The most incredible and interesting facts about Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. The main secret of Mona Lisa - her smile - still haunts scientists

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most famous works painting all over the world.

Nowadays, this painting is in the Louvre in Paris.

The creation of the painting and the model depicted on it were surrounded by many legends and rumors, and even today, when there are practically no blank spots left in the history of La Gioconda, myths and legends continue to circulate among many not particularly educated people.

Who is Mona Lisa?

The identity of the girl depicted is quite known today. It is believed that this is Lisa Gherardini, a famous resident of Florence who belonged to an aristocratic but impoverished family.

Gioconda is apparently her married name; Her husband was a successful silk merchant, Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo. It is known that Lisa and her husband gave birth to six children and led a measured life, typical of wealthy citizens of Florence.

One might think that the marriage was concluded for love, but at the same time it also had additional benefits for both spouses: Lisa married into a representative of a richer family, and through her Francesco became related to an old family. More recently, in 2015, scientists discovered the grave of Lisa Gherardini - near one of the ancient Italian churches.

Creating a painting

Leonardo da Vinci immediately took on this order and devoted himself to it completely, literally with some kind of passion. And in the future, the artist was closely attached to his portrait, carried it with him everywhere, and when, at a late age, he decided to leave Italy for France, he took with him “La Gioconda” along with several selected works of his.

What was the reason for Leonardo’s attitude towards this painting? It is believed that the great artist had an affair with Lisa love affair. However, it is possible that the painter valued this painting as an example of the highest flowering of his talent: “La Gioconda” truly turned out to be extraordinary for its time.

Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) photo

It is interesting that Leonardo never gave the portrait to the customer, but took it with him to France, where its first owner was King Francis I. Perhaps this action could be due to the fact that the master did not finish the canvas on time and continued painting the painting already after leaving: the famous Renaissance writer Giorgio Vasari reports that Leonardo “never finished” his painting.

Vasari, in his biography of Leonardo, reports many facts about the painting of this painting, but not all of them are reliable. Thus, he writes that the artist created the picture over four years, which is a clear exaggeration.

He also writes that while Lisa was posing, there was a whole group of jesters in the studio entertaining the girl, thanks to which Leonardo was able to portray a smile on her face, and not the sadness that was standard for that time. However, most likely, Vasari composed the story about the jesters himself for the amusement of readers, using the girl’s surname - after all, “Gioconda” means “playing”, “laughing”.

However, it can be noted that Vasari was attracted to this picture not so much by realism as such, but by the amazing rendering of physical effects and the smallest details of the image. Apparently, the writer described the picture from memory or from the stories of other eyewitnesses.

Some myths about the painting

Back at the end of the 19th century, Gruye wrote that “La Gioconda” has been literally depriving people of their minds for several centuries. Many people wondered when contemplating this amazing portrait, which is why it became surrounded by many legends.

• According to one of them, in the portrait Leonardo allegorically depicted... himself, which is allegedly confirmed by a coincidence small parts faces;
• According to another, the painting depicts a young man in women's clothing - for example, Salai, Leonardo's student;
• Another version says that the picture depicts simply an ideal woman, some kind of abstract image. All of these versions are now recognized as erroneous.

Mona Lisa, heroines famous portrait Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci.

Historian Silvano Vinceti, the initiator of the search, said that it is possible to talk about the discovery of remains “with a high probability.” In the same time Professor of Anthropology at the University of Bologna Giorgio Gruppioni noted that the condition of the remains is such that it does not allow us to restore the appearance of the person found in the burial.

Opening of the burial in former church the monastery of St. Ursula, where, according to documents, she was buried Lisa Gherardini, wife merchant Francesco del Giocondo, took place in 2011.

www.globallookpress.com

Researchers are waiting for technology progress

The remains of 12 people were found in the burial. When analyzing them, it was found that only one of the graves contained bones dating back to the time of the death of Lisa Gherardini. To the disappointment of anthropologists, the skull was not preserved, which excluded the possibility of restoration appearance supposed Mona Lisa.

Opening of a burial in the former church of the monastery of St. Ursula in 2011. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

In order to establish the truth, in 2013, scientists opened another crypt of the Gherardini family, in which the children of Lisa Gherardini were buried. But here, too, the researchers failed - the remains were so seriously damaged that they were not suitable for DNA analysis.

Love-match. And according to calculation

Lisa Gherardini was born on June 15, 1479 in Florence, into a family that belonged to an ancient aristocratic family.

The girl was named Lisa in honor of her paternal grandmother. Lisa had three sisters and three brothers, she was the eldest child in the family.

At the age of 15, Lisa married 35-year-old Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo, a textile merchant. Despite the fact that this was Francesco’s third marriage, historians come to the conclusion that this union was concluded for love. At the same time, it was beneficial to both parties - Lisa’s family, despite their aristocratic origins, lived quite poorly, while Francesco del Giocondo was a successful entrepreneur. The husband, in turn, became related to a noble family.

Da Vinci's favorite creation

According to the most common version, the portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo was commissioned by Leonardo da Vinci by her husband in 1503. The reason for ordering a portrait could be some important family event - the birth of a son or the purchase of a new house.

The artist worked on the portrait for several years. It is still unclear why the painting was never transferred to the customer. Some of Leonardo da Vinci's contemporaries argued that the artist considered the portrait unfinished.

Already in the first years, the portrait of Mona Lisa became famous among art lovers. Contemporaries note that the author felt extraordinary affection for this work of his.

Having left Italy for France, Leonardo da Vinci took the painting with him in 1516, and it subsequently ended up in the collection French King Francis I. How and when it came to the monarch is one of the mysteries of the famous portrait.

Immortality as a gift

Over the five centuries that the painting has existed, many versions have been expressed about who is actually depicted in the portrait. Among the candidates were women, men, and even da Vinci himself (according to this version, the painting was his distorted self-portrait).

Only in 2005, scientists from the University of Heidelberg, after analyzing notes in the margins of a tome that belonged to one of Leonardo da Vinci’s close acquaintances, discovered convincing evidence that the portrait actually depicts Lisa Gherardini.

As for the heroine of the portrait herself, historians agree that she lived a typical measured life of a middle-class woman of that era. Lisa gave birth to five children, whose names were Pierrot, Camilla, Andrea, Gioconda And Marietta. She died, according to the most common version, on July 15, 1542 in Florence at the age of 63.

But Leonardo da Vinci's talent gave this woman real immortality.

The masterpiece is admired by more than eight million visitors every year. However, what we see today only vaguely resembles the original creation. More than 500 years separate us from the time the painting was created...

THE PICTURE CHANGES OVER THE YEARS

Mona Lisa changes like a real woman... After all, today we have before us an image of a woman’s faded, faded face, yellowed and darkened in those places where previously the viewer could see brown and green tones (it’s not for nothing that Leonardo’s contemporaries more than once admired the fresh and bright colors paintings by an Italian artist).

The portrait did not escape the ravages of time and damage caused by numerous restorations. And the wooden supports became wrinkled and covered with cracks. Changed under the influence chemical reactions and the properties of pigments, binders and varnish over the years.

The honorary right to create a series of photographs of the "Mona Lisa" in highest resolution was given to the French engineer Pascal Cotte, inventor of the multispectral camera. The result of his work was detailed photographs of the painting in the range from ultraviolet to infrared spectrum.

It is worth noting that Pascal spent about three hours creating photographs of the “naked” painting, that is, without a frame or protective glass. At the same time, he used a unique scanner of his own invention. The result of the work was 13 photographs of a masterpiece with 240-megapixel resolution. The quality of these images is absolutely unique. It took two years to analyze and verify the data obtained.

RECONSTRUCTED BEAUTY

In 2007, at the exhibition “The Genius of Da Vinci,” 25 secrets of the painting were revealed for the first time. Here, for the first time, visitors were able to enjoy the original color of the Mona Lisa's paints (that is, the color of the original pigments that da Vinci used).

The photographs presented the picture to readers in its original form, similar to how Leonardo’s contemporaries saw it: a sky the color of lapis lazuli, a warm pink complexion, clearly drawn mountains, green trees...

Photographs by Pascal Cottet showed that Leonardo had not completed the painting. We observe changes in the position of the model's hand. It can be seen that at first Mona Lisa supported the bedspread with her hand. It also became noticeable that the facial expression and smile were somewhat different at first. And the stain in the corner of the eye is water damage in the varnish coating, most likely as a result of the painting hanging for some time in Napoleon's bathroom. We can also determine that some parts of the painting have become transparent over time. And see that, contrary to modern opinion, Mona Lisa had eyebrows and eyelashes!

WHO IS IN THE PICTURE

“Leonardo undertook to make a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, for Francesco Giocondo, and, having worked for four years, left it unfinished. While painting the portrait, he kept people playing the lyre or singing, and there were always jesters who moved away from her melancholy and kept her cheerful. That’s why her smile is so pleasant.”

This is the only evidence of how the painting was created belongs to da Vinci’s contemporary, the artist and writer Giorgio Vasari (though he was only eight years old when Leonardo died). Based on his words, for several centuries now, the female portrait, on which the master worked in 1503-1506, has been considered an image of 25-year-old Lisa, the wife of the Florentine magnate Francesco del Giocondo. This is what Vasari wrote - and everyone believed it. But most likely, this is a mistake, and there is another woman in the portrait.

There is a lot of evidence: firstly, the headdress is a widow’s mourning veil (meanwhile, Francesco del Giocondo lived a long life), and secondly, if there was a customer, why didn’t Leonardo give him the work? It is known that the artist kept the painting in his possession, and in 1516, leaving Italy, he took it to France; King Francis I paid 4,000 gold florins for it in 1517 - fantastic money at that time. However, he didn’t get “La Gioconda” either.

The artist did not part with the portrait until his death. In 1925, art historians suggested that the half depicts Duchess Constance d'Avalos - the widow of Federico del Balzo, the mistress of Giuliano Medici (brother of Pope Leo X). The basis for the hypothesis was a sonnet by the poet Eneo Irpino, which mentions her portrait by Leonardo. In 1957, the Italian Carlo Pedretti put forward a different version: in fact, it was Pacifica Brandano, another mistress of Giuliano Medici, the widow of a Spanish nobleman, who had a gentle and cheerful disposition, was well educated and could brighten up any company. It is no wonder that such a cheerful person. , like Giuliano, became close to her, thanks to which their son Ippolito was born.

In the papal palace, Leonardo was provided with a workshop with movable tables and the diffused light he loved so much. The artist worked slowly, carefully detailing the details, especially the face and eyes. Pacifica (if that's her) came out as if alive in the picture. The spectators were amazed and often frightened: it seemed to them that instead of the woman in the picture, a monster, some kind of sea siren, was about to appear. Even the landscape behind her contained something mysterious. The famous smile was in no way associated with the idea of ​​righteousness. Rather, there was something in the realm of witchcraft here. It is this mysterious smile that stops, alarms, fascinates and calls the viewer, as if forcing him to enter into a telepathic connection.

Renaissance artists expanded the philosophical and artistic horizons of creativity to the maximum. Man has entered into competition with God, he imitates him, he is obsessed with a great desire to create. He is captured by that one real world, from which the Middle Ages turned away for the sake of the spiritual world.

Leonardo da Vinci dissected corpses. He dreamed of taking over nature by learning to change the direction of rivers and drain swamps; he wanted to steal the art of flight from birds. Painting was for him an experimental laboratory where he conducted constant search more and more new expressive means. The artist's genius allowed him to see the true essence of nature behind the living physicality of forms. And here we cannot help but say about the master’s favorite subtle chiaroscuro (sfumato), which for him was a kind of halo that replaced the medieval halo: this is equally a divine-human and natural sacrament.

The sfumato technique made it possible to enliven landscapes and surprisingly subtly convey the play of feelings on faces in all its variability and complexity. What Leonardo didn’t invent, hoping to realize his plans! The master tirelessly mixes various substances, trying to obtain eternal colors. His brush is so light, so transparent that in the 20th century even X-ray analysis would not reveal traces of its impact. After making a few strokes, he puts the painting aside to let it dry. His eye distinguishes the slightest nuances: sun glare and shadows of some objects on others, a shadow on the pavement and a shadow of sadness or a smile on his face. The general laws of drawing and perspective construction only suggest the path. Our own searches reveal that light has the ability to bend and straighten lines: “Immersing objects in a light-air environment means, in essence, immersing them in infinity.”

WORSHIP

According to experts, her name was Mona Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, ... Although, maybe Isabella Gualando, Isabella d'Este, Filiberta of Savoy, Constance d'Avalos, Pacifica Brandano... Who knows?

The ambiguity of its origins only contributed to its fame. She passed through the centuries in the radiance of her mystery. Long years the portrait of a “court lady in a transparent veil” was a decoration of royal collections. She was seen either in Madame de Maintenon's bedroom or in Napoleon's chambers in the Tuileries. Louis XIII, who frolicked as a child in the Grand Gallery where it hung, refused to give it up to the Duke of Buckingham, saying: “It is impossible to part with a painting that is considered the best in the world.” Everywhere – both in castles and in city houses – they tried to “teach” their daughters the famous smile.

So beautiful image turned into a fashionable stamp. The popularity of the painting has always been high among professional artists (more than 200 copies of La Gioconda are known). She gave birth to a whole school, inspired such masters as Raphael, Ingres, David, Corot. WITH late XIX century, letters began to be sent to “Mona Lisa” with declarations of love. And yet, in the bizarrely unfolding fate of the picture, some touch, some stunning event was missing. And it happened!

On August 21, 1911, newspapers came out with a sensational headline: “La Gioconda” has been stolen!” The painting was energetically searched for. They mourned over it. They feared that it had died, burned by an awkward photographer who was photographing it with a magnesium flash under open air. In France, "La Gioconda" was even mourned Street musicians. “Baldassare Castiglione” by Raphael, installed in the Louvre on the site of the missing one, did not suit anyone - after all, it was just an “ordinary” masterpiece.

La Gioconda was found in January 1913, hidden in a hiding place under the bed. The thief, a poor Italian emigrant, wanted to return the painting to his homeland, Italy.

When the idol of centuries returned to the Louvre, the writer Théophile Gautier sarcastically remarked that the smile had become “mocking” and even “triumphant”? especially in cases where it was addressed to people who are not inclined to trust angelic smiles. The public was divided into two warring camps. If for some it was just a picture, albeit an excellent one, then for others it was almost a deity. In 1920, in the Dada magazine, avant-garde artist Marcel Duchamp added a bushy mustache to a photograph of “the most mysterious of smiles” and accompanied the cartoon with the initial letters of the words “she can’t stand it.” In this form the opponents of idolatry expressed their irritation.

There is a version that this drawing is an early version of the Mona Lisa. It’s interesting that here the woman is holding a lush branch in her hands. Photo: Wikipedia.

MAIN SECRET...

...Hidden, of course, in her smile. As you know, there are different smiles: happy, sad, embarrassed, seductive, sour, sarcastic. But none of these definitions are suitable in this case. The archives of the Leonardo da Vinci Museum in France contain many different interpretations of the riddle of the famous portrait.

A certain “general specialist” assures that the person depicted in the picture is pregnant; her smile is an attempt to catch the movement of the fetus. The next one insists that she is smiling at her lover... Leonardo. Some even think that the painting depicts a man because “his smile is very attractive to homosexuals.”

According to British psychologist Digby Questeg, a proponent latest version, in this work Leonardo showed his latent (hidden) homosexuality. The smile of “La Gioconda” expresses a wide range of feelings: from embarrassment and indecision (what will contemporaries and descendants say?) to hope for understanding and favor.

From the point of view of today's ethics, this assumption looks quite convincing. Let us remember, however, that the morals of the Renaissance were much more relaxed than those of today, and Leonardo did not make a secret of his sexual orientation. His students were always more beautiful than talented; His servant Giacomo Salai enjoyed special favor. Another similar version? "Mona Lisa" is a self-portrait of the artist. A recent computer comparison of the anatomical features of the faces of Gioconda and Leonardo da Vinci (based on the artist’s self-portrait made in red pencil) showed that geometrically they match perfectly. Thus, Gioconda can be called the female form of a genius!.. But then Gioconda’s smile is his smile.

Such a mysterious smile was indeed characteristic of Leonardo; as evidenced, for example, by Verrocchio’s painting “Tobias with the Fish,” in which the Archangel Michael is painted with Leonardo da Vinci.

Sigmund Freud also expressed his opinion about the portrait (naturally, in the spirit of Freudianism): “The smile of Gioconda is the smile of the artist’s mother.” The idea of ​​the founder of psychoanalysis was later supported by Salvador Dali: “In modern world There is a real cult of Giocondo worship. There were many attempts on Gioconda's life; several years ago there were even attempts to throw stones at her - a clear resemblance to aggressive behavior towards her own mother. If we remember what Freud wrote about Leonardo da Vinci, as well as everything that his paintings say about the artist’s subconscious, then we can easily conclude that when Leonardo was working on La Gioconda, he was in love with his mother. Completely unconsciously, he wrote a new creature, endowed with all possible signs of motherhood. At the same time, she smiles somehow ambiguously. The whole world saw and still sees today in this ambiguous smile a very definite shade of eroticism. And what happens to the unfortunate poor spectator, who is in the grip of the Oedipus complex? He comes to the museum. A museum is a public institution. In his subconscious it’s just a brothel or simply a brothel. And in that very brothel he sees an image that represents a prototype collective image all mothers. The painful presence of his own mother, casting a gentle glance and giving an ambiguous smile, pushes him to commit a crime. He grabs the first thing that comes his way, say a stone, and tears the picture apart, thus committing an act of matricide.”

DOCTORS MAKE A DIAGNOSIS BY SMILE...

For some reason, Gioconda’s smile especially haunts doctors. For them, the portrait of Mona Lisa is an ideal opportunity to practice making a diagnosis without fear of the consequences of a medical error.

Thus, the famous American otolaryngologist Christopher Adur from Oakland (USA) announced that Gioconda has facial paralysis. In his practice, he even called this paralysis “Mona Lisa disease,” apparently achieving a psychotherapeutic effect by instilling in patients a sense of involvement in high art. One Japanese doctor is absolutely sure that Mona Lisa had high cholesterol. Evidence of this is a typical nodule on the skin between the left eyelid and the base of the nose, typical for such a disease. Which means: Mona Lisa didn't eat well.

Joseph Borkowski, an American dentist and painting expert, believes that the woman in the painting, judging by the expression on her face, has lost many teeth. While studying enlarged photographs of the masterpiece, Borkowski discovered scars around the Mona Lisa's mouth. “Her facial expression is typical of people who have lost their front teeth,” says the expert. Neurophysiologists also contributed to solving the mystery. In their opinion, it’s not about the model or the artist, but about the audience. Why does it seem to us that Mona Lisa's smile fades away and then appears again? Harvard University neurophysiologist Margaret Livingston believes that the reason for this is not the magic of Leonardo da Vinci’s art, but the peculiarities of human vision: the appearance and disappearance of a smile depends on which part of Mona Lisa’s face a person’s gaze is directed at. There are two types of vision: central, detail-oriented, and peripheral, less clear. If you are not focused on the eyes of “nature” or are trying to take in her entire face with your gaze, Gioconda smiles at you. However, as soon as you focus your gaze on your lips, the smile immediately disappears. Moreover, the smile of Mona Lisa can be reproduced, says Margaret Livingston. Why, when working on a copy, you need to try to “draw a mouth without looking at it.” But only the great Leonardo seemed to know how to do this.

There is a version that the artist himself is depicted in the picture. Photo: Wikipedia.

Some practicing psychologists say that the Secret of Mona Lisa is simple: it is smiling to yourself. Actually, the advice follows modern women: think how wonderful, sweet, kind, unique you are - you are worth rejoicing and smiling at yourself. Carry your smile naturally, let it be honest and open, coming from the depths of your soul. A smile will soften your face, erase from it traces of fatigue, inaccessibility, rigidity that so scare men away. It will give your face a mysterious expression. And then you will have as many fans as the Mona Lisa.

THE SECRET OF SHADOWS AND TINTS

The mysteries of the immortal creation have haunted scientists from all over the world for many years. Scientists previously used X-rays to understand how Leonardo da Vinci created the shadows on his great masterpiece. The Mona Lisa was one of seven works by Da Vinci studied by scientist Philip Walter and his colleagues. The study showed how ultra-thin layers of glaze and paint were used to achieve a smooth transition from light to dark. An X-ray beam allows you to examine layers without damaging the canvas

The technique used by Da Vinci and other Renaissance artists is known as sfumato. With its help, it was possible to create smooth transitions of tones or colors on the canvas.

One of the most shocking discoveries of our research is that you will not see a single stroke or fingerprint on the canvas,” said Walter, a member of the group.

Everything is so perfect! That’s why Da Vinci’s paintings were impossible to analyze—they didn’t provide easy clues,” she continued.

Previous research had already established the basic aspects of the sfumato technology, but Walter's team has uncovered new details about how the great master was able to achieve this effect. The team used an X-ray to determine the thickness of each layer applied to the canvas. As a result, it was possible to find out that Leonardo da Vinci was able to apply layers with a thickness of only a couple of micrometers (thousandth of a millimeter), the total layer thickness did not exceed 30 - 40 micrometers.

A MYSTERIOUS LANDSCAPE

Behind Mona Lisa, the legendary canvas by Leonardo da Vinci depicts not an abstract, but a very concrete landscape - the outskirts of the northern Italian town of Bobbio, says researcher Carla Glori, whose arguments are cited on Monday, January 10, by the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Glory came to such conclusions after the journalist, writer, discoverer of Caravaggio’s grave and head of the National Italian Committee for the Protection cultural heritage Silvano Vinceti reported that he saw mysterious letters and numbers on Leonardo’s canvas. In particular, under the arch of the bridge located to the left of the Mona Lisa (that is, from the viewer’s point of view, on the right side of the picture), the numbers “72” were discovered. Vinceti himself considers them a reference to some mystical theories of Leonardo. According to Glory, this is an indication of the year 1472, when the Trebbia river flowing past Bobbio overflowed its banks, demolished the old bridge and forced the Visconti family, which ruled in those parts, to build a new one. She considers the rest of the view to be the landscape that opened from the windows of the local castle.

Previously, Bobbio was known primarily as the place where the huge monastery of San Colombano is located, which served as one of the prototypes for “The Name of the Rose” by Umberto Eco.

In her conclusions, Carla Glory goes even further: if the scene is not the center of Italy, as scientists previously believed, based on the fact that Leonardo began work on the canvas in 1503-1504 in Florence, but the north, then his model is not his wife merchant Lisa del Giocondo, and the daughter of the Duke of Milan Bianca Giovanna Sforza.

Her father, Lodovico Sforza, was one of Leonardo's main customers and a famous philanthropist.
Glory believes that the artist and inventor visited him not only in Milan, but also in Bobbio, a town with a library famous in those days, also subject to the Milanese rulers. However, skeptical experts claim that both the numbers and letters discovered by Vinceti in the pupils of the Mona Lisa, nothing more than cracks that formed on the canvas over the centuries... However, no one can rule out that they were specially applied to the canvas...

IS THE SECRET REVEALED?

Last year, Professor Margaret Livingston of Harvard University said that Mona Lisa's smile is visible only if you look at other features of her face rather than at the lips of the woman depicted in the portrait.

Margaret Livingston presented her theory at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver, Colorado.

The disappearance of a smile when changing the angle of view is due to how human eye processes visual information, says the American scientist.

There are two types of vision: direct and peripheral. Direct perceives details well, worse - shadows.

The elusive nature of Mona Lisa's smile can be explained by the fact that almost all of it is located in the low-frequency range of light and is well perceived only by peripheral vision, said Margaret Livingston.

The more you look directly at your face, the less your peripheral vision is used.

The same thing happens if you look at one letter of printed text. At the same time, other letters are perceived worse, even at close range.

Da Vinci used this principle and therefore the smile of Mona Lisa is visible only if you look at the eyes or other parts of the face of the woman depicted in the portrait...

There are many legends regarding the origin of the Great Leonardo's Painting - "Mona Lisa", however, everything is as usual - noisy gossip designed to increase the rating of this Picture and improve the business based on the image of this work - instant recognition and box office revenue are guaranteed to you :)

However, let's return to the source and the main version of who is depicted on Da Vinci's Canvas.

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Mona Lisa (Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo) - this is Lisa Giocondo,

née Girardini Lisa Gherardini

Portrait Mons Lisa(also known as the painting La Gioconda, or La Joconde, or Portrait Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo) is a portrait by the great Florentine artist Leonardo da Vinci.

The painting is done in oil on a poplar base and was completed around 1503-1519.

The portrait is on permanent display at the Louvre in Paris.

A copy of the 16th century painting is also exhibited in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

Identification of the painting.

The traditional work was originally called "Lisa Gherardini".
And the prefix “Mona” (from Monikue - “The Only One”, and the diminutive of Madonna (“Mother of God”) - the Catholic analogue of “The One” in Orthodoxy) today in Italian this abbreviation has the same meaning as “lady”.
Thus the expression "Monna Lisa" is literally understood as " Lisa, wife of Francesco del Giocondo", hence the name in Russian - " Mona Lisa". ***
Lisa del Giocondo

Lisa del Giocondo Italian. Lisa del Giocondo (June 15, 1479 - July 15, 1542, according to other sources c. 1551), also known as Lisa Gherardini, Gioconda and Mona Lisa- a noble Florentine woman, supposedly depicted in the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci.

Little is known about Lisa del Giocondo. Born in Florence into a noble family. She married a cloth merchant at an early age, gave birth to six children, and, in all likelihood, led a quiet, middle-class Renaissance life.

Several centuries after her death, her portrait, Mona Lisa, I bought world recognition and is now considered one of the greatest works of art in history.

The picture arouses the interest of researchers and amateurs and has become the subject of a wide variety of speculation.

Speculation by scholars and amateurs has made this work of art an internationally recognized icon and object of commercialization.

The final correspondence between Lisa del Giocondo and Mona Lisa was installed in 2005.

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Lisa del Giocondo - Lisa del Giocondo -

Fragment Mona Lisa (1503-06) Leonardo da Vinci, Louvre

Place of Birth: Florence, Italy

Citizenship: Italy

Date of death: 15 July 1542 (age 63)

A place of death: Florence, Italy

Spouse: Francesco del Giocondo

Children: Pierrot, Camilla, Andrea, Gioconda and Marietta

Having abandoned the theater and the family wine business, Princesses Irina and Natalia Strozzi have been monitoring the excavations for a week."

Unlike historians, who have every year a new version, the girls are absolutely sure that Leonardo’s painting depicts exactly Mona Lisa.

And there is convincing evidence: when the sisters stand next to the painting, everyone thinks that if they put on a veil and don’t smile so widely...

“Dad has the same half-smile, but we smile broadly, in Russian,” the sisters say.
What their great-great-great-grandmother really was, the computer will tell you. As soon as Mona's grave is found.

Lisa and DNA analysis will confirm that it is her, the machine will draw its own version of Mona Lisa. If it suddenly turns out that the model does not look like Leonardo’s, this could be the beginning of a new search and new excavations.

The list of versions of who is depicted in the portrait is long, and it does not only include women’s names.

One bone and several medallions is not the greatest success yet.

But Mona Lisa somewhere nearby, archaeologists are sure. The ground penetrating radar agrees with them. Research has shown that somewhere in the center of the church there is a crypt - 15 square meters.

www.vesti.ru

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” ".

Vasari's message

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

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 big job. 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.

Other

Perhaps the artist really did not finish the painting in Florence, but took it with him when leaving 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).

Although Vasari provides information about the woman’s identity, there was still uncertainty about her for a long time and many versions were expressed:

A note in the margin proved the correct identification of the model of the Mona Lisa.

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 scholars 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.

Painting

Description

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.

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 are two bases of the columns, 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

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 straight 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

“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 a few millimeters above the head of the Mona Lisa.”

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 tried before, especially with the help of his famous sfumato, which had previously given extraordinary effects, to do more than he did before: to create a living face of a living person and reproduce the features and expression of this face in such a way that they would fully reveal the inner world of a person.”

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 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 an 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 outline 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 characteristics 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

In 2012, a copy of the “Mona Lisa” from the Prado was cleared, and under the later recordings there was a landscape background - the feeling of the canvas immediately changes.

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.”

Renaissance art researcher Viktor Grashchenkov writes that Leonardo, also thanks to the landscape, managed to create not a portrait of a specific person, but a universal image: “In this mysterious picture he created something more than a portrait of the unknown Florentine Mona Lisa, the third wife of Francesco del Giocondo. 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”, any definiteness of individuality and its psychological state. (…) “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, colors form an alloy, as if created not by a human hand, but by that inner strength matter, which from a solution gives birth to crystals of perfect shape." Like many of Leonardo's works, this work has darkened over time, and its color relationships have changed somewhat, but even now one can clearly perceive the thoughtful juxtapositions in the tones of carnation and clothing and their general contrast with the bluish-green, "underwater" tone of the landscape .

The place of the painting in the development of the portrait genre

"Mona Lisa" is considered one of best works in the genre of portraiture, which influenced the works of the High Renaissance and, indirectly through them, the entire subsequent development of the genre, which “must always return to La Gioconda as an unattainable, but obligatory model.”

Art historians note that the portrait of Mona Lisa was a decisive step in the development of Renaissance portraiture. Rotenberg 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. Inequality portrait genre was already reflected in the very “iconography” of portrait images. The actual portrait works of the 15th century, for all their undeniable physiognomic similarity and the feeling of inner strength they radiated, were also distinguished by external and internal constraint. All the wealth of human feelings and experiences that characterizes biblical and mythological images painters of the 15th century, was usually not their property portrait works. Echoes of this can be seen in earlier portraits of Leonardo himself, created by him in the first years of his stay in Milan. (...) In comparison, the portrait of Mona Lisa is perceived as the result of a gigantic qualitative shift. For the first time, the portrait image in its significance became on a par with the most striking images of other pictorial genres.”

“Donna Nuda” (that is, “Naked Donna”). Unknown artist, end XVI 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 tool psychological characteristics. 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. His the main objective- do not 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, presented in several versions (“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 fame later 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 further rise of the painting’s fame is associated with its mysterious disappearance at the beginning of the 20th century and a happy return to the museum several years later (see below, section Theft), thanks to which she did not leave 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 half-human, half-snake a creature, either smiling or gloomy, dominating the cold, bare, rocky space spread out behind him.”

"Mona Lisa" today is one of the most famous paintings Western European art. 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 (see section Technique).

Smile of Gioconda

The Mona Lisa's smile is one of the most famous mysteries of the painting. This light 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.

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 portrait images 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 internal 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 feel 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 like an art scientist: “This smile is not so much individual trait The Mona Lisa is 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 a traditional stamp. Like the proportions of Leonardo's figures, it is built on the finest mathematical measurements, on strict consideration of expressive values individual parts faces. 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 emotional experiences; in its elusive lightness it can only be compared to a ripple running through water.”

Her analysis attracted the attention of not only art historians, but also psychologists. Sigmund Freud writes: “Whoever imagines Leonardo’s paintings is reminded of a strange, captivating and mysterious smile hidden on his lips 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).

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 named "La Gioconda" ( quadro de una dona aretata), which was 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 World War II, for safety reasons, the painting was transported from the Louvre to the Castle of Amboise (the place of Leonardo's death and burial), then to Loc-Dieu Abbey, and finally to the Ingres Museum in Montauban, from where it was safely returned to its place after the victory.

Vandalism

In 1956, the lower part of the painting was damaged when a visitor threw acid on it. On December 30 of the same year, a young Bolivian, Hugo Ungaza Villegas, threw a stone at her and damaged the paint layer at her elbow (the loss was later recorded). After this, the Mona Lisa was protected with bulletproof glass, which protected it from further serious attacks. Still, in April 1974, a woman, upset by the museum’s policy towards the disabled, tried to spray red paint from a can while the painting was on display in Tokyo, and on April 2, 2009, a Russian woman, who had not received French citizenship, threw a clay cup at the glass. Both of these cases did not harm the picture.

In art

Kazimir Malevich. "Composition with the Mona Lisa."

• Kazimir Malevich made “Composition with the Mona Lisa” in 1914.
• In 1919, Dadaist Marcel Duchamp created the work “L.H.O.O.Q.”, a landmark for subsequent works by artists. , which was a reproduction of the famous canvas with a mustache drawn on.
• Fernand Léger painted "Mona Lisa with Keys" in 1930.
• Rene Magritte in 1960 created the painting “La Gioconda”, where there is no Mona Lisa, but there is a window.
• Andy Warhol in 1963 and 1978 made the composition “Four Mona Lisas” and “Thirty Are Better Than One Andy Warhol” (1963), “Mona Lisa (Two Times)” ().
• Salvador Dali painted Self-Portrait as the Mona Lisa in 1964.
• Representative of figurative art Fernando Botero wrote “Mona Lisa, Age Twelve” in 1959, and in 1963 he created an image of Mona Lisa in his characteristic manner,