The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait painting by the skilled Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. This painting is known to be a classic masterwork of the Italian Renaissance, the most visited piece of art, the most written about, sung about, and the most imitated piece of painting globally. The portrait’s original makings encompass the inscrutable appearance, the monumentality of the arrangement, the elusive displaying of arrangements, and the moody illusionism. The Mona Lisa is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506 and held the highest painting insurance in 1962 at one hundred million US dollars equivalent to 870 million dollars in 2021.
The woman in this painting is seen to sit straight in a “pozzetto” wingchair with her hands folded. That is seen to be a sign of being reserved. Looking at her eyes, she seems to be gazing into her observers’ eyes. Viewers can notice that the Mona Lisa shows that the sitter is in front of an imaginary landscape. Founded on the artwork of the Renaissance period, it is clear to the viewer that the landscape indicates an aerial perspective. This makes the artwork among the first ones to be painted in that perspective. The enigmatic woman is shown to be sitting in what can be termed as an open veranda with dim column foundations on all sides (Chao & Wang, 2021).
Viewers can see the snaky trails and a distant bridge that offers the slenderest signs of human civilization or existence. The horizon line in the painting is on the same level as the eyes. That makes the viewer link the figure with the landscape and begin to emphasize the mysteriousness of the painting. Naturally, the first things that humans tend to see in others in the face, and facial expressions. In the Mona Lisa, viewers can notice that the portrait has no visible eyebrows and eyelashes. That has been a point of argument among researchers. Even though it is believed that it was the fashion in the Renaissance for women to shave their eyelashes and eyebrows, in 2007, a French engineer Pascal Cottee announced that his ultra-high solution scans of the portrait offered proof that the painting originally had eyebrows and eyelashes but hey disappeared over time probably due to over-cleaning. The engineer also noted that the face had been reworked numerous times resulting in changes in the size of the face and the direction of the stare. However, not every viewer of the Mona Lisa is a scientist or is using scans, a majority of them only use their naked eyes, which makes them get amazed by the lack of eyelashes and eyebrows of the painting (Mehra & Campbell, 2018).
Viewers will also notice the gaze of the Mona Lisa. Standing in front, one can see the subject staring at you; when you move to either side, you also notice that the Mona Lisa is still gazing at you. This has prominently been known as “the Mona Lisa effect”. Scientists have studied the gaze to determine the reasons behind the effect. One of the outcomes is that in 3D real world, the shadows and light on a face change as our vantage changes, but in a 2D portrait that effect cannot be noticed. Subsequently, we tend to have the discernment that eyes gazing straight out are steering at us even if we are not directly at the front of a picture or a drawing (Chao & Wang, 2021). Observing this painting, one can note that mastery of the painter makes this phenomenon to be pronounced more in the Mona Lisa.
Another engaging and mystical component of the Mina Lisa is the smile. The smile of the Mona Lisa depends on one’s feelings and state of mind. On a good day when one is happy, the smile seems to be so pleasing that it appears to be more divine than normal. But if you are from a screaming fight with your husband, then this image looks otherwise. Scientifically, our feelings alter our perceptions or the way we see things or the world around us, and that explains the different perceptions people can have about the facial expression of the Mona Lisa (Chao & Wang, 2021). In either state of our mind, there exists a mystery to the smile that leaves one with questions like “what is she thinking about? what did she see? and is she genuinely happy?” If we move our eyes a bit, the smile seems to change. Looking away, the smile remains in our mind, as it does to all human brains. One can feel the connection between motion and feelings while observing this painting. Never in painting has there been emotions and motion so intertwined. The smile of this panting makes it worth a revisit. This is the mystery that compounds the Mona Lisa to viewers.
The Monalisa presents an implicit argument. Many people have been baffled by the small portrait of a woman dressed modestly in a gleaming veil, dark robes, and without jewelry. The mysteries of the woman’s gaze, smile, combined with her enigmatic look are some of the reasons for its popularity (Mehra & Campbell, 2018). Many theories have been tried to pinpoint a particular reason for the popularity of the painting, but all the compelling arguments insist that there is no specific reason that makes it famous. The fame of the painting is an outcome of numerous situations combined with its inherent appeal
In terms of the technique that was used in the painting of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo skillfully used sfumato. This is an artistic method that uses subtle gradations of light and shadow to model form. Also, the aerial perspective of the painting makes its expressions to be more ambiguous. The background seems to be hazier while the foreground is clearer and with more distinct outlines (Mehra & Campbell, 2018). In terms of intensity and the tone, looking at the Mona Lisa it appears to be drab, a combination of brown and dull yellow tones. Based on that, viewers can note that the painting was once vibrant and colorful than it currently is.
References
Chao, P. Y., & Wang, Y. H. (2021). Women and Matrimony: A Study of Mona Lisa Smile. Journal of Language and Literature, 21(2), 294-306.
Mehra, M. R., & Campbell, H. R. (2018, September). The Mona Lisa decrypted: allure of an imperfect reality. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 93, No. 9, pp. 1325-1327). Elsevier.
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