 71-72 years old. She is buried in the monastery of Saint Ursula in Florence.

Portrait order

Like most Florentines who lived during the Italian Renaissance, Francesco Giocondo's family was passionate about art. Messire Francesco was friendly with Piero da Vinci. His son Leonardo, before returning to his native Florence in 1503, wandered around the Italian cities for a long time.

Through his father, they convey to him the wish that he paint a portrait of a young Florentine. Here he begins work on a portrait of the Mona Lisa. "Mona" is translated as "lady". Leonardo worked on it for more than one year. Vasari writes that he continued the work for four years, but perhaps even longer. How to find out who painted the Mona Lisa? This can be done by reading the "Biographies" of Giorgio Vasari. This is a universally recognized source, which is trusted by all art historians. Unfortunately, most Russians do not have the opportunity to visit the Louvre, where the world-famous portrait is located. If you look at the original, then all questions about how to find out who painted the Mona Lisa will disappear by themselves.

work of genius

What, in fact, is its magical effect and incomparable popularity? The picture seems to be extremely simple. She surprises with the absence of bright colors, luxurious clothes, as well as the low-key look of the model herself. All the attention of the viewer is focused on the intent, captivating gaze of a young woman, which is the intrigue and main attraction of this image.

The more we look at Lisa, the more there is a desire to penetrate into the depths of her consciousness. But this is an extremely difficult task. The model sets a precise line that the viewer cannot overcome. This is one of the main mysteries of the image. A smile and a look, that is, a face, is the main thing in a portrait. The position of the body, hands, landscape and more are details that are subordinate to the face. This is the magical mathematical skill of Leonardo: the model is with us in a certain relationship. It attracts and at the same time closes from the viewer. This is one of the wonders of this portrait.

Lisa del Giocondo: interesting facts

• The surname Giocondo is translated as "cheerful" or "joyful".
• The painting cannot be called a canvas because it is painted on a wooden board made of poplar.
• We see the figure and the landscape from different points of view. The model is straight, the background is on top.
• As for the landscape, there is no single point of view. Someone thinks that this is Tuscany, the valley of the Arno River; someone is convinced that this is the northern, mysterious Milanese landscape.
• Over the centuries, the color of the picture has changed. Now it is uniform, brownish. The lacquer that turned yellow over time, interacting with the blue pigment, changed the color of the landscape.
• Repeatedly returning to work on the portrait, the artist moved further and further away from the real model. The creator put all his ideas about the world into a generalized image. Before us is a symbolic representation of a person in the harmony of his mental and spiritual properties.
• The portrait, like all works by Leonardo, is not signed.
• The painting has no exact value. All attempts to evaluate it did not lead to a single result.
• In 1911, the work was stolen. The police did not find the painting or the thief. But in 1914 he voluntarily returned the work.

The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most famous paintings in the world.

This painting is now in the Louvre in Paris.

The creation of the picture and the model depicted on it were surrounded by many legends and rumors, and even today, when there are practically no white spots in the history of the Gioconda, myths and legends continue to circulate among many not particularly educated people.

Who is Mona Lisa?

The identity of the girl depicted today is quite known. It is believed that this is Lisa Gherardini, a famous resident of Florence, who belonged to an aristocratic, but impoverished family.

Gioconda is, apparently, her last name in marriage; her husband was a successful silk merchant, Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo. It is known that Lisa and her husband gave birth to six children and led a measured life, typical for wealthy citizens of Florence.

One might think that the marriage was concluded for love, but at the same time it had additional benefits for both spouses: Lisa married a representative of a wealthier family, and Francesco became related to an old family through her. More recently, in 2015, scientists also discovered the grave of Lisa Gherardini - near one of the old Italian churches.

Painting creation

Leonardo da Vinci immediately took up this order and gave himself completely to it, literally with some kind of passion. And in the future, the artist was closely attached to his portrait, he carried it with him everywhere, and when, at a late age, he decided to leave Italy for France, he took La Gioconda with him along with several of his selected works.

What was the reason for such an attitude of Leonardo to this picture? It is believed that the great artist had a love affair with Lisa. However, it is possible that the painter appreciated this picture as an example of the highest flowering of his talent: "La Gioconda" really turned out to be unusual for its time.

Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) photo

It is interesting that Leonardo never gave the portrait to the customer, but took it with him to France, where King Francis I became its first owner. Perhaps such an act could be due to the fact that the master did not finish the canvas by the deadline and continued to paint the picture already after departure: the fact that Leonardo “never finished his painting” is reported by the famous Renaissance writer Giorgio Vasari.

Vasari, in his biography of Leonardo, reports many facts about the painting of this picture, but not all of them are reliable. So, he writes that the artist created the picture for four years, which is a clear exaggeration.

He also writes that while Lisa was posing, there was a whole group of jesters in the studio who entertained the girl, thanks to which Leonardo managed to portray her smile on her face, and not the sadness that was standard for that time. However, most likely, the story about the jesters Vasari himself composed for the entertainment of readers, using the girl's surname - after all, "La Gioconda" means "playing", "laughing".

However, it can be noted that Vasari was attracted in this picture not so much by realism as such, but by the amazing transmission of physical effects and the smallest details of the image. Apparently, the writer described the picture from memory or from the stories of other eyewitnesses.

Some myths about the painting

Back at the end of the 19th century, Gruyet wrote that the La Gioconda had been literally depriving people of their minds for several centuries. Many thought, contemplating this amazing portrait, which is why it has acquired many legends.

• According to one of them, in the portrait Leonardo depicted allegorically ... himself, which is allegedly confirmed by the coincidence of small details of the face;
• According to another, the picture depicts a young man in women's clothes - for example, Salai, a student of Leonardo;
• Another version suggests that the picture depicts just an ideal woman, some kind of abstract image. All of these versions are now recognized as erroneous.

The painting by Leonardo da Vinci "Mona Lisa" is the first thing tourists from any country associate with the Louvre. This is the most famous and mysterious work of painting in the history of world art. Her mysterious smile still makes people think and fascinate people who do not like or are not interested in painting. And the story of her abduction at the beginning of the 20th century turned the picture into a living legend. But first things first.

History of the painting

"Mona Lisa" is just an abbreviated name for the painting. In the original, it sounds like “Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo” (Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo). From Italian, the word ma donna is translated as "my lady." Over time, it turned into simply mona, from which the well-known name of the painting came.

Biographers-contemporaries of the artist wrote that he rarely took orders, but the Mona Lisa initially had a special story. He devoted himself to work with special passion, spent almost all his time writing it and took it with him to France (Leonardo left Italy forever) along with other selected paintings.

It is known that the artist began the painting in 1503-1505, and only in 1516 he applied the last stroke, shortly before his death. According to the will, the painting was given to Leonardo's student, Salai. It remains unknown how the painting migrated back to France (most likely Francis I acquired it from Salai's heirs). During the time of Louis XIV, the painting moved to the Palace of Versailles, and after the French Revolution, the Louvre became its permanent home.

There is nothing special in the history of creation, the lady with a mysterious smile in the picture is of more interest. Who is she?

According to the official version, this is a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, the young wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a prominent Florentine silk merchant. Very little is known about Lisa: she was born in Florence to a noble family. She married early and led a calm, measured life. Francesco del Giocondo was a great admirer of art and painting and patronized artists. It was he who came up with the idea to order a portrait of his wife in honor of the birth of their first child. There is a hypothesis that Leonardo was in love with Lisa. This can explain his special attachment to the picture and the long time he worked on it.

This is surprising, almost nothing is known about the life of Liza herself, and her portrait is the main work of world painting.

But contemporary historians of Leonardo are not so unambiguous. According to Giorgio Vasari, the model could be Caterina Sforza (representative of the ruling dynasty of the Italian Renaissance, considered the main woman of that era), Cecilia Gallerani (lover of Duke Ludovik Sforza, model of another portrait of a genius - “Lady with an Ermine”), the artist’s mother, Leonardo himself , a young man in women's attire and just a portrait of a woman - the standard of beauty of the Renaissance.

Description of the picture

The canvas of a small size depicts a woman of medium size, in a dark cloak (according to historians - a sign of widowhood), sitting half-turned. Like other Italian Renaissance portraits, the Mona Lisa lacks eyebrows and shaves the top of her forehead. Most likely, the model posed on the balcony, as the line of the parapet is visible. It is believed that the picture is slightly cut off, the columns visible behind were completely included in the original size.

It is believed that the composition of the picture is the standard of the portrait genre. It is painted according to all the laws of harmony and rhythm: the model is inscribed in a proportional rectangle, the wavy strand of hair is in tune with the translucent veil, and the folded hands give the picture a special compositional completeness.

Mona Lisa smile

This phrase has long been living separately from the picture, turning into a literary cliché. This is the main mystery and charm of the canvas. It attracts the attention of not only ordinary viewers and art historians, but also psychologists. For example, Sigmund Freud calls her smile "flirtatious". And a special look is “fleeting”.

Current state

Due to the fact that the artist liked to experiment with paints and painting techniques, the picture has darkened very much by now. And its surface is formed strong cracks. One of them is a millimeter above the head of the Mona Lisa. In the middle of the last century, the canvas was sent on a "tour" to museums in the United States and Japan. Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin was lucky enough to host a masterpiece for the duration of the exhibition.

Fame of Mona Lisa

The painting was very highly regarded among Leonardo's contemporaries, but over the decades it has become forgotten. Until the 19th century, she was not remembered until the moment when the romantic writer Theophile Gauthier spoke about the “La Gioconda smile” in one of his literary works. Strange, but up to this point, this feature of the picture was simply called “pleasant” and there was no secret in it.

The painting gained real popularity among the general public in connection with its mysterious abduction in 1911. Newspaper hype around this story gained huge popularity for the picture. It was possible to find her only in 1914, where she was all this time - remains a mystery. Her abductor was Vinchezo Perugio, an employee of the Louvre, an Italian by nationality. The exact motives for the kidnapping are unknown, probably he wanted to bring the canvas to his historical homeland of Leonardo, Italy.

Mona Lisa today

"Mona Lisa" still "lives" in the Louvre, she, as the main artistic prima, has been allocated a separate room in the museum. She suffered several times from vandalism, after which in 1956 she was placed in bulletproof glass. Because of this, it glares strongly, so it is sometimes problematic to see it. Nevertheless, it is she who attracts most visitors to the Louvre with her smile and fleeting glance.

Leonardo da Vinci "La Gioconda":
History of the painting

On August 22, 1911, the world-famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci "La Gioconda" disappeared from the Square Hall of the Louvre. At 1 pm, when the museum was opened to visitors, she was not there. Confusion broke out among the Louvre workers. It was announced to visitors that the museum was closed for the whole day due to a water main failure.

The prefect of police appeared with a detachment of inspectors. All exits from the Louvre were closed, the museum began to be searched. But it is impossible to check the ancient palace of the French kings with an area of ​​​​198 square meters in one day. However, by the end of the day, the police still managed to find a glazed case and a frame from the Mona Lisa on the landing of a small service staircase. The very same picture - a rectangle measuring 54x79 centimeters - disappeared without a trace.

“The loss of the Gioconda is a national disaster,” wrote the French magazine “Illustration”, “since it is almost certain that the one who committed this abduction cannot profit from it. One must fear that he, in fear of being caught, may destroy this fragile work.

The magazine announced a reward: “40,000 francs to the one who brings the Gioconda to the editorial office of the magazine. 20,000 francs to whoever points out where the painting can be found. 45,000 to those who return the Mona Lisa by September 1." The first of September passed, but there was no picture. Then Illustrasion published a new proposal: “The editors guarantee complete secrecy to those who bring the Mona Lisa. They will give him 45,000 in cash and they won't even ask for his name." But no one came.

Month after month passed. All this time, the portrait of the beautiful Florentine lay hidden in a pile of rubbish on the third floor of the large Parisian house "Cité du Heroes", in which Italian seasonal workers lived.

A few more months passed, a year, two...
One day, the Italian antiquarian Alfredo Geri received a letter from Paris. On poor school paper, in clumsy letters, a certain Vincenzo Leopardi offered an antiquary to buy a portrait of Mona Lisa that had disappeared from the Louvre. Leopardi wrote that he wanted to return to his homeland one of the best works of Italian art.
This letter was sent in November 1913.
When, after long negotiations, correspondence and meetings, Leopardi delivered the painting to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, he said:
“This is a good, holy thing! The Louvre is chock-full of treasures that rightfully belong to Italy. I wouldn't be Italian if I looked at it with indifference!"

Fortunately, the two years and three months that the Mona Lisa spent in captivity did not affect the picture. Under the protection of the police, the Gioconda was exhibited in Rome, Florence, Milan, and then, after the farewell ceremony, left for Paris.

The investigation into the case of Perugia (this is the real name of the kidnapper) went on for several months. The arrested man did not hide anything and said that he periodically worked at the Louvre as a glazier. During this time, he studied the halls of the art gallery and met many museum employees. He frankly stated that he had long ago decided to steal the Mona Lisa.

Perugia knew little about the history of painting. He sincerely and naively believed that the Mona Lisa was taken away from Italy during the time of Napoleon.
Meanwhile, Leonardo da Vinci himself brought it to France and sold it to the French king Francis I for 4,000 ecu - a huge amount at that time. This picture for a long time adorned the Golden Cabinet of the royal castle in Fontainebleau, under Louis XIV it was transferred to Versailles, and after the revolution transferred to the Louvre.

After a 20-year stay in Milan, Leonardo da Vinci returned to Florence. How everything has changed in his hometown! Those he left behind were already at the height of their fame; and about him, who once enjoyed universal worship, has almost been forgotten. His old friends, captured by a whirlwind of unrest and unrest, have changed a lot ... One of them became a monk; another, in despair at the death of the violent Savonarola, gave up painting and decided to spend the rest of his days in the Santa Maria Novella hospital; the third, aged in spirit and body, could no longer be Leonardo's former comrade.

Only one P. Perugino, already experienced in worldly affairs, talked with Leonardo in the old way and gave him useful advice. His words were true, and Leonardo da Vinci also really needed these tips. In the service of the duke, he did not earn money for a comfortable life and returned to Florence with meager means. Leonardo did not even think about large and serious works, and no one ordered them from him. To write at his own risk for the love of art, he had neither the money nor the time. The entire Florentine nobility strove for mediocre masters, and the brilliant da Vinci was in poverty, content with the crumbs that fell to him from the orders of his happy brothers.
But in Florence, Leonardo da Vinci created his masterpiece of masterpieces - the famous painting "La Gioconda".

The Soviet art critic I. Dolgopolov noted that writing about this painting “is simply scary, because poets, prose writers, and art critics have written more than one hundred books about it. Do not count the publications in which every inch of this picture is studied in the most thorough way. And although the history of its creation is quite well-known, the name of the painting, the date of its writing, and even the city in which the great Leonardo met his model are questioned.”

George Vasari in his "Biographies" reports about this picture: "Leonardo undertook to complete for Francesco del Giocondo a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife."
As some researchers now suggest, Vasari must have been wrong. The latest research shows that the painting depicts not the wife of the Florentine nobleman del Giocondo, but some other high-ranking lady. M.A. Gukovsky, for example, wrote several decades ago that this portrait conveys the features of one of the many ladies of the heart of Giulio Medici and was commissioned by him. This is unequivocally reported by Antonio de Beatis, who saw the portrait in the workshop of Leonardo in France.

In his diary dated October 10, 1517, he reports: “In one of the suburbs, the cardinal went with us sinners to see Mr. Luonardo Vinci, a Florentine ... an excellent painter of our time. The latter showed his lordship three paintings - one of some Florentine lady, painted from nature, at the request of the late Magnificent Giulio Medici.

Many researchers were amazed why the merchant del Giocondo did not keep a portrait of his wife. Indeed, the portrait became the property of the artist. And this fact is also perceived by some as an argument in favor of the fact that Leonardo did not depict the Mona Lisa. But, perhaps, the Florentine was a little surprised and surprised? Maybe he simply did not recognize his young wife Mona Lisa Gherardini in the depicted goddess? And Leonardo himself, who painted the portrait for four years and invested so much in it, could not part with it and took the picture from Florence?

Be that as it may, in fact, thanks to D. Vasari, this female image entered the history of world culture under the name of "Mona Lisa", or "Gioconda". Was she beautiful? Probably, but there were many women in Florence and more beautiful than her.
However, Mona Lisa was surprisingly attractive, although the features of her face were not harmonious. A small smiling mouth, soft hair flowing over her shoulders...
“But her fully developed figure,” writes M. Alpatov, “was perfect, and her well-groomed hands were especially perfect. But what was remarkable about her, despite her wealth, her eyebrows plucked in fashion, her blush and a lot of jewelry on her arms and neck, was the simplicity and naturalness poured into her whole appearance ...
And then her face lit up with a smile and became unusually attractive for the artist - embarrassed and a little sly, as if the lost playfulness of youth and something hidden in the depths of the soul, unsolved, had returned to him.

Whatever tricks Leonardo resorted to, if only his model did not get bored during the sessions. In a beautifully decorated room, among flowers and luxurious furniture, musicians were placed, delighting the ear with singing and music, and a beautiful, refined artist lay in wait for a wondrous smile on Mona Lisa's face.
He invited jesters and clowns, but the music did not quite satisfy the Mona Lisa. She listened to well-known motives with a bored face, and the magician-juggler did not really revive her. And then Leonardo told her a story.

Once upon a time there was a poor man, and he had four sons; three smart, and one this way and that. - no mind, no stupidity. Yes, however, they could not properly judge his mind: he was more silent and liked to walk in the field, to the sea, listen and think to himself; He also loved to look at the stars at night.

And then death came for the father. Before parting with his life, he called his children to him and said to them:
“My sons, soon I will die. As soon as you bury me, lock up the hut and go to the ends of the world to get your own happiness. Let everyone learn something so that he can feed himself.”

The father died, and the sons, having buried him, went to the ends of the world to seek their happiness and agreed that in three years they would return to the clearing of their native grove, where they went for deadwood, and tell each other who had learned what during these three years.
Three years passed, and, remembering the agreement, the brothers returned from the end of the world to the clearing of their native grove. The first brother came to learn carpentry. Out of boredom, he cut down a tree and hewed it, made a woman out of it. Walk away a bit and wait.
The second brother returned, saw a wooden woman, and since he was a tailor, he decided to dress her and at the same moment, like a skilled craftsman, made her beautiful silk clothes.
The third son came, adorned the wooden girl with gold and precious stones, because he was a jeweler and managed to accumulate great wealth.

And the fourth brother came. He did not know how to carpentry or sewing - he could only listen to what the earth was saying, trees, herbs, animals and birds, he knew the course of the heavenly planets and also knew how to sing wonderful songs. He saw a wooden girl in luxurious clothes, in gold and precious stones. But she was deaf and dumb and did not move. Then he gathered all his art - after all, he learned to talk with everything that is on earth, he learned to revive stones with his song ... And he sang a beautiful song, from which the brothers hiding behind the bushes cried, and with this song he breathed soul into a wooden woman . And she smiled and sighed...

Then the brothers rushed to her and shouted:
- I created you, you must be my wife!
- You should be my wife, I dressed you, naked and unhappy!
- And I made you rich, you should be my wife!

But the girl answered:
- You created me - be my father. You dressed me, and you decorated me - be my brothers. And you, who breathed my soul into me and taught me to enjoy life, you alone will be my husband for life ...
And the trees, and the flowers, and the whole earth, together with the birds, sang to them the hymn of love...

After finishing the story, Leonardo looked at the Mona Lisa. God, what happened to her face! It seemed to be lit up with light, its eyes shone. The smile of bliss, slowly disappearing from her face, remained in the corners of her mouth and trembled, giving it an amazing, mysterious and slightly sly expression.

For a long time Leonardo da Vinci did not experience such a huge surge of creative forces. Everything that was in him most cheerful, bright and clear, he put into his work.
To enhance the impression of the face, Leonardo dressed the Mona Lisa in a simple, unadorned dress, modest and dark. The impression of simplicity and naturalness is enhanced by the skillfully painted folds of the dress and light scarf.

Artists and art lovers who sometimes visited Leonardo saw the Mona Lisa and were delighted:
- What magical skill Messer Leonardo possesses, depicting this lively brilliance, this wetness of the eyes!
She's definitely breathing!
She's laughing now!
- After all, you can almost feel the living skin of this lovely face ... It seems that in the deepening of the neck you can see the beating of the pulse.
What a weird smile she has. It's as if she's thinking about something and doesn't finish it...

Indeed, in the eyes of the "La Gioconda" there is light and a wet sheen, as in living eyes, and the thinnest lilac veins are visible in the eyelids. but the great artist created something unprecedented: he also painted the air, permeated with moist vapors and enveloping the figure with a transparent haze.

The most famous, many times studied and described in all languages ​​of the world, "La Gioconda" is still the most mysterious painting of the great da Vinci. It still remains incomprehensible and continues to disturb the imagination for several centuries, perhaps precisely because it is not a portrait in the usual sense of the word. Leonardo da Vinci painted it contrary to the very concept of "portrait", which implies the image of a real person, similar to the original and with the attributes that characterize him (at least indirectly).
What the artist wrote goes far beyond the scope of a simple portrait. Every shade of the skin, every fold of clothing, the warm sparkle of the eyes, the life of the arteries and veins - the artist supplied his picture with all this. But before the viewer in the background there is also a steep chain of rocks with ice peaks at the foot of the mountains, a water surface with a wide and winding river flowing out of it, which, narrowing under a small bridge, turns into a miniature waterfall that disappears outside the picture.

The golden warm light of the Italian evening and the magical charm of Leonardo da Vinci's painting pour on the viewer. Intently, understanding everything, looks at the world and the people of the Gioconda. More than one century has passed since the artist created it, and with the last touch of Leonardo's brush, it became eternally alive. He himself had long felt that Mona Lisa lives against his will.

As art critic V. Lipatov writes:
"La Gioconda" was copied many times and always unsuccessfully: it was elusive, it did not even appear on someone else's canvas, it remained true to its creator.
They tried to tear it apart, to select and repeat at least an eternal smile, but in the pictures of students and followers, the smile faded, became false, died, like a creature imprisoned in captivity.
Indeed, not a single reproduction will convey even a thousandth of the charm that flows from the portrait.

The Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset wrote that in La Gioconda there is a desire for inner liberation:
“Look at how tense her temples and smoothly shaved eyebrows are, how tightly her lips are compressed, with what hidden effort she tries to lift the heavy load of melancholic sadness. However, this tension is so imperceptible, her whole figure breathes with such graceful calmness, and her whole being is full of such immobility, that this inner effort is more likely to be guessed by the viewer than consciously expressed by the master. It wriggles, bites its tail like a snake, and, closing the movement in a circle, finally giving vent to despair, manifests itself in the famous Mona Lisa smile.

The unique "La Gioconda" by Leonardo da Vinci was ahead of the development of painting for many centuries to come. The most incredible assumptions were made (that the Gioconda is pregnant, that she is oblique, that this is a man in disguise, that this is a self-portrait of the artist himself), but it is unlikely that it will ever be possible to fully explain why this work, created by Leonardo in his declining years, has such amazing and attractive power For this canvas is a creation of a truly divine, and not a human hand.
"One Hundred Great Paintings" by N.A. Ionina, publishing house "Veche", 2002