Giocondo in Italian means "carefree".
Others believe that Da Vinci depicted the wife of a silk merchant in another portrait that has not come down to us, and the mysterious lady, whose portrait he painted for about 4 years, is Isabella of Aragon, the wife of the artist's patron, the Duke of Milan.
Still others claim that the painting is dated incorrectly. Her time is 1512-1516 and the lady depicted on the canvas is the wife of Giuliano Medici, who ruled Milan during these years.
Mona in the title of the picture means madam or mistress. In Russian, the picture can be called "Mrs. Liza."
Another version is that the "Mona Lisa" is the artist himself in a female form. According to some digital analysis, the features of the great painter on one of the self-portraits exactly match the appearance of his most famous one, and all this is a hoax of a genius.
The secret of her smile
Yes, the woman who put such before the scientists has a mysterious smile. However, art historians say that there is no secret, and the whole thing is only in the unique sfumato technique, the name of which is translated as smoky or disappearing. This is a unique combination of strokes with which the artists convey the feeling of air, softening the outline of figures, tones and halftones. According to neuroscientists, our peripheral vision is able to perceive only large details, while the central one is able to perceive small ones. If you look at the Gioconda directly, focusing on the eyes of the model, leaving her lips to peripheral vision, it seems that a smile slides over them, but as soon as you look at the lips, that is, look at them and see with central vision - it disappears. The same effect explains the melting smile of the Mona Lisa when moving away or moving in different directions from the picture.But a simple scientific explanation does not suit romantics, who consider it unimportant how Gioconda smiles, but why she smiles is much more mysterious. It is known that in the first version of the painting, Mona Lisa did not even think about a smile, only later the artist made corrections to the canvas. The melting smile gave rise to the myth of the romance of a beautiful model and a great artist, carefully hidden from a jealous husband, who, according to all the laws of the genre, was much older than his charming wife. This legend does not stand up to criticism, because for all possible models of the painter, husbands and lovers were much younger than Leonardo, who by the time the canvas was written was already over fifty.
What is the Mona Lisa smiling at? Apparently, this is destined to forever remain a secret, without which great art is unthinkable.
Photo: AP/Scanpix
The personality, facial features, smile and even the landscape behind the back of a woman painted more than 500 years ago continue to excite the minds of researchers. While some are studying her lips with a magnifying glass, others find the encoded messages of Leonardo da Vinci in the picture, and still others believe that the real Mona Lisa is a completely different picture.
"It will soon be four centuries since the Mona Lisa deprives everyone who, having seen enough of it, begins to talk about it"
(Gruyet, late 19th century).
The DELFI portal introduces the most popular mysteries and theories that surround the famous work of Leonardo da Vinci.
It is traditionally believed that the painting by da Vinci depicts Lisa Gioconda, née Gherardini. The painting was commissioned by her husband Francesco Gioconda in 1503. Da Vinci, who was then out of work, agreed to perform a private commission, but did not finish it. Later, the artist went to France and settled at the court of King Francois I. According to legend, he presented the Mona Lisa to the king, presenting the painting as one of his favorites. According to other sources, the king simply bought it.
In any case, after the death of da Vinci in 1519, the painting remained in the property of the king, and after the French Revolution became state property and was exhibited in the Louvre. For centuries, it was considered a valuable, but rather ordinary masterpiece of the Renaissance. It turned into a world-famous icon only at the beginning of the 20th century, after it was stolen in August 1911 by a former employee of the Louvre, painter and decorator Vincenzo Perugia, who dreamed of returning the painting to its historical homeland (the painting was found and returned two years after the theft).
Since that time, the Mona Lisa has survived several attempts at vandalism and theft and has become a major magnet for the millions of tourists who visit the Louvre every year. Since 2005, the painting has been in a special impenetrable glass "sarcophagus" with a controlled microclimate (the painting has darkened greatly under the influence of time due to da Vinci's experiments with the composition of paints). Every year it is examined by about six million people, each of whom spends an average of 15 seconds on inspection.
Foto: Archive foto
It is traditionally believed that the painting depicts Lisa Gioconda, the third wife of a wealthy fabric and silk merchant Francesco Giocondo. Until the 20th century, this version was not particularly disputed, since a family friend and historian (as well as an artist) Giorgio Vasari mentions in his works as a fact that a certain famous artist painted Francesco's wife. This fact was also reflected on the pages of the book by Agostino Vespucci, a clerk and assistant to the historian Niccolò Machiavelli.
However, this was not enough for many researchers, since at the time the picture was painted, Gioconda should have been about 24 years old, but the woman depicted in the picture looks much older. Also, doubts were raised by the fact that the painted picture never belonged to the merchant's family, but remained with the artist. Even if the assumption that da Vinci simply did not have time to finish the painting before he moved to France is correct, it is doubtful that the family of an average merchant by all standards was rich enough to commission a painting of this size. Only really noble and extremely wealthy families could then afford such canvases.
Therefore, there are alternative theories that allow that the Mona Lisa is a self-portrait of da Vinci himself, or that his mother Katrina is depicted in the picture. The latter explains the artist's attachment to this work.
A group of scientists are now hoping to unravel this mystery by excavating under the walls of the monastery of St. Ursula in Florence. It is believed that Lisa Gioconda, who retired to the monastery after the death of her husband, could be buried there. However, experts doubt that among the hundreds of people buried there, one can find the remains of the Mona Lisa. Even more utopian is the hope, using computer reconstruction based on the found skulls, to restore the facial features of all the people buried there in order to find the very woman who posed for the Mona Lisa.
Foto: Archive foto
In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, completely plucked eyebrows were in vogue. It can be assumed that the woman depicted in the picture definitely followed fashion and corresponded to this standard of beauty, but the French engineer Pascal Côté discovered that she actually had eyebrows.
Using a high-resolution scanner, he created a very high quality copy of the painting, which showed traces of eyebrows. According to Cote, the "Mona Lisa" originally had eyebrows, but then over time they disappeared.
One of the reasons for their disappearance may have been overzealous attempts to preserve the painting. In the Louvre Museum and at the court of the king, the masterpiece was regularly cleaned for 500 years, as a result, some especially delicate elements of the picture could disappear.
Another reason for the disappearance of the eyebrows could be unsuccessful attempts to restore the painting. However, it is still not clear how the eyebrows could disappear completely. In any case, traces of a brush stroke can now be seen above the left eye, which indicate that the Mona Lisa did have eyebrows.
Foto: AFP/Scanpix
In the book "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown, the art of Leonardo da Vinci to encode information is seriously exaggerated, but the famous master still liked to hide various information in the form of codes and ciphers during his lifetime. The Italian National Cultural History Committee has discovered that Mona Lisa's eyes contain tiny letters and numbers.
They are not visible to the naked eye, however, with a strong magnification, it is noticeable that characters are actually written in the eyes. The letters LV are hidden in the right eye, which may be the initials of Leonardo da Vinci himself, and in the left eye the letters are blurred and can be either S, or B, or even CE. Symbols can also be seen on the arch of the bridge, which is located behind the back of the model - a combination of L2 or 72.
The numbers 149 were also found on the back of the painting. It can be assumed that the last number is missing and this is actually the year - 149x. If this is so, then the picture was painted not at the beginning of the 16th century, as it was believed until now, but earlier - at the end of the 15th.
Foto: Archive foto
If you look at the lips, you can see that they are tightly compressed, without any hint of a smile. But at the same time, if you look at the picture in general, there is a feeling that the woman is smiling. This optical illusion has given rise to more than one theory about the vanishing smile of the Mona Lisa.
Experts believe that the explanation for this phenomenon is quite simple - the woman depicted in the picture is not smiling, but if the viewer's eye is "blurred" or he looks at her with the help of peripheral vision, then the shadow from the face creates the effect of an imaginary lifting of the corners of the lips up.
The fact that the woman was absolutely serious is also proved by x-rays, which made it possible to look at the sketch of the painting, now hidden under a layer of paint. On it, the wife of a Florentine merchant does not look joyful from any angle.
Foto: Archive foto
Early copies of da Vinci's work show a much wider panorama than the painting exhibited in the Louvre. All of them have columns visible on the sides, while the "real" picture on the right shows only part of the column.
For a long time, experts argued about how this happened, and whether the picture was reduced after the death of da Vinci in order to fit some special frame or not outsize from other paintings at the court of the king. However, these theories were not confirmed - the edges of the painting under the frame are white, indicating that the image did not go beyond the framework that we see today.
Anyway, the theory that the picture was reduced looks doubtful, since it is not painted on fabric, but on a pine board. If pieces were sawed off from it, the paint layer could be damaged or completely separated, and this would be clearly visible.
Foto: Publicitates foto
From the columns and the landscape behind the woman in the picture, it can be concluded that she was sitting on a balcony or terrace. Today, scientists adhere to the point of view that the depicted mountains, bridge, river and road are fictitious, but characteristic of the Montefeltro region in Italy.
This fact not only sheds light on what exactly is depicted in the background, but once again raises the question of the identity of the woman depicted in the picture. According to one of the archivists of the Vatican, the painting depicts Pacifica Brandani, a married lady and mistress of Julian de' Medici. At the time when the picture was supposedly painted, the Medici were in exile and lived in this region.
But regardless of which region the landscape in the picture reflects and what was the personality of the woman depicted in it, it is known that Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa in his workshop in Milan.
Foto: Archive foto
American artist Ron Piccirillo believes that he has discovered a rebus hidden for 500 years in a da Vinci painting. In his opinion, the artist hid the image of the heads of three animals - a lion, a monkey and a buffalo. They are clearly visible if you turn the picture on its side.
He also claims that under the woman's left hand is visible something that resembles the tail of a crocodile or a snake. He came to these discoveries, carefully, for two whole months, studying da Vinci's diaries.
Foto: Archive foto
The Isleworth Mona Lisa, found in pre-World War I England, is thought to be another early version of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Its name comes from the name of the London suburb in which it was found.
This version of the painting is considered more consistent with the theory that Leonardo da Vinci painted his masterpiece at the time when Francesco Gioconda was 24 years old. This work is also more in keeping with the legend that da Vinci moved to France without finishing the painting and taking it with him as it was.
But at the same time, the history of this painting, unlike the Louvre original, is unknown. It is also unclear how the work came to England and to whom it belonged. Experts cannot believe the version that a famous artist gave or sold an unfinished work to someone.
Foto: Archive foto
"Donna Nuda" - a portrait of a partially naked woman with a smile characteristic of a da Vinci masterpiece, clearly resembles the original, but the author of this painting is unknown. Interestingly, this work is not only similar, but definitely created at the beginning of the 16th century - at the same time as the Mona Lisa.
Unlike the work exhibited in the Louvre, which rarely leaves its place behind bulletproof glass, "Donna Nuda" has changed hands many times and was regularly exhibited at exhibitions dedicated to the work of da Vinci.
Historians believe that although this work, most likely, does not belong to the brush of da Vinci himself, it is most definitely a copy of his painting, made by one of the master's students. The original, for some reason, was lost.
Foto: Archive foto
On the morning of August 21, 1911, museum workers at the Louvre found four empty nails at the site of the painting. And although up to this point the picture did not cause much excitement in society, her abduction became a real sensation, which was written about by the press in many countries of the world.
This created problems for the administration of the museum, as it turned out that the security was not properly organized in the museum - only a few people guarded the huge rooms with world masterpieces. And almost all the paintings were fixed on the walls so that they could be safely removed and carried away.
What did the former employee of the Louvre, the painter and decorator Vincenzo Perugia, who dreamed of returning the painting to its historical homeland. The paintings were found and returned a year after the theft - Perugia himself foolishly responded to an advertisement for the purchase of a masterpiece. Although in Italy his act was accepted with understanding, nevertheless, the court sentenced him to imprisonment for a period of two years.
This story was the catalyst for a sharp increase in public interest in the masterpiece of Leonardo da Vinci. The press that covered the kidnapping story immediately unearthed a one-year-old case in which a man committed suicide in a museum, right in front of a painting. Immediately there was talk of a mysterious smile, secret messages and da Vinci ciphers, a special mystical meaning of the "Mona Lisa", etc.
The popularity of the museum in the Louvre after the return of the "Mona Lisa" has grown so much that according to one of the theories of conspiracy lovers, the theft was organized by the management of the museum themselves - in order to attract international interest to it. This beautiful conspiracy idea is overshadowed only by the fact that the museum management itself did not gain anything from this theft - as a result of the scandal that broke out, it was fired in its entirety.
Placement code for key after_article not found.
Placement code for key m_after_article not found.
Noticed an error?Select the text and press Ctrl + Enter!
It is strictly forbidden to use materials published on DELFI, on other Internet portals and in the media, as well as to distribute, translate, copy, reproduce or use DELFI materials in any other way without written permission. If permission is granted, DELFI must be credited as the source of the published material.
Who is Mona Lisa?
Many copies were broken in the course of disputes regarding the establishment of the true identity of the lady depicted in the portrait. The Italians call her "La Gioconda", which means "carefree, frivolous woman." In French, the word La Joconde has a similar meaning, giving rise to many thoughts and theories about Mona Lisa's smile.
One popular theory suggests that this lady is the Duchess Isabella of Aragon. For 11 years, da Vinci was the artist of the family of the Duke of Milan and could well paint a portrait of the duchess, calling it "Mona Lisa".
Other researchers claim that the painting may depict the mistress of Giuliano de' Medici, one of Leonardo da Vinci's patrons.
A relatively recent idea has been the suggestion by New York School of Visual Arts employee Lillian Schwartz that the Mona Lisa is a female version of da Vinci himself. Through digital analysis, she found that some of the facial features of Leonardo da Vinci and Mona Lisa match remarkably well.
Despite the above theories, it is now universally recognized that Leonardo immortalized the image of Lisa Gerardini, the third wife of the richest Florentine merchant, with silk fabrics Francesco del Giocondo. And the word "Mona", as pointed out by Giorgio Vasari, who wrote and published a biography of Leonardo da Vinci in 1550, is usually used instead of the Italian word "Madonna", translated into Russian meaning "lady" or "madame". Thus, the name "Mona Lisa" simply means "Lady Lisa".
How does she smile?
Mona Lisa's mysterious smile is a source of inspiration for some and cruel despair for others. In 1852, Luc Maspero, a French painter, threw himself out of the window of the fourth floor of a hotel in Paris and fell to his death. His suicide note stated that he chose death after years of trying to understand the mystery of Mona Lisa's smile. Today, visitors to the Louvre are asking themselves and others the same question: how does she smile anyway?
The Italians answer this question by referring to the sfumato technique that was developed by da Vinci. In Italian, sfumato means "disappearing like smoke" or "haze". The use of this technique introduced ambiguity and blurring into the portrait, leaving the possibility of its interpretation to the imagination of the viewer. This method uses a special combination of tones and colors, resulting in the illusion of depth and volume.
Dr. Margaret Livingston, a Harvard neurologist, explains the mystery behind the Mona Lisa's smile by referring to the human eye. The part of our organ of vision involved in direct vision allows us to recognize details, colors and read small print, while the peripheral parts of the eye read shadows, distinguish between achromatic (black and white) colors, and also capture movement.
When a person looks at the Mona Lisa, the "direct gaze" area is focused on her eyes, leaving the peripheral area of her mouth. Since peripheral vision is less precise and lacks detail, the shadows on Mona Lisa's cheekbones increase the curvature of her smile.
However, once the viewer looks at the Mona Lisa's mouth, the "direct gaze" area does not read the shadow, and the face in the portrait no longer appears to be smiling so broadly. Thus, the appearance and disappearance of Mona Lisa's smile actually lies in the peculiarities of the eyes of the beholder.
No matter how many theories have been created, Mona Lisa remains a mystery today. The brilliant brush of Leonardo da Vinci, like centuries ago, amazes, admires and inspires everyone who has ever looked at the Mona Lisa.
“From a medical point of view, it is not clear how this woman lived at all”
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. This, of course, is about the Mona Lisa - the favorite creation of the great Leonardo. A portrait rich in mythology. What is the secret of the Mona Lisa? Versions are countless. We have selected the ten most common and intriguing.
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
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.
The researchers come to the conclusion. 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...
Leonardo da Vinci left so many mysteries that scientists from all over the world are still struggling with their answers. The famous "Mona Lisa". Today, experts say that the elusive half-smile of the Mona Lisa 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 at 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.
Creativity da Vinci and in our time continues to arouse interest. Many are trying to recreate the unique da Vinci technique, someone approaches this with humor -
