Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Sensational statement by Italian scientists: the remains of Mona Lisa have been found

On September 19, 1478, Leonardo da Vinci completed one of his most important works, the Mona Lisa (aka La Gioconda). The painting became iconic not only for the author, but also the most famous portrait in history, as well as the most mysterious creation in fine art. There are many more myths about this picture than facts, but the facts are also very fascinating. We have collected 10 of the most interesting facts about La Gioconda.

1. The full title of the painting is “Portrait of Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo.” In Italian, ma donna means “my lady,” which was shortened to monna or mona.

2. Many scientists believe that Da Vinci depicted his self-portrait in the painting.

3. The artist did not leave his signature, date, or model’s name. There is no entry about the painting in his diaries. In general, not a single mention or connection of the author with the work.

Experts say that earlier versions are much lighter and brighter than the modern one.

4. During detailed research, it was found that three versions of the painting, painted at different times, were applied to the canvas. Obviously, the artist sought to bring his creation to perfection. Experts say that earlier versions are much lighter and brighter than the modern one.

5. The landscape painted behind the Gioconda is fictitious. After all, it is known that Leonardo painted the painting in his Milan workshop.

6. According to researchers, the model’s famous smile is an optical illusion. If you look into the eyes of the Mona Lisa, the shadows give the impression of a smile. But as soon as you look lower, the smile disappears.

7. Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. Researchers have proven that they once existed, but disappeared. Perhaps Da Vinci himself erased them, but never painted them again. By the way, in the Middle Ages it was fashionable to pluck eyebrows completely.

8. The work is priceless. An attempt to sell it would bring billions in profit, but it is still difficult to estimate its exact value.

In 1911, the painting was stolen by a Louvre employee.

9. The first “exhibition gallery” for the “Mona Lisa” was the bathhouse. King Francis I of France bought the painting from da Vinci for a huge amount of money at that time - 4,000 gold coins - and placed it in a bathhouse in Fontainebleau, the place where he held meetings with his close associates and ambassadors, and also arranged his romantic dates.

10. In 1911, the painting was stolen by an employee of the Louvre. The main suspect in this case was Pablo Picasso. All police searches were unsuccessful. The painting was found two years later - the thief responded to a newspaper advertisement from the director of an art gallery, and in 1914 “La Gioconda” returned to the Louvre.

“Mona Lisa” (“La Gioconda”; full title - Portrait of Lady Lisa Giocondo) is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, located in the Louvre (Paris, France), one of the most famous works of painting in the world, which is believed to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, painted around 1503-1505.

“Soon it will be four centuries since the Mona Lisa deprives everyone of their sanity who, having seen enough of it, begins to talk about it.” (Gruye, late 19th century). »

Gioconda
Paris. Louvre. 77x53. Tree. 1506-1516

Even the first Italian biographers of Leonardo da Vinci wrote about the place this painting occupied in the artist’s work. Leonardo did not shy away from working on the Mona Lisa, as was the case with many other orders, but, on the contrary, devoted himself to it with some kind of passion. All the time he had left from working on “The Battle of Anghiari” was devoted to her. He spent considerable time on it and, leaving Italy in adulthood, took it with him to France, among some other selected paintings. Da Vinci had a special affection for this portrait, and also thought a lot during the process of its creation; in the “Treatise on Painting” and in those notes on painting techniques that were not included in it, one can find many indications that undoubtedly relate to “La Gioconda” "

"Leonardo da Vinci's Studio" in an 1845 engraving: Gioconda is entertained by jesters and musicians

According to Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574), an author of biographies of Italian artists who wrote about Leonardo in 1550, 31 years after his death, Mona Lisa (short for Madonna Lisa) was the wife of a Florentine man named Francesco del Giocondo. del Giocondo), on whose portrait Leonardo spent 4 years, yet left it unfinished.

“Leonardo undertook to make a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, for Francesco del Giocondo, and, after working on it for four years, he left it unfinished. This work is now in the possession of the French king in Fontainebleau.
This image gives anyone who would like to see to what extent art can imitate nature the opportunity to comprehend this in the easiest way, for it reproduces all the smallest details that the subtlety of painting can convey. Therefore, the eyes have that shine and that moisture that is usually visible in a living person, and around them are all those reddish reflections and hairs that can be depicted only with the greatest subtlety of craftsmanship.
Eyelashes, made in a manner similar to how hair actually grows on the body, where it is thicker and where it is thinner, and located according to the pores of the skin, could not be depicted with more naturalness. The nose, with its lovely holes, pinkish and delicate, seems alive.
The mouth, slightly open, with the edges connected by the scarlet lips, with the physicality of its appearance, seems not like paint, but real flesh. If you look closely, you can see the pulse beating in the hollow of the neck. And truly we can say that this work was written in such a way that it plunges any arrogant artist, no matter who he is, into confusion and fear.
By the way, Leonardo resorted to the following technique: since Mona Lisa was very beautiful, while painting the portrait he held people who played the lyre or sang, and there were always jesters who kept her cheerful and removed the melancholy that she usually conveys. painting performed portraits. Leonardo's smile in this work is so pleasant that it seems as if one is contemplating a divine rather than a human being; the portrait itself is considered an extraordinary work, for life itself could not be different.”

This drawing from the Hyde Collection in New York may be by Leonardo da Vinci and is a preliminary sketch for a portrait of the Mona Lisa. In this case, it is curious that at first he intended to place a magnificent branch in her hands.

Most likely, Vasari simply added a story about jesters to entertain readers. Vasari's text also contains an accurate description of the eyebrows missing from the painting. This inaccuracy could only arise if the author described the picture from memory or from the stories of others. Alexey Dzhivelegov writes that Vasari’s indication that “the work on the portrait lasted four years is clearly exaggerated: Leonardo did not stay in Florence for so long after returning from Caesar Borgia, and if he had started painting the portrait before leaving for Caesar, Vasari would probably , I would say that he wrote it for five years." The scientist also writes about the erroneous indication of the unfinished nature of the portrait - “the portrait undoubtedly took a long time to paint and was completed, no matter what Vasari said, who in his biography of Leonardo stylized him as an artist who, in principle, could not finish any major work. And not only was it finished, but it is one of Leonardo’s most carefully finished works.”

An interesting fact is that in his description Vasari admires Leonardo's talent for conveying physical phenomena, and not the similarity between the model and the painting. It seems that it was this “physical” feature of the masterpiece that left a deep impression on visitors to the artist’s studio and reached Vasari almost fifty years later.

The painting was well known among art lovers, although Leonardo left Italy for France in 1516, taking the painting with him. According to Italian sources, it has since been in the collection of the French king Francis I, but it remains unclear when and how he acquired it and why Leonardo did not return it to the customer.

It is possible that the artist did not actually finish the painting in Florence, but took it with him when he left in 1516 and applied the final stroke in the absence of witnesses who could tell Vasari about it. If so, he completed it shortly before his death in 1519. (In France, he lived in Clos Luce, not far from the royal castle of Amboise).

In 1517, Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona visited Leonardo in his French workshop.
A description of this visit was made by the secretary of Cardinal Antonio de Beatis:
“On October 10, 1517, Monsignor and others like him visited in one of the remote parts of Amboise Messire Leonardo da Vinci, a Florentine, a gray-bearded old man, more than seventy years old, the most excellent artist of our time. He showed His Excellency three pictures: one of a Florentine lady, painted from life at the request of Friar Lorenzo the Magnificent Giuliano de' Medici, another of St. John the Baptist in his youth, and the third of St. Anne with Mary and the Christ Child; all extremely beautiful.
From the master himself, due to the fact that his right hand was paralyzed at that time, one could no longer expect new good works.”
According to some researchers, “a certain Florentine lady” means the “Mona Lisa”. It is possible, however, that this was another portrait, from which no evidence or copies have survived, as a result of which Giuliano Medici could not have any connection with the Mona Lisa.

A 19th-century painting by Ingres shows, in an exaggeratedly sentimental manner, the grief of King Francis at Leonardo da Vinci's deathbed

Model identification problem

Vasari, born in 1511, could not see Gioconda with his own eyes and was forced to refer to information given by the anonymous author of the first biography of Leonardo. It is he who writes about the silk merchant Francesco Giocondo, who ordered a portrait of his third wife from the artist. Despite the words of this anonymous contemporary, many researchers doubted the possibility that the Mona Lisa was painted in Florence (1500–1505), since the sophisticated technique may indicate a later creation of the painting. It was also argued that at that time Leonardo was so busy working on “The Battle of Anghiari” that he even refused to accept the Marquis of Mantua Isabella d’Este’s order (however, he had a very difficult relationship with this lady).

The work of a follower of Leonardo is a depiction of a saint. Perhaps her appearance depicts Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan, one of the candidates for the role of Mona Lisa

Francesco del Giocondo, a prominent Florentine popola, at the age of thirty-five in 1495, married for the third time to a young Neapolitan from the noble Gherardini family - Lisa Gherardini, full name Lisa di Antonio Maria di Noldo Gherardini (June 15, 1479 - July 15, 1542, or about 1551 ) . Although Vasari provides information about the identity of the model, there was still uncertainty about her for a long time and many versions were expressed:

According to one of the put forward versions, “Mona Lisa” is a self-portrait of the artist

However, the version about the correspondence of the generally accepted name of the picture to the personality of the model in 2005 is believed to have found final confirmation. Scientists from the University of Heidelberg studied the notes in the margins of the tome, the owner of which was a Florentine official, a personal acquaintance of the artist Agostino Vespucci. In notes in the margins of the book, he compares Leonardo with the famous ancient Greek painter Apelles and notes that “da Vinci is now working on three paintings, one of which is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini.” Thus, the Mona Lisa really turned out to be the wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo - Lisa Gherardini. The painting, as scientists prove in this case, was commissioned by Leonardo for the new home of the young family and to commemorate the birth of their second son, named Andrea.

The copy of the Mona Lisa from the Wallace Collection (Baltimore) was made before the edges of the original were trimmed, and allows the lost columns to be seen

The copy of the Mona Lisa from the Wallace Collection (Baltimore) was made before the edges of the original were trimmed, and allows the lost columns to be seen

The rectangular painting depicts a woman in dark clothes, turning half-turned. She sits in a chair with her hands clasped together, one hand resting on its armrest and the other on top, turning in the chair almost to face the viewer. Parted, smoothly and flatly lying hair, visible through a transparent veil draped over it (according to some assumptions - an attribute of widowhood), falls on the shoulders in two thin, slightly wavy strands. A green dress in thin ruffles, with yellow pleated sleeves, cut out on a white low chest. The head is slightly turned.

Art critic Boris Vipper, describing the picture, points out that traces of Quattrocento fashion are noticeable in the face of Mona Lisa: her eyebrows and hair on the top of her forehead are shaved.

Fragment of the Mona Lisa with the remains of the column base

The lower edge of the painting cuts off the second half of her body, so the portrait is almost half-length. The chair in which the model sits stands on a balcony or loggia, the parapet line of which is visible behind her elbows. It is believed that earlier the picture could have been wider and accommodated two side columns of the loggia, of which at the moment there remain two column bases, fragments of which are visible along the edges of the parapet.

The loggia overlooks a desolate wilderness with meandering streams and a lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains that extends to a high skyline behind the figure.

“Mona Lisa is represented sitting in a chair against the backdrop of a landscape, and the very juxtaposition of her figure, very close to the viewer, with the landscape visible from afar, like a huge mountain, imparts extraordinary grandeur to the image. The same impression is promoted by the contrast of the heightened plastic tactility of the figure and its smooth, generalized silhouette with a vision-like landscape stretching into the foggy distance with bizarre rocks and water channels winding among them.”

Composition
Mona Lisa depth.jpg

The portrait of Gioconda is one of the best examples of the portrait genre of the Italian High Renaissance.

Boris Vipper writes that, despite traces of the Quattrocento, “with her clothes with a small cutout on the chest and with sleeves in loose folds, just as with her upright posture, slight turn of the body and soft gesture of the hands, Mona Lisa entirely belongs to the era of the classical style.”

Mikhail Alpatov points out that “Gioconda is perfectly inscribed in a strictly proportional rectangle, her half-figure forms something whole, her folded hands give her image completeness. Now, of course, there could be no question of the fanciful curls of the early “Annunciation.”
However, no matter how softened all the contours are, the wavy strand of Mona Lisa’s hair is in tune with the transparent veil, and the hanging fabric thrown over her shoulder finds an echo in the smooth windings of the distant road.
In all this, Leonardo demonstrates his ability to create according to the laws of rhythm and harmony.”
Current state

Macro photography allows you to see a large number of craquelures (cracks) on the surface of the painting.

“Mona Lisa” became very dark, which is considered to be the result of its author’s inherent tendency to experiment with paints, because of which the “Last Supper” fresco practically died. The artist’s contemporaries, however, managed to express their admiration not only for the composition, design and play of chiaroscuro, but also for the color of the work. It is assumed, for example, that the sleeves of her dress may have originally been red, as can be seen from the copy of the painting from the Prado.

The current condition of the painting is quite poor, which is why the Louvre staff announced that they would no longer give it to exhibitions:
“Cracks have formed in the painting, and one of them stops just millimeters above Mona Lisa’s head.”

Analysis
Technique

As Dzhivelegov notes, by the time of the creation of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo’s mastery “had already entered a phase of such maturity, when all formal tasks of a compositional and other nature were posed and solved, when Leonardo began to feel that only the last, most difficult tasks of artistic technique deserved to do them. And when he found a model in the person of Mona Lisa that satisfied his needs, he tried to solve some of the highest and most difficult problems of painting technique that he had not yet solved. He wanted, with the help of techniques that he had already developed and tested before, especially with the help of his famous sfumato, which had previously given extraordinary effects, to do more than he had done before: to create a living face of a living person and so reproduce the features and expression of this face so that with them the inner world of man was fully revealed.”

Landscape behind the Mona Lisa

Boris Vipper asks the question “by what means was this spirituality achieved, this undying spark of consciousness in the image of the Mona Lisa, then two main means should be named.
One is Leonard’s wonderful sfumato. No wonder Leonardo liked to say that “modeling is the soul of painting.” It is sfumato that creates Gioconda’s moist gaze, her smile as light as the wind, and the incomparable caressing softness of the touch of her hands.”
Sfumato is a subtle haze that envelops the face and figure, softening contours and shadows. For this purpose, Leonardo recommended placing, as he puts it, “a kind of fog” between the light source and the bodies.

Rothenberg writes that “Leonardo managed to introduce into his creation that degree of generalization that allows him to be considered as an image of the Renaissance man as a whole. This high degree of generalization is reflected in all the elements of the pictorial language of the painting, in its individual motifs - in the way the light, transparent veil, covering the head and shoulders of Mona Lisa, unites the carefully drawn strands of hair and small folds of the dress into an overall smooth outline; it is palpable in the incomparable softness of the modeling of the face (from which, according to the fashion of that time, eyebrows were removed) and beautiful, sleek hands.”

Alpatov adds that “in the softly melting haze enveloping the face and figure, Leonardo managed to make one feel the limitless variability of human facial expressions. Although Gioconda's eyes look attentively and calmly at the viewer, thanks to the shading of her eye sockets, one might think that they are frowning slightly; her lips are compressed, but near their corners there are subtle shadows that make you believe that every minute they will open, smile, and speak.
The very contrast between her gaze and the half-smile on her lips gives the idea of ​​the inconsistency of her experiences. (...) Leonardo worked on it for several years, ensuring that not a single sharp stroke, not a single angular contour remained in the picture; and although the edges of objects in it are clearly perceptible, they all dissolve in the subtlest transitions from half-shadows to half-lights.”

Scenery

Art critics emphasize the organic way with which the artist combined the portrait characterization of a person with a landscape full of a special mood, and how much this increased the dignity of the portrait.

An early copy of the Mona Lisa from the Prado shows how much a portrait image loses when placed against a dark, neutral background

Whipper considers landscape to be the second medium that creates the spirituality of a painting: “The second medium is the relationship between figure and background. The fantastic, rocky landscape, as if seen through sea water, in the portrait of Mona Lisa has some other reality than her figure itself. The Mona Lisa has the reality of life, the landscape has the reality of a dream. Thanks to this contrast, Mona Lisa seems so incredibly close and tangible, and we perceive the landscape as the radiation of her own dreams.”

The appearance and mental structure of a particular person are conveyed by him with unprecedented syntheticity.
This impersonal psychologism corresponds to the cosmic abstraction of the landscape, almost completely devoid of any signs of human presence. In smoky chiaroscuro, not only all the outlines of the figure and landscape and all the color tones are softened. In the subtle transitions from light to shadow, almost imperceptible to the eye, in the vibration of Leonard’s “sfumato”, all definiteness of individuality and its psychological state softens to the limit, melts and is ready to disappear. (...) “La Gioconda” is not a portrait. This is a visible symbol of the very life of man and nature, united into one whole and presented abstractly from its individual concrete form. But behind the barely noticeable movement, which, like light ripples, runs across the motionless surface of this harmonious world, one can discern all the richness of the possibilities of physical and spiritual existence.”

“Mona Lisa” is designed in golden brown and reddish tones in the foreground and emerald green tones in the background. “Transparent, like glass, the colors form an alloy, as if created not by the hand of a person, but by that internal force of matter, which gives birth to crystals of perfect shape from a solution.”
Like many of Leonardo's works, this work has darkened over time, and its color relationships have changed somewhat, but even now the thoughtful comparisons in the tones of carnation and clothing and their general contrast with the bluish-green, “underwater” tone of the landscape are clearly perceived.

Art historians note that the portrait of Mona Lisa was a decisive step in the development of Renaissance portraiture. Rotenber writes: “although the Quattrocento painters left a number of significant works of this genre, their achievements in portraiture were, so to speak, disproportionate to the achievements in the main painting genres - in compositions on religious and mythological themes. The inequality of the portrait genre was already reflected in the very “iconography” of portrait images.
“Donna Nuda” (that is, “Naked Donna”). Unknown artist, late 16th century, Hermitage

In his innovative work, Leonardo transferred the main center of gravity to the face of the portrait. At the same time, he used his hands as a powerful means of psychological characterization. By making the portrait generational in format, the artist was able to demonstrate a wider range of artistic techniques. And the most important thing in the figurative structure of a portrait is the subordination of all details to the guiding idea. “The head and hands are the undoubted center of the picture, to which the rest of its elements are sacrificed. The fabulous landscape seems to shine through the sea waters, it seems so distant and intangible. Its main goal is not to distract the viewer's attention from the face. And the same role is intended to be performed by the garment, which falls into the smallest folds. Leonardo deliberately avoids heavy draperies, which could obscure the expressiveness of his hands and face. Thus, he forces the latter to perform with special force, the greater the more modest and neutral the landscape and attire, likened to a quiet, barely noticeable accompaniment.”

Leonardo's students and followers created numerous replicas of the Mona Lisa. Some of them (from the Vernon collection, USA; from the Walter collection, Baltimore, USA; and also for some time the Isleworth Mona Lisa, Switzerland) are considered authentic by their owners, and the painting in the Louvre is considered a copy. There is also the “nude Mona Lisa” iconography, represented by several variants (“Beautiful Gabrielle”, “Monna Vanna”, the Hermitage “Donna Nuda”), apparently made by the artist’s own students. A large number of them gave rise to an unprovable version that there was a version of the nude Mona Lisa, painted by the master himself.

Reputation of the painting

"Mona Lisa" behind bulletproof glass in the Louvre and museum visitors crowding nearby

Despite the fact that the Mona Lisa was highly appreciated by the artist’s contemporaries, its reputation subsequently faded. The painting was not particularly remembered until the mid-19th century, when artists close to the Symbolist movement began to praise it, associating it with their ideas about feminine mystique. Critic Walter Pater expressed his opinion in his 1867 essay on da Vinci, describing the figure in the painting as a kind of mythical embodiment of the eternal feminine, who is "older than the rocks between which she sits" and who has "died many times and learned the secrets of the afterlife." .

The painting’s further rise in fame was associated with its mysterious disappearance at the beginning of the 20th century and its happy return to the museum several years later (see below, section Theft), thanks to which it never left the pages of newspapers.

A contemporary of her adventure, critic Abram Efros wrote: “... the museum guard, who now does not leave a single step from the painting since its return to the Louvre after the abduction in 1911, is guarding not a portrait of Francesca del Giocondo’s wife, but an image of some kind of semi-human, a half-snake creature, either smiling or gloomy, dominating the cold, bare, rocky space spread out behind him.”

The Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings in Western European art today. Its resounding reputation is associated not only with its high artistic merits, but also with the atmosphere of mystery surrounding this work.

Everyone knows what an unsolvable riddle the Mona Lisa has been asking for fans who crowd in front of her image for almost four hundred years now. Never before has an artist expressed the essence of femininity (I quote lines written by a sophisticated writer hiding behind the pseudonym of Pierre Corlet): “Tenderness and bestiality, modesty and hidden voluptuousness, the great secret of the heart that curbs itself, the reasoning mind, a personality closed in itself, abandoning others can only contemplate its brilliance.” (Eugene Muntz).

One of the mysteries is related to the deep affection that the author felt for this work. Various explanations were offered, for example, a romantic one: Leonardo fell in love with Mona Lisa and deliberately delayed work in order to stay longer with her, and she teased him with her mysterious smile and brought him to the greatest creative ecstasies. This version is considered simply speculation. Dzhivelegov believes that this attachment is due to the fact that he found in her the point of application for many of his creative quests.

Smile of Gioconda

Leonardo da Vinci. "John the Baptist". 1513-1516, Louvre. This picture also has its own mystery: why is John the Baptist smiling and pointing upward?

Leonardo da Vinci. "Saint Anne with the Madonna and Child Christ" (fragment), c. 1510, Louvre.

The Mona Lisa's smile is one of the most famous mysteries of the painting. This slight wandering smile is found in many works by both the master himself and the Leonardesques, but it was in the Mona Lisa that it reached its perfection.

“The viewer is especially fascinated by the demonic charm of this smile. Hundreds of poets and writers have written about this woman, who seems to be either smiling seductively or frozen, looking coldly and soullessly into space, and no one unraveled her smile, no one interpreted her thoughts. Everything, even the landscape, is mysterious, like a dream, tremulous, like a pre-storm haze of sensuality (Muter). »

Grashchenkov writes: “The endless variety of human feelings and desires, opposing passions and thoughts, smoothed out and fused together, resonates in the harmoniously dispassionate appearance of Gioconda only with the uncertainty of her smile, barely emerging and disappearing.
This meaningless fleeting movement of the corners of her mouth, like a distant echo merged into one sound, brings to us from the boundless distance the colorful polyphony of a person’s spiritual life.”

Art critic Rotenberg believes that “there are few portraits in all world art that are equal to the Mona Lisa in terms of the power of expression of the human personality, embodied in the unity of character and intellect. It is precisely the extraordinary intellectual charge of Leonardo’s portrait that distinguishes it from the portrait images of the Quattrocento. This feature of his is perceived all the more acutely because it relates to a female portrait, in which the character of the model was previously revealed in a completely different, predominantly lyrical, figurative tonality.
The feeling of strength emanating from the Mona Lisa is an organic combination of inner composure and a sense of personal freedom, the spiritual harmony of a person, based on his consciousness of his own significance. And her smile itself does not at all express superiority or disdain; it is perceived as the result of calm self-confidence and complete self-control.”

Boris Vipper points out that the above-mentioned lack of eyebrows and shaved forehead perhaps involuntarily enhances the strange mystery in her facial expression. He further writes about the power of the painting: “If we ask ourselves what is the great attractive power of the Mona Lisa, its truly incomparable hypnotic effect, then there can only be one answer - in its spirituality. The most ingenious and the most opposite interpretations were put into the smile of “La Gioconda”. They wanted to read pride and tenderness, sensuality and coquetry, cruelty and modesty in it.
The mistake was, firstly, in the fact that they were looking for individual, subjective spiritual properties at all costs in the image of the Mona Lisa, while there is no doubt that Leonardo was striving for typical spirituality.
Secondly, and this is perhaps even more important, they tried to attribute emotional content to the spirituality of Mona Lisa, whereas in fact it has intellectual roots.
The miracle of the Mona Lisa lies precisely in the fact that she thinks; that, standing in front of a yellowed, cracked board, we irresistibly sense the presence of a being endowed with intelligence, a being with whom we can talk and from whom we can expect an answer.”

Lazarev analyzed it as an art scientist: “This smile is not so much an individual feature of Mona Lisa as a typical formula for psychological revitalization, a formula that runs like a red thread through all of Leonardo’s youthful images, a formula that later turned, in the hands of his students and followers, into traditional stamp. Like the proportions of Leonard's figures, it is built on the finest mathematical measurements, on strict consideration of the expressive values ​​of individual parts of the face. And for all that, this smile is absolutely natural, and this is precisely the power of its charm. It takes away everything hard, tense, and frozen from the face; it turns it into a mirror of vague, indefinite spiritual experiences; in its elusive lightness it can only be compared to a ripple running through water.”

Mona Lisa detail mouth.jpg

Her analysis attracted the attention of not only art historians, but also psychologists. Sigmund Freud writes:
“Whoever imagines Leonardo’s paintings is reminded of the strange, captivating and mysterious smile hidden on the lips of his female images. The smile frozen on his elongated, tremulous lips became characteristic of him and is most often called “Leonardian.”
In the peculiarly beautiful appearance of the Florentine Mona Lisa del Gioconda, she most captivates and plunges the viewer into confusion. This smile required one interpretation, but found a variety of interpretations, none of which satisfied. (...)
The guess that two different elements were combined in Mona Lisa's smile was born among many critics. Therefore, in the facial expression of the beautiful Florentine, they saw the most perfect image of the antagonism that rules a woman’s love life, restraint and seduction, sacrificial tenderness and recklessly demanding sensuality that absorbs a man as something extraneous. (...) Leonardo, in the person of Mona Lisa, managed to reproduce the double meaning of her smile, the promise of boundless tenderness and ominous threat.”

16th century copy located in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg

The viewer is especially fascinated by the demonic charm of this smile. Hundreds of poets and writers have written about this woman, who seems to be either smiling seductively or frozen, looking coldly and soullessly into space, and no one unraveled her smile, no one interpreted her thoughts. Everything, even the landscape, is mysterious, like a dream, tremulous, like a pre-storm haze of sensuality (Muter).

The philosopher A.F. Losev writes sharply negatively about her:
... "Mona Lisa" with her "demonic smile". “After all, one has only to look closely at Gioconda’s eyes and one can easily notice that she, in fact, does not smile at all. This is not a smile, but a predatory face with cold eyes and a clear knowledge of the helplessness of the victim whom Gioconda wants to take possession of and in which, in addition to weakness, she also counts on powerlessness in the face of the bad feeling that has taken possession of her.”

The discoverer of the term microexpression, psychologist Paul Ekman (the prototype of Dr. Cal Lightman from the television series Lie to Me), writes about the facial expression of Mona Lisa, analyzing it from the point of view of his knowledge of human facial expressions: “the other two types [of smiles] combine a sincere smile with a characteristic expression in the eyes. A flirting smile, although at the same time the seducer averts his eyes away from the object of his interest, in order to then again cast a sly glance at him, which, again, is instantly averted as soon as it is noticed. The unusual impression of the famous Mona Lisa partly lies in the fact that Leonardo catches his nature precisely at the moment of this playful movement; turning her head in one direction, she looks in the other - at the object of her interest. In life, this facial expression is fleeting - a furtive glance lasts no more than a moment.”

History of the painting in modern times

At the time of his death in 1525, Leonardo's assistant (and possibly lover) named Salai was in possession, according to references in his personal papers, of a portrait of a woman entitled "La Gioconda" (quadro de una dona aretata), which had been bequeathed to him by his teacher. Salai left the painting to his sisters who lived in Milan. It remains a mystery how, in this case, the portrait got from Milan back to France. It is also unknown who and when exactly trimmed the edges of the painting with columns, which, according to most researchers, based on comparison with other portraits, existed in the original version. Unlike another cropped work by Leonardo - “Portrait of Ginevra Benci”, the lower part of which was cropped because it was damaged by water or fire, in this case the reasons were most likely of a compositional nature. There is a version that Leonardo da Vinci himself did it.

Crowd in the Louvre near the painting, our days

King Francis I is believed to have bought the painting from Salai's heirs (for 4,000 ecus) and kept it in his castle of Fontainebleau, where it remained until the time of Louis XIV. The latter transported her to the Palace of Versailles, and after the French Revolution she ended up in the Louvre. Napoleon hung the portrait in his bedroom at the Tuileries Palace, then it returned to the museum.

During the Second World War, the painting was transported for safety from the Louvre to the castle of Amboise, then to the Abbey of Loc-Dieu, and finally to the Ingres Museum in Monataban, from where it was safely returned to its place after the victory.

In the twentieth century, the painting almost never left the Louvre, visiting the USA in 1963 and Japan in 1974. On the way from Japan to France, the painting was exhibited at the Museum. A. S. Pushkin in Moscow. The trips only cemented the success and fame of the film.

1911 Empty wall where the Mona Lisa hung

The Mona Lisa would have been known only to fine art connoisseurs for a long time, if not for her exceptional history, which ensured her worldwide fame.

Vincenzo Perugia. Leaf from a criminal case.

On August 21, 1911, the painting was stolen by an employee of the Louvre, Italian mirror master Vincenzo Peruggia. The purpose of this abduction is not clear. Perhaps Perugia wanted to return La Gioconda to its historical homeland, believing that the French had “kidnapped” it and forgetting that Leonardo himself brought the painting to France. The police search was unsuccessful. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested on suspicion of committing a crime and later released. Pablo Picasso was also under suspicion. The painting was found only two years later

Several centuries after her death, her portrait, the Mona Lisa, gained worldwide recognition and is now considered one of the greatest works of art in history. The painting is of interest to researchers and amateurs and has become the subject of a wide variety of speculation. The final match between Lisa del Giocondo and the Mona Lisa was established in 2005.

Biography

Childhood

Mona Lisa

Like many other Florentines, Francesco was a connoisseur of art and patronized artists. His son, Bartolomeo, commissioned Antonio di Donnino Mazzieri to decorate the family crypt in the Basilica of Santissima Annunziata with fresco. Andrea del Sarto, commissioned by another family member, painted Madonna. Francesco ordered ital from Domenico Puligo. Domenico Puligo painting depicting Saint Francis of Assisi.

The generally accepted version is that the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo was painted by Leonardo, and in this case, it could have been commissioned from the artist by her husband, probably to celebrate the birth of his son and the purchase of the house.

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Literature

In English

• Pallanti, Giuseppe. Mona Lisa Revealed: The True Identity of Leonardo's Model. - Florence, Italy: Skira, 2006. - ISBN 88-7624-659-2.
• Sassoon, Donald (2001). "". History Workshop Journal(Oxford University Press) 2001 (51): Abstract. DOI:10.1093/hwj/2001.51.1. ISSN.

Excerpt characterizing Lisa del Giocondo

The history of the painting “Mona Lisa” excites more than one human generation. Leonardo da Vinci began work on his immortal masterpiece around 1503. The artist painted a portrait of the wife of a rich Florentine man named Francesco Giocondo. The girl's name was Mona Lisa. The second title of the painting - "La Gioconda" - is somehow closer to a wider audience.

Already the master's contemporaries appreciated the portrait to the highest degree. The popularity of the image was so enormous that later legends were composed about its writing and various theories were put forward.

How does she look

What does the Mona Lisa look like? The description is as follows: the immortal creation measures 77 by 53 cm. The painting is painted in oil on a poplar board. It depicts a woman sitting in a chair. She was positioned against the backdrop of the landscape. In her portrait, the viewer is attracted by her appearance - her extraordinary gaze, as if constantly following the beholder, which radiates reason and will. But an even greater mystery is the world-famous smile of Gioconda. It is barely perceptible, and its meaning seems to elude the person looking at the picture. It is this elusiveness that brings something to the image that creates a desire to look at it again and again.

There are very few portraits in world art that can compare with the “Mona Lisa” in the power of expression of human individuality, conveyed in the unity of intellect and character. Where the Mona Lisa painting is located, there is a spirit of mystery and mystery. The famous portrait of da Vinci differs from all other captured images of the Quattrocento period in its unusual intellectual charge.

“La Gioconda” emanates a feeling of strength, which is an organic combination of a feeling of personal freedom and inner composure. A woman's smile in no way conveys disdain or superiority. It is perceived as the result of complete self-control and calm self-confidence.

Worldwide fame

“Mona Lisa” (original) would have been known for a long time only to a sophisticated and subtle connoisseur of fine art, if one amazing story had not happened to her, which brought the canvas world-famous popularity.

From the very beginning of the 16th century, the masterpiece was preserved in the royal collection. He got here thanks to who bought it after the death of Leonardo. In 1793, the image was placed in the Louvre. Most people know this museum as the home of the Mona Lisa. But that’s not what we’re talking about now.

So, La Gioconda became a masterpiece of national importance and was permanently located only in the Louvre. In 1911 (August 21), museum employee Vincenzo Perugia, a mirror maker from Italy, stole the portrait. Definitely no one was able to find out the true purpose of the crime. Perhaps Vincenzo intended to return the painting to its historical homeland. Two years later, the painting was found in Italy. Perugia himself helped discover the image: he responded to a newspaper ad and decided to sell the Mona Lisa. At the beginning of January 1914, La Gioconda returned to the Louvre.

Secret identity

It is difficult to identify the person depicted on the canvas. There are many controversial hypotheses presented on this matter. Researchers disagree. Adherents of various theories put forward the following statements regarding the identity of Mona Lisa: some of them are sure that this is Isabella from Este. The second is that in the picture there is a young man dressed as a woman. Still others are inclined to believe that this is the wife of the noble Florentine del Giocondo. They also say that this is an ordinary or da Vinci’s own self-portrait.

The mystery of the Mona Lisa remains unknown today. In 1517, Cardinal Louis of Aragon visited the great master. The monsignor's secretary described this meeting. He recorded that Leonardo da Vinci showed Louis three of his paintings. One depicted a Florentine lady, who was painted from life at the request of Giuliano de' Medici. The second depicted the face of a young man. And the third painting turned out to be a portrait of Mary with the newborn Jesus.

Some historians claim that the Florentine lady was the Mona Lisa. But perhaps it was some other portrait, from which there are no copies and there is not even evidence left about it. Therefore, the Medici could not have anything to do with the Mona Lisa.

How to find a painting

Where the painting “Mona Lisa” is located is known to all inhabitants of our planet. It is preserved in the Louvre. Each of the museum signs leads specifically to this painting. Japanese television bought an entire room in the royal palace for the portrait. And the image itself is covered with thick armor. There are always a couple of guards next to the portrait, and countless visitors flock here. You can see “La Gioconda” only in the Louvre, and nowhere else. In the middle of the last century, the masterpiece was removed from the museum twice, but the management of the institution decided never to transport the Mona Lisa outside its borders again. The part of the Louvre called Denon, the seventh hall of painting in Italy, boasts that on its wall hangs the face of the most famous woman in the history of art.

Shades and shadows

Scientists all over the planet cannot calm down, trying to unravel the secrets of the Mona Lisa portrait (the museum where it is located is listed above). A few years ago they resorted to using it in order to understand how the master created shadows on his canvas. Philip Walter and his colleagues examined seven paintings by da Vinci, including La Gioconda. X-rays make it possible to study a portrait without damaging the layers of paint.

During the research, it was found that Leonardo used the “sfumato” technique, which was popular in his time. She made possible soft transitions of color or shades on the canvas.

Walter's most shocking discovery was that not a single fingerprint or stroke could be seen in the painting. Everything was done simply perfectly, and therefore it is incredibly difficult to analyze the Mona Lisa.

Scientists have found that Leonardo had the ability to apply layers whose thickness was only two micrometers, and the total step thickness was no more than 30-40 microns.

An invaluable masterpiece

How much is the Mona Lisa worth now? Its price is not determined in banknotes. But the legendary “La Gioconda” is included in the Guinness Book of Records as the canvas insured for the largest amount. In 1962 it was one hundred million dollars. But today the Louvre spends this money not on insurance, but on security. Taking into account the inflation that has occurred, in 2006 this amount would have been equivalent to 670 million US dollars. Thus, the image of Mona Lisa is the most expensive portrait on Earth.

A mystery shrouded in darkness

"La Gioconda" raises a lot of questions. One of them is why a woman has no eyebrows. The end of the 15th century and the beginning of the next century are known for the fact that completely removed eyebrows were in fashion then. So, we can conclude that the lady depicted on the canvas followed all the style trends, and therefore her eyebrows were plucked. But engineer from France Pascal Cote claims that there were eyebrows after all.

Using a state-of-the-art scanner, the researcher made a copy of the canvas, on which traces of eyebrows were found. Pascal is sure that these strokes were there initially, but were later erased.

The reasons for this could be overzealous intentions to preserve the masterpiece. Over the course of five centuries, the canvas was often cleaned, and therefore small elements on it could easily be erased.

The unsuccessful attempt to restore the Mona Lisa is also cited by Cote as the “missing” of the eyebrows. But it is still not clear how they could have completely disappeared.

At least with one eye

The reader already knows where the painting “Mona Lisa” is located. And, probably, every person wants to see the original, which conquered the world, at least once in their life, from afar. This portrait holds so many secrets and mysteries that it is simply impossible not to try to solve at least one of them. But no one has succeeded yet. All of them are known only to Leonardo, who took them with him, leaving only mysteries and his priceless, immortal masterpiece for future generations.

Mona Lisa is the most famous work in the art world, created by the most famous author - Leonardo da Vinci. This is a legendary work of art, which is shrouded in hundreds of secrets and unsolved mysteries, which fascinates the minds of many researchers and ordinary uninitiated viewers.

There has always been interest in creation, but it has especially intensified in recent years after the release of the novel “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown, as well as films based on this book. And now you will learn about the most incredible and interesting facts about Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

Facts about Mona Lisa

• The prefix Mona means “Madonna” or “milady”, and Lisa is just a name.
• The identity of the man in the painting has forever remained a mystery. Some researchers are inclined to think that this is a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci in a female form, but most consider the Mona Lisa to be 24-year-old Lisa Geraldina, also known as Lisa del Giocondo, who was the wife of the merchant Francesco del Giocondo. It is also possible that this is a portrait of the artist's mother.
• In 1956, an emergency occurred at the Louvre. Hugo Ungaza threw a stone at the portrait, causing damage to the masterpiece near the left elbow of the Mona Lisa.
• How much do you think this painting is worth? Hundreds of thousands of dollars? Millions? Billions? No! She is priceless! And that is why the masterpiece is still without insurance.
• Interesting facts about Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa must be supplemented by the fact that the woman depicted in the picture has no eyebrows. It is not known for certain why this happened. It is believed that the eyebrows were erased during one of the restorations in the Middle Ages, since then it was fashionable to completely remove eyebrows. There is also an opinion that the picture is deliberately unfinished by the author.

• The painting is located in a special room in the Louvre. This room was created for 7 million dollars specifically for the Mona Lisa. The masterpiece is located under armored glass, and the required temperature is maintained using a computer and a complex system of sensors.
• The Mona Lisa was completed at Amboise Castle in France around 1505. According to one hypothesis, Leonardo da Vinci is buried in this castle.
• Microscopic numbers and letters are drawn into the pupils of the Mona Lisa. They can only be seen with the help of special equipment. This is believed to be the date the painting was completed and the initials of the artist.
• The Mona Lisa is considered one of the most disappointing attractions. There is so much noise and legends, but when you come to the museum, it is hidden under glass, and so far from you... just a painting...
• A special wave of popularity for the Mona Lisa arose after the abduction. On August 21, 1911, the painting was stolen by Vincenzo Perugio, an employee of the Paris museum. During the investigation, the management of the Louvre was fired, and famous people such as Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire were placed under suspicion. The resulting painting was discovered on January 4, 1914 in Italy. After this, several exhibitions were held with her, and then she was returned to Paris. The motives for the crime are not known for certain; it is likely that Perugio wanted to return the masterpiece to Leonardo da Vinci’s homeland.