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 There
is no doubt that the Mona Lisa is one of the best known artworks
in the world. About six million people view the Mona Lisa each year
at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. The Mona Lisa has long been
shrouded in countless mysteries,
including her enigmatic smile and eyebrows.
The Mona Lisa was painted by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci
in the 1500s. “Mona” means “Madam” in Italian, so the title Mona
Lisa can be translated as Madam Lisa.
Many historians believe that Leonardo da Vinci painted a portrait
of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine cloth merchant named
Francesco del Giocondo. However, over the years there have been
several different views as to the subject of the painting.
There are experts that even claim that it is a feminine version
of Da Vinci himself. Digital analysis has revealed that
Da Vinci’s facial characteristics and those of the woman in the
painting are almost exactly the same.
There is another long-standing question about
the famous lady: her eyebrows and eyelashes. As you can tell from
the painting, there are no eyebrows on her face. Was it like this
from the beginning? Did Da Vinci not paint eyebrows on purpose? Interestingly,
French engineer and inventor Pascal Cottere searched this enigma,
and found a clue. Cotte found definitive
proof that when Leonardo da Vinci painted the original portrait, he included
Mona Lisa’s lashes and brows. Examining the painting using a high-definition
camera, Cotte found the evidence he sought - a single
brushstroke of a single hair above the left brow. He argues that
Da Vinci had painted the eyelashes and eyebrows. Then where did
the eyebrows and eyelashes go? Probably, the pigment faded, or somebody
cleaned them away, Cotte suggested.
And what makes the lady’s smile mysterious and attractive? According to
Dr. Margaret Livingstone, a Harvard neuroscientist, Mona Lisa’s
smile comes and goes. It means that the smile on the face of the
Mona Lisa disappears when it is looked
at directly. The smile only becomes apparent when the viewer
looks at another part of the painting. Can we ever solve all the
mysteries of this artwork? |
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