THE MONA LISA (ART & DESIGN HISTORY)
[Essay]
1. Why is The Mona Lisa so famous?
The Mona Lisa, one
of the most important and well-known painting since the Renaissance
period. This marvelous yet mysterious
portrait was painted by one of the most important painter from the Italian
Renaissance, the father of The High Renaissance. His name is Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo Da Vinci was a writer, a
mathematician, an inventor, an architect, and an artist, he was a man with a
curious mind, wanted to know everything around him, such as the anatomy of a
human body and animals, the ways to ease his life with inventions,
technologies, the laws of science and nature.
He was interested in every field, ranging from biology, physics,
mathematics and a myriad more. He filled
his life with a lot of questions and set forth to find all the answers himself
by performing researches, experimenting, observing and with every different
kinds of way in order to fulfill his curiosity.
As an artist, Leonardo Da Vinci had painting a huge number of paintings
such as The Battle of Anghiari, St. John The Baptist. However, two of his paintings, which are The
Mona Lisa and The Last Supper took a unique spot in the public’s eyes even
after so many decades had passed. How
could it be a simple portrait, has the ability to leave such a deep impression
in us, the public? What makes The Mona
Lisa so famous among the public’s eyes?
[MONA LISA]
by Leonardo Da Vinci
by Leonardo Da Vinci
The Mona Lisa, an oil painting on a poplar
wood panel, a ‘simple’ portrait of a lady which her real identity remains
unknown. The portrait was painted
sometime between 1503 and 1519, when Leonardo was still living in Florence. The
painting is currently hanged in Louvre, Paris for visitors from other various
countries to pay a visit to this mysterious yet ‘perfect’ artwork by the master
himself. The Mona Lisa was not really
famous until it was stolen in 1911 by Vincenzo Perugia, an Italian thief. Vincenzo went to the gallery while wearing a
white smock that all the employees there wore.
After that, he hid in the gallery until all the employees left, that was
when he started removing The Mona Lisa from its frame. When the gallery
reopened, he left the gallery without getting discovered with The Mona Lisa
under his smock. He took it to his
lodgings in Paris. The missing of The
Mona Lisa had created a media sensation where it became famous in just one
night. The Mona Lisa was hidden away for
more than two years. During the period
when the painting was still missing, a second Mona Lisa appeared in Isleworth. However, she was unfinished and she looked
younger compared to the Mona Lisa in Louvre.
She was bought by Hugh Blaker, an art collecter.
In 1913, The Mona Lisa was found and returned
back to Louvre, which is now hanged in an art museum till now. Nevertheless, the mystery still remains. Did Leonardo da Vinci really did paint two
Mona Lisa? Before we proceed with our
research and investigation regarding the number of The Mona Lisa, let us
proceed with another mystery about this painting. Who is that lady in the painting? According to Georgio Vasari, an author who
wrote about hundreds
of artists in his [Lives of the
Most Eminent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors], Vasari wrote about
Leonardo who accepted the offer from Francesco del Giocondo, a silk merchant, to paint a portrait of his
wife, Lisa del Giocondo. Vasari
described The Mona Lisa that he had seen clearly and with a lot of details,
such as
“In this head, …, seeing
that the eyes had that lustre and watery sheen which are always seen in life,
and around them were all those rosy and pearly tints, as well as the lashes,
which cannot be represented without the greatest subtlety. The eyebrows,
through his having shown the manner in which the hairs spring from the flesh,
here more close and here more scanty, and curve according to the pores of the
skin, could not be more natural. The nose, with its beautiful nostrils, rosy
and tender, appeared to be alive. The mouth, with its opening, and with its
ends united by the red of the lips to the flesh-tints of the face, seemed, in
truth, to be not colours but flesh. In the pit of the throat, if one gazed upon
it intently, could be seen the beating of the pulse.”
-From [Lives of The Most Eminent Italian Architects,
Painters, and Sculptors] by Vasari
However, The Mona Lisa in
the Louvre shows no eyebrows and lashes that Vasari mentioned in his book. This led to another hypothesis where Vasari
might be talking about a different painting or maybe the parts that we could
not see were being painted over by the master himself. French Scientist Pascal Cotte seemed to have
unlocked one of the secret of The Mona Lisa, he claims to have found the
eyebrows with only three filters, probably covered up due to the vanish used
for preservation. Mr Cotte had used
cutting edge camera and has pioneered the layer amplification method, which
uses 13 different wavelengths of light bounced off the pigment to produce
images throughout different layers of the painting.
According to Ernst Lux, the art restorer for
The Mona Lisa and a myriad more of those famous paintings, had mentioned about
how the preservation technique such as the chemicals used (Turpentine, alcohol,
ammonia and many more) might damage the original painting. Other evidences about The Mona Lisa was a
handwritten note by Agostino Vespucci, Agostino was personally acquainted with
Leonardo, he had accessed to Leonardo’s studio and had witnessed his paintings,
the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo was one of it and there was a date written
there which is October 1503. However,
there was no single of piece of evidence shown, that Francesco had paid
Leonardo for the portrait for his wife.
Not only that, the background of the two
portrait is also one of the crucial point that might affect the investigation,
where The Mona Lisa found in Isleworth had two visible pillars in the
background whereby the one in the Louvre has pillars as well but barely can be
seen. Back in the Renaissance period,
artist Raphael had roughly done a sketch of The Mona Lisa during his visit to
Leonardo’s studio. However, it is
uncertain that which painting did he saw but in his sketch, the two pillars
were presented. A hypothesis where
Leonardo had painted two Mona Lisa is supported by the timeline of the canvas
and also the paint used between the portraits via scientific test. Nevertheless, it could also be from his
apprentices. John Asmus, a research physicist had done a test by using
statistics but to find out that the histogram from the portraits are 99%
similar to each other which lead to the results where both of the portraits
were painted by the same artist.
Therefore, the answer to the question, why is
The Mona Lisa so famous among the public’s eyes, is, The Mona Lisa displace a
form of perfection for a painting. All
the details are just amazing; it just feels like the painting is alive when you
look at it carefully; the colours matches perfectly to express the emotions of
the painting; the expression on the portrait, the enigmatic smile, contains so
many secrets. It just feels like the painting is irreplaceable or surpassed by
other artist that tries to plagiarise the painting. The public is just stunted by this perfection
in the form of art, done by a well-known artist by hand only. Not only that, theories about The Mona Lisa
just makes it more interesting for curious viewers, such as myself.
Informations from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl_dJ4M2dL0&t=1800s
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