Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Ten main secrets of the Mona Lisa

Perhaps no painting in history causes as much heated debate as Leonardo da Vinci's Gioconda. Scientists, art historians and historians are struggling with the mystery of who is depicted in the picture - some kind of woman or is it a veiled self-portrait of Leonardo? But most of all questions are caused by her enigmatic smile. The woman seems to be hiding something from the audience and at the same time mocking them.

It got to the point that doctors began to examine the picture and delivered a verdict: the woman depicted in the picture is sick with such and such diseases, which cause mimic contractions, taken for a smile. Tons of books have been written on the topic of the Mona Lisa, hundreds of documentaries and feature films have been shot, thousands of scientific and research articles have been published.

In order to deal with the secret of the picture, first let's talk a little about Leonardo himself. Geniuses like Leonardo, nature did not know either before or after. Two opposite, mutually exclusive views of the world united in him with some incredible ease. Scientist and painter, naturalist and philosopher, mechanic and astronomer... In a word, physicist and lyricist in one bottle.

The riddle of the Mona Lisa was solved only in the 20th century, and then only in part. When painting, Leonardo used the sfumato technique, based on the principle of dispersion, the absence of clear boundaries between objects. This technique was somehow mastered by his contemporaries, but he surpassed everyone. And Mona Lisa's twinkling smile is the result of this technique. Due to the soft range of tones that smoothly flow from one to another, the viewer, depending on the focus of her gaze, has the impression that she is either smiling gently or grinning arrogantly.

It turns out that the mystery of the picture is solved? By no means! After all, there is another mysterious moment associated with the "La Gioconda"; the picture lives its own life and in an incomprehensible way affects the people around. And this mystical influence was noticed a very, very long time ago.

First of all, the painter himself suffered. He did not work on any of his works for such a long time! But it was a normal order. For four long years, having spent, according to estimates, at least 10,000 hours, with a magnifying glass in his hand, Leonardo created his masterpiece, applying strokes of 1/20-1/40 mm. Only Leonardo was capable of such a thing - this is hard labor, the work of an obsessed. Especially when you consider the dimensions: only 54x79 cm!

Working on the "Gioconda", Leonardo greatly undermined his health. Possessing an almost incredible vitality, he had practically lost it by the time the picture was completed. By the way, this most perfect and mysterious work of his remained unfinished. In principle, da Vinci always gravitated toward incompleteness. In this he saw a manifestation of divine harmony and, perhaps, he was absolutely right. After all, history knows many examples of how a desperate desire to finish what was started became the cause of the most incredible cases.

However, he carried this particular work of his with him everywhere, never parting with it for a moment. And she kept sucking and sucking strength from him ... As a result, within three years after the cessation of work on the painting, the artist began to grow decrepit very quickly and died.

Misfortune and misfortune haunted those who in one way or another were associated with the picture. According to one version, the painting depicts a real woman, and not a figment of the imagination: Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant. She posed for the artist for four years, and then died very quickly - at the age of twenty-eight. Her husband did not live very long after the marriage; lover Giuliano de' Medici soon died of consumption; his illegitimate son from "La Gioconda" was poisoned.

John the Baptist in another painting by Leonardo is very feminine and his facial features resemble those of the Mona Lisa

The mystical influence of the picture did not stop there: historians dispassionately state more and more facts of its paranormal impact on people. One of the first to note this was the servants of the Louvre - the museum where the masterpiece is kept. They have long ceased to be surprised at the frequent fainting that happens to visitors near this picture, and note that if there is a long break in the work of the museum, the "La Gioconda" seems to "darken its face", but as soon as the visitors fill the halls of the museum again and give her a portion of admiring glances how the Mona Lisa seems to come to life, rich colors appear, the background brightens, the smile is visible more clearly. Well, how can you not believe in energy vampirism?

The fact that the picture has an incomprehensible effect on those who look at it for a long time was noted back in the 19th century. Stendhal, who himself, after a long admiration of her, fainted. To date, more than a hundred such documented fainting spells have been recorded. I immediately remember Leonardo himself, who spent hours looking at his picture, eager to finish something in it, redo it ... Already his hand was trembling, and his legs were hardly worn, and he was still sitting near the Gioconda, not noticing how she was taking away his strength. By the way, Leonardo also had fainting near the Gioconda.

It is no secret that the picture not only delights, but also frightens people - and there are not much less frightened people than admiring ones. Most often, the picture frankly does not like children. Children are more finely organized beings and feel the world more at the level of emotions and intuition. They are not confused by the general opinion that the Gioconda is a masterpiece, and it is customary to admire it.

It is they who most often ask the question: what is there to admire? Some kind of evil aunt, ugly besides ... And, probably, not without reason, there is such a joke that Faina Ranevskaya once repeated: "Gioconda has been living in the world for so long that she herself chooses who likes and who does not ". About a single picture in the history of mankind, it would never occur to anyone to say even jokingly that the picture itself chooses which impression to make on whom.

Surprisingly, even copies or reproductions of Leonard's masterpiece influence people. Researchers of the paranormal influence of paintings on people have long noted that if a family has a reproduction of Ilya Repin's "Ivan the Terrible Kills His Son", a copy of Bryullov's masterpiece "The Death of Pompeii", a number of other reproductions, including "La Gioconda", in this family much more often there are unexplained diseases, depression, loss of strength. Very often such families get divorced.

So, there is a case when a woman came to Georgy Kostomarsky, a well-known St. Petersburg psychic and researcher of the paranormal influence of paintings, with a desire to somehow save her family, which was on the verge of collapse, Kostomarsky asked if there was a reproduction of the Mona Lisa in the house? And when I received an affirmative answer, I strongly recommended that the reproduction be removed. You can not believe in it, but the family was saved: the woman not only threw away the reproduction - she burned it.

Comparison of the self-portrait of Leonardo and Mona Lisa. Almost one on one.

Many researchers could not help but wonder: what is the secret of such a negative impact of the picture on living people? There are many versions. Almost all researchers agree that Leonardo's colossal energy is "to blame" for everything. He spent too much energy and nerves on this picture. Especially if the fate of the latest research on the topic of who is still depicted.

According to Top News, Italian art critic Silvano Vincheti, one of the most famous researchers of the Mona Lisa, has proven that da Vinci painted the painting from a man. Vincheti claims that in the eyes of "Gioconda" he found the letters L and S, which are the first letters of the names "Leonardo" and "Salai". Salai was Leonardo's apprentice for twenty years and, according to many historians, his lover.

So what, the skeptics will ask? If there is a version that "La Gioconda" is a self-portrait of da Vinci, why shouldn't it be a portrait of a young man? What is the mystic here? Yes, all in the same frenzied energy of Leonardo! Homosexual relationships not only now outrage the normal public, in the Renaissance it was exactly the same. Leonardo da Vinci suffered from a misunderstanding of society, so he "turned" a man into a woman.

No wonder artists are often called "creators", alluding to the Creator of the Most High. The Lord God created people, the artist also creates them in his own way. If this is just an artist - without that colossal talent of Leonardo, without his energy power, you get just portraits. If there is an energy message of incredible power, very mysterious works are obtained that can somehow influence the viewer with their energy.

In the case of Salai, we have a desire not only to somehow legalize the young man, but also an attempt to go against human nature in general: to turn the young man into a girl. Why not sex reassignment surgery? It is quite logical that this act of creation, contrary to the Divine and human nature, has the above-described consequences.

According to another version, da Vinci, being a member of a secret esoteric sect, tried to find a balance between the male and female principles. He believed that the soul of a person can be considered enlightened only when both principles happily coexist in it. And he created "Gioconda" - not a man and not a woman. It combines opposite properties. But, apparently, somehow it doesn’t connect in such a way, that’s why the negative influence ...

The third version says that the whole thing is in the personality of the model named Pacifica Brandano, who was an energy vampire. The leakage of vital energy at the initial stage causes apathy in the victim of energy aggression, weakening of the immune system, and then leads to severe health disorders.

So, it is very similar to the fact that Pacifica was just such a person, an absorber of the vital energy of other people. Therefore, with a short-term contact of a person with pictures depicting energy vampires, a manifestation of the Stendhal syndrome may occur, and with a long-term contact, even more unpleasant consequences.

The Gioconda contains the quintessence of the great master's achievements on the way to reality. These are the results of his anatomical studies, which allowed him to depict people and animals in completely natural poses, this is the famous sfumato, this is the perfect use of chiaroscuro, this is a mysterious smile, this is the careful preparation of a soil special for each part of the picture, this is an unusually fine study details. And the fact that the picture is written on a poplar board, and the poplar is a vampire tree, also probably plays a role.

And, finally, the most important thing is the faithful transfer of the intangible, more precisely, the subtle essence of the object of painting. With his extraordinary talent, Leonardo created a truly living creation, giving Pacifica a long life that continues to this day, with all its characteristic features. And this creation, like the creation of Frankenstein, destroyed and outlived its creator.

So if the "Gioconda" can bring evil to people trying to penetrate its meaning, then maybe it is necessary to destroy all reproductions and the original itself? But this would be an act of crime against humanity, especially since there are many paintings with such an impact on a person in the world.

You just need to be aware of the peculiarities of such paintings (and not only paintings) and take appropriate measures, for example, limit their reproduction, warn visitors in museums with such works and be able to provide them with medical assistance, etc. Well, if you have reproductions of "La Gioconda" and it seems to you that they have a bad effect on you, put them away or burn them.

Details Category: Fine arts and architecture of the Renaissance (Renaissance) Posted on 02.11.2016 16:14 Views: 2604

"Mona Lisa" ("La Gioconda") by Leonardo da Vinci is still one of the most famous paintings of Western European art.

Her high-profile fame is associated both with high artistic merit and with the atmosphere of mystery surrounding this work. This mystery began to be attributed to the painting not during the life of the artist, but in subsequent centuries, inflaming interest in it with sensational reports and the results of research on the painting.
We consider it right to have a calm and balanced analysis of the merits of this picture and the history of its creation.
First, about the painting itself.

Description of the picture

Leonardo da Vinci "Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo. Mona Lisa" (1503-1519). Board (poplar), oil. 76x53 cm Louvre (Paris)
The painting depicts a woman (half-length portrait). She sits in a chair with her hands together, one hand resting on his armrest and the other on top. She turned in her chair almost to face the viewer.
Her smooth hair, parted in the middle, is visible through the transparent veil thrown over them. They fall on the shoulders in two sparse, slightly wavy strands. Yellow dress, dark green cape...
Some researchers (in particular, Boris Vipper, a Russian, Latvian, Soviet art historian, teacher and museum figure, one of the founders of the national school of Western European art historians) point out that traces of the Quattrocento fashion are noticeable in the face of Mona Lisa: her eyebrows are shaved and hair on the top of the forehead.
Mona Lisa sits in an armchair on a balcony or loggia. It is believed that earlier the picture could be wider and contain two side columns of the loggia. Perhaps the author himself narrowed it down.
Behind the Mona Lisa is a desert area with winding streams and a lake surrounded by snowy mountains; the terrain extends to a high horizon line. This landscape gives the very image of a woman majesty and spirituality.
V. N. Grashchenkov, a Russian art critic who specialized in the art of the Italian Renaissance, believed that Leonardo, including thanks to the landscape, managed to create not a portrait of a specific person, but a universal image: “In this mysterious painting, he created something more than a portrait image of the unknown Florentine Mona Lisa, the third wife of Francesco del Giocondo. The external appearance and mental structure of a particular person are conveyed by him with unprecedented syntheticity ... "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 their individual concrete form. But behind the barely noticeable movement, which, like light ripples, runs along the motionless surface of this harmonious world, one can guess all the richness of the possibilities of physical and spiritual existence.

The famous smile of Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa's smile is considered one of the main mysteries of the picture. But is it really so?

Smile of Mona Lisa (detail of the painting) by Leonardo da Vinci
This slight wandering smile is found in many works of the master himself and among the Leonardesques (artists whose style was strongly influenced by the manner of Leonardo of the Milan period, who were among his students or simply adopted his style). Of course, in "Mona Lisa" she reached her perfection.
Let's look at some pictures.

F. Melzi (student of Leonardo da Vinci) "Flora"
The same easy wandering smile.

Painting "The Holy Family". Previously, it was attributed to Leonardo, but now even the Hermitage has recognized that this is the work of his student Cesare da Sesto
The same light wandering smile on the face of the Virgin Mary.

Leonardo da Vinci "John the Baptist" (1513-1516). Louvre (Paris)

The smile of John the Baptist is also considered mysterious: why is this stern Forerunner smiling and pointing upwards?

Who was the prototype of the Mona Lisa?

There is information from the anonymous author of the first biography of Leonardo da Vinci, to which Vasari refers. It is this anonymous author who writes about the silk merchant Francesco Giocondo, who ordered a portrait of his third wife from the artist.
But what opinions did not exist about the identification of the model! There were many assumptions: this is a self-portrait of Leonardo himself, a portrait of the artist’s mother Katerina, various names of the artist’s contemporaries and contemporaries were called ...
But in 2005, scientists from the University of Heidelberg, studying notes on the margins of a Florentine official's tome, found an entry: "... now da Vinci is working on three paintings, one of which is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini." The wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo was Lisa Gherardini. The painting was commissioned by Leonardo for the young family's new home and to commemorate the birth of their second son. This mystery is almost solved.

The history of the painting and its adventures

The full title of the painting Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo"(Italian) -" Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo ". In Italian ma donna Means " my lady”, in an abbreviated version, this expression was transformed into monna or mona.
This picture occupied a special place in the work of Leonardo da Vinci. After spending 4 years on it and leaving Italy at a mature age, the artist took her with him to France. It is possible that he did not finish the painting in Florence, but took it with him when he left in 1516. In this case, he completed it shortly before his death in 1519.
Then the painting was the property of his student and assistant Salai.

Salai in a drawing by Leonardo
Salai (died 1525) left the painting to his sisters who lived in Milan. It is not known how the portrait got from Milan back to France. King Francis I bought the painting from Salai's heirs and kept it in his Château de Fontainebleau, where it remained until the time of Louis XIV. He moved it to the Palace of Versailles, after the French Revolution in 1793, the painting ended up in the Louvre. Napoleon admired the La Gioconda in his bedroom of the Tuileries Palace, and then she returned to the museum.
During World War II, the painting was moved from the Louvre to the Château d'Amboise (where Leonardo died and was buried), then to the Abbey of Loc Dieu, then to the Ingres Museum in Montauban. After the end of the war, the Gioconda returned to its place.
In the twentieth century the painting remained in the Louvre. Only in 1963 she visited the USA, and in 1974 - in Japan. On the way from Japan to France, the Mona Lisa was exhibited at the Museum. A. S. Pushkin in Moscow. These trips increased her success and fame.
Since 2005, it has been in a separate room in the Louvre.

Mona Lisa behind bulletproof glass at the Louvre
On August 21, 1911, the painting was stolen by an Italian employee of the Louvre, Vincenzo Perugia. Perhaps Perugia wanted to return the Gioconda to its historical homeland. The painting was found only two years later in Italy. She was exhibited in several Italian cities, and then returned to Paris.
Experienced the "La Gioconda" and acts of vandalism: they doused it with acid (1956), threw a stone at it, after which they hid it behind bulletproof glass (1956), as well as a clay cup (2009), tried to spray red paint from a spray can onto the picture ( 1974).
Pupils and followers of Leonardo created numerous replicas of the Mona Lisa, and avant-garde artists of the 20th century. began to mercilessly exploit the image of the Mona Lisa. But that's a completely different story.
"Gioconda" is one of the best examples of the portrait genre of the Italian High Renaissance.

"Mona Lisa" ("Gioconda"; full name - Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo) - a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, located in the Louvre (Paris, France), one of the most famous paintings in the world, which is considered to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, painted around 1503-1505.

“It will soon be four centuries since the Mona Lisa deprives everyone who, having seen enough of it, begins to talk about it, of common sense.” (Gruyet, late 19th century). »

Mona Lisa
Paris. Louvre. 77x53. Tree. 1506-1516

Even the first Italian biographers of Leonardo da Vinci wrote about the place that 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, gave herself to her with some kind of passion. She devoted all the time that remained with him from work on the Battle of Anghiari. He spent considerable time on it and, leaving Italy in adulthood, he took with him to France, among some other selected paintings. Da Vinci had a special attachment to 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 refer to the "Gioconda ".

"Studio of Leonardo da Vinci" in an 1845 engraving of Gioconda being entertained by jesters and musicians

According to Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574), a biographer 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 named Francesco del Giocondo (Italian: Francesco del Giocondo), whose portrait Leonardo spent 4 years, yet left it unfinished.

“Leonardo undertook to complete for Francesco del Giocondo a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, and after working on it for four years, left it incomplete. This work is now with the French king in Fontainebleau.
This image, to anyone who would like to see to what extent art can imitate nature, makes it possible to comprehend it in the easiest way, because it reproduces all the smallest details that the subtlety of painting can convey. Therefore, the eyes have that brilliance and that moisture that are usually seen in a living person, and all those reddish reflections and hairs are conveyed around them, which can only be depicted with the greatest subtlety of skill.
Eyelashes, made like the hair actually growing on the body, where thicker, and where less often, and located according to the pores of the skin, could not be depicted with more naturalness. The nose, with its lovely openings, pinkish and tender, seems alive.
The mouth, slightly open, with edges connected by the redness of the lips, with the physicality of its appearance, does not seem to be paint, but real flesh. In the deepening of the neck, with a careful look, you can see the beating of the pulse. And truly it can be said that this work was written in such a way that it plunges into confusion and fear any presumptuous artist, whoever he may be.
By the way, Leonardo resorted to the following trick: since Mona Lisa was very beautiful, while painting the portrait, he kept people who played the lyre or sang, and there were always jesters who kept her cheerful and removed the melancholy that is usually reported painting to performed portraits. In Leonardo, in this work, the smile is given so pleasant that it seems as if you are contemplating a divine rather than a human being; the portrait itself is revered as an extraordinary work, for life itself could not be otherwise.”

It is possible that this drawing from the Hyde Collection in New York is 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 put a magnificent branch into her hands.

Most likely, Vasari simply added a story about jesters for the entertainment of readers. Vasari's text also contains an accurate description of the eyebrows missing from the painting. This inaccuracy could arise only if the author described the picture from memory or from the stories of others. Aleksey Dzhivelegov writes that Vasari’s indication that “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 begun to paint a 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 incompleteness of the portrait - “the portrait was undoubtedly written for a long time and was brought to the end, 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 meticulously finished things."

An interesting fact is that in his description, Vasari admires Leonardo's talent to convey physical phenomena, and not the similarity between model and painting. It seems that this "physical" feature of the masterpiece left a deep impression on the visitors of 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.

Perhaps the artist really did not finish the painting in Florence, but took it with him when he left in 1516 and applied the last stroke in the absence of witnesses who could tell Vasari about this. If so, he completed it shortly before his death in 1519. (In France, he lived in Clos-Luce near 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, the 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 who is over seventy years old, the most excellent artist of our time. He showed His Excellency three paintings: one depicting a Florentine lady, painted from life at the request of Brother Lorenzo the Magnificent Giuliano de' Medici, another depicting St. John the Baptist in his youth, and the third depicting St. Anne with Mary and the Christ Child; all are supremely beautiful.
From the master himself, due to the fact that at that time his right hand was paralyzed, it was no longer possible to expect new good works.
According to some researchers, "a certain Florentine lady" means "Mona Lisa". It is possible, however, that this was a different portrait, from which neither evidence nor copies have been preserved, as a result of which Giuliano Medici could not have had anything to do with Mona Lisa.

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

Model identification problem

Vasari, who was born in 1511, could not see the Mona Lisa 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 scholars have doubted the possibility that the Mona Lisa was painted in Florence (1500-1505), as the refined technique may indicate a later painting. It was also argued that at that time Leonardo was so busy working on the “Battle of Anghiari” that he even refused the Marquise of Mantua Isabella d’Este to accept her order (however, he had a very difficult relationship with this lady).

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

Francesco del Giocondo, a prominent Florentine popolan, at the age of thirty-five in 1495 married for the third time a young Neapolitan from a 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 gives information about the identity of the model, there has still been uncertainty about her for a long time and many versions have been 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 painting to the personality of the model in 2005 is considered to have found final confirmation. Scientists from the University of Heidelberg studied the notes on the margins of a tome owned by a Florentine official, a personal acquaintance of the artist Agostino Vespucci. In notes on the margins of the book, he compares Leonardo with the famous ancient Greek painter Apelles and notes that "now da Vinci is working on three paintings, one of which is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini." Thus, 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 young family's new home and to commemorate the birth of their second son, named Andrea.

A copy of the "Mona Lisa" from the Wallace Collection (Baltimore) was made before the edges of the original were trimmed, and allows you to see the lost columns

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

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

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

The lower edge of the painting cuts off the second half of her body, so the portrait is almost half-length. The armchair in which the model sits stands on a balcony or on a 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, from which at the moment there are two bases of columns, whose fragments are visible along the edges of the parapet.

The loggia overlooks a desolate wilderness of meandering streams and a lake surrounded by snowy mountains that extends to a high skyline behind the figure.

“Mona Lisa is represented sitting in an armchair against the backdrop of a landscape, and the very comparison of her figure, which is very close to the viewer, with a landscape visible from afar, like a huge mountain, gives the image extraordinary grandeur. The same impression is facilitated by the contrast of the increased plastic tangibility of the figure and its smooth, generalized silhouette with a landscape receding into a foggy distance, like a vision, with bizarre rocks and water channels winding among them.

Composition
Mona Lisa depth.jpg

The portrait of Mona Lisa is one of the best examples of the Italian High Renaissance portraiture.

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

Mikhail Alpatov points out that “La Gioconda is excellently inscribed in a strictly proportional rectangle, its half-figure forms something whole, folded hands complete its image. Now, of course, there could be no question of the bizarre curls of the early Annunciation.
However, no matter how softened all the contours, the wavy lock of the Gioconda's hair is in tune with the transparent veil, and the hanging fabric thrown over the shoulder finds an echo in the smooth windings of the distant road.
In all this, Leonardo shows his ability to create according to the laws of rhythm and harmony.
Current state

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

The Mona Lisa became very dark, which is considered the result of its author's tendency to experiment with paints, because of which the Last Supper fresco almost died. The artist's contemporaries, however, managed to express their enthusiasm not only about the composition, drawing and play of chiaroscuro, but also about the color of the work. It is assumed, for example, that initially the sleeves of her dress could be red - as can be seen from a copy of the painting from the Prado.

The current state of the painting is bad enough, 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 Mona Lisa's head."

Analysis
Technique

As Dzhivelegov notes, by the time of the creation of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo’s skill “has already entered a phase of such maturity, when all formal tasks of a compositional and other nature have been set and solved, when Leonardo began to think that only the last, most difficult tasks of artistic technique deserve to be to take care of them. And when he found in the face of Mona Lisa a model that satisfied his needs, he tried to solve some of the highest and most difficult tasks of painting technique that he had not yet solved. 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, he wanted to do more than he had done 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 the inner world of man was revealed to the end.

Landscape behind the Mona Lisa

Boris Whipper asks the question, “by what means is this spirituality achieved, this undying spark of consciousness in the image of Mona Lisa, then two main means should be named.
One is the wonderful Leonardo sfumato. No wonder Leonardo liked to say that "modeling is the soul of painting." It is sfumato that creates the Mona Lisa's wet look, her smile, 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. Leonardo recommended for this purpose to place between the source of light and the bodies, as he puts it, "a kind of fog."

Rotenberg writes that “Leonardo managed to bring into his creation that degree of generalization that allows him to be considered as an image of a Renaissance person as a whole. This high degree of generalization is reflected in all the elements of the pictorial language of the picture, in its individual motifs - in the way that a light, transparent veil, covering the head and shoulders of Mona Lisa, combines carefully drawn strands of hair and small folds of the dress into a common smooth contour; it is palpable in the modeling of the face, incomparable in its gentle softness (on which the eyebrows were removed in the fashion of that time) and beautiful well-groomed hands.

Alpatov adds that “in a softly melting haze enveloping the face and figure, Leonardo managed to make one feel the boundless variability of human facial expressions. Although the eyes of the Gioconda look attentively and calmly at the viewer, due to the shading of her eye sockets, one might think that they are slightly frowning; her lips are compressed, but barely perceptible shadows are outlined near their corners, which make you believe that every minute they will open, smile, 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 contour remained in the picture; and although the edges of objects in it are clearly perceptible, they all dissolve in the subtlest transitions from penumbra to half-lights.

Scenery

Art critics emphasize the organic nature with which the artist combined the portrait characteristics of a person with a landscape full of 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 the portrait image is lost when placed against a dark neutral background.

Vipper considers the landscape the second means that creates the spirituality of the picture: “The second means is the relationship between the figure and the background. The fantastic, rocky, as if seen through the sea water landscape 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 radiance of her own dream.”

The appearance and mental structure of a particular person are conveyed to them 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 color tones are softened. In the most subtle transitions, almost imperceptible to the eye, from light to shadow, in the vibration of Leonard's "sfumato", all the certainty of individuality and its psychological state is softened 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 their individual concrete form. But behind the barely noticeable movement, which, like light ripples, runs along the motionless surface of this harmonious world, one can guess all the richness of the possibilities of physical and spiritual existence.

"Mona Lisa" is sustained in golden brown and reddish tones of the foreground and emerald green tones of the distance. “Transparent as glass, paints form an alloy, as if created not by a human hand, but by that inner force of matter, which from a solution gives rise to crystals perfect in shape.”
Like many of Leonardo's works, this work has darkened with time, and its color ratios have changed somewhat, but even now the thoughtful juxtapositions 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 Mona Lisa portrait was a decisive step in the development of Renaissance portrait art. 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 pictorial genres - in compositions on religious and mythological themes. The inequality of the portrait genre was already evident in the very "iconography" of portrait images.
"Donna Nuda" (that is, "Nude Donna"). Unknown artist, late 16th century, Hermitage

In his pioneering 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. Having made the portrait generational in format, the artist was able to demonstrate a wider range of pictorial techniques. And the most important thing in the figurative structure of the portrait is the subordination of all particulars 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 fairy-tale landscape, as it were, shines 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 called upon to fulfill the robe, which breaks up into the smallest folds. Leonardo consciously avoids heavy draperies that could obscure the expressiveness of the hands and face. Thus, he makes the latter perform with special force, the more, the more modest and neutral the landscape and attire, assimilated 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 for some time the Isleworth Mona Lisa, Switzerland) are considered authentic by their owners, and the painting in the Louvre is a copy. There is also an iconography of the “Nude Mona Lisa”, represented by several options (“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, written by the master himself.

The 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, in the future her reputation faded. The painting was not particularly remembered until the middle of the 19th century, when artists close to the Symbolist movement began to praise it, associating it with their ideas regarding feminine mystery. 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 "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 its happy return to the museum a few years later (see below, The Theft section), thanks to which it did not leave the pages of newspapers.

A contemporary of her adventures, critic Abram Efros wrote: “... the museum watchman, who has not moved a single step away from the picture, since its return to the Louvre after the abduction in 1911, has been guarding not a portrait of his wife Francesca del Giocondo, but an image of some kind of semi-human, half-serpentine creature, either smiling or gloomy, dominating the chilled, bare, rocky space that stretched out behind him.

"Mona Lisa" today is one of the most famous paintings of Western European art. Her high-profile reputation is associated not only with her high artistic merit, but also with the atmosphere of mystery surrounding this work.

Everyone knows what an unsolvable riddle Mona Lisa has been asking for four hundred years now to admirers crowding in front of her image. Never before has an artist expressed the essence of femininity (I quote the lines written by a refined writer hiding behind the pseudonym Pierre Corlet): others to contemplate only its brilliance. (Eugene Muntz).

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

Gioconda's smile

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

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

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

“The viewer is especially captivated by the demonic charm of this smile. Hundreds of poets and writers have written about this woman, who seems either seductively smiling, or frozen, coldly and soullessly looking into space, and no one guessed 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 infinite variety of human feelings and desires, opposing passions and thoughts, smoothed and merged together, responds in the harmonically impassive appearance of the Mona Lisa only by 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, conveys to us from the boundless distance the colorful polyphony of the spiritual life of man.

Art historian Rotenberg believes that “there are few portraits in the world art that are equal to the Mona Lisa in terms of the power of expressing the human personality, embodied in the unity of character and intellect. It is the extraordinary intellectual intensity of Leonard's portrait that distinguishes it from the portrait images of the Quattrocento. This feature of his is perceived all the more acutely because it refers to a female portrait, in which the character of the model was previously revealed in a completely different, predominantly lyrical figurative tone.
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 Whipper points out that the above-mentioned absence of eyebrows and a shaved forehead, perhaps unwittingly enhances the strange mystery in her expression. Further, he writes about the power of the picture’s influence: “If we ask ourselves what is the great attractive power of the Mona Lisa, its truly incomparable hypnotic effect, then there can be only one answer - in its spirituality. The most ingenious and most opposite interpretations were put into the smile of the Mona Lisa. They wanted to read pride and tenderness, sensuality and coquetry, cruelty and modesty in it.
The mistake was, firstly, that they were looking for individual, subjective spiritual properties at all costs in the image of Mona Lisa, while there is no doubt that Leonardo achieved precisely typical spirituality.
Secondly, and this is perhaps even more important, they tried to attribute emotional content to Mona Lisa's spirituality, while in fact she 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 reason, a being with whom one can speak and from whom one can expect an answer.

Lazarev analyzed it as an art scientist: “This smile is not so much an individual feature of Mona Lisa, but a typical formula of psychological revival, a formula that runs like a red thread through all the youthful images of Leonardo, 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 strength of its charm. It takes everything hard, tense, frozen from the face, it turns it into a mirror of vague, indefinite emotional experiences, in its elusive lightness it can only be compared with the swell running through the water.

Mona Lisa detail mouth.jpg

Her analysis attracted the attention of not only art historians, but also psychologists. Sigmund Freud writes:
“Who represents the paintings of Leonardo, the memory of a strange, captivating and mysterious smile that lurks on the lips of his female images emerges in him. The smile, frozen on elongated, quivering lips, became characteristic of him and is most often called "Leonard's".
In the peculiarly beautiful appearance of the Florentine Mona Lisa del Gioconda, she most of all captures and confuses the viewer. This smile demanded one interpretation, but found the most diverse, of which none satisfies. (…)
The conjecture that Mona Lisa's smile combined two different elements was born by many critics. Therefore, in the expression of the face of the beautiful Florentine, they saw the most perfect image of the antagonism that governs the love life of a woman, restraint and seduction, sacrificial tenderness and recklessly demanding sensuality, absorbing a man as something extraneous. (...) Leonardo in the face of Mona Lisa managed to reproduce the double meaning of her smile, the promise of boundless tenderness and an ominous threat.

Copy of the 16th century, located in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg

The demonic charm of this smile especially fascinates the viewer. Hundreds of poets and writers have written about this woman, who seems either seductively smiling, or frozen, coldly and soullessly looking into space, and no one guessed 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 it:
... "Mona Lisa" with her "demonic smile." “After all, one has only to peer into the eyes of the Mona Lisa, as you can easily notice that, in fact, she 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 that Gioconda wants to master and in which, in addition to weakness, she also counts on powerlessness before the bad feeling that has taken possession of her.

The discoverer of the term microexpression, psychologist Paul Ekman (prototype of Dr. Cal Lightman from the television series Lie to Me) writes about the facial expression of Gioconda, analyzing it from the point of view of his knowledge of human facial expressions: “the other two types [smiles] combine a sincere smile with a characteristic expression of the eyes. A flirtatious smile, although at the same time the seducer looks away from the object of his interest, in order to then again throw a sly look at him, which, again, is instantly averted, as soon as he is noticed. Part of the unusual impression of the famous Mona Lisa 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 subject of her interest. In life, this facial expression is fleeting - a glance furtively lasts no more than a moment.

The history of the painting in modern times

By the day of his death in 1525, Leonardo's assistant (and possibly lover) named Salai owned, judging by references in his personal papers, a portrait of a woman called "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 not known who and when exactly cut off 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 cut off because it suffered from water or fire, in this case the reasons were most likely of a compositional nature. There is a version that this was done by Leonardo da Vinci himself.

Crowd in the Louvre near the painting, today

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

During the Second World War, the painting was transported for security reasons from the Louvre to the Amboise castle, then to the Loc-Dieu abbey, and finally to the Ingres museum in Monatabane, from where, after the victory, it was safely returned to its place.

In the twentieth century, the picture almost did not leave 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. Trips only consolidated the success and fame of the picture.

1911 The empty wall where the Mona Lisa hung

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

Vincenzo Perugia. Sheet from the criminal case.

On August 21, 1911, the painting was stolen by an employee of the Louvre, the Italian mirror master Vincenzo Perugia (Italian: Vincenzo Peruggia). The purpose of this kidnapping is not clear. Perhaps Perugia wanted to return the Gioconda to its historical homeland, believing that the French had “kidnapped” it and forgetting that Leonardo himself brought the painting to France. Police searches were 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.

"Mona Lisa", she is "Gioconda", full name - Portrait of Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo, - a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, located in the Louvre (Paris, France), one of the most famous paintings in the world, which is considered to be portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, painted around 1503-1505.

History of the painting

Model identification problem

In the information about the identity of the woman in the picture, uncertainty remained for a long time and many versions were expressed:

Caterina Sforza, illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Milan, Galeazzo Sforza

Caterina Sforza

Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan

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

Cecilia Gallerani (model of another portrait of the artist - "Ladies with an Ermine")

The work of Leonardo da Vinci, "Lady with an Ermine".

Constanza d'Avalos, which had the nickname "Merry", that is, La Gioconda in Italian. In 1925, the Italian art historian Venturi suggested that the Gioconda is a portrait of the Duchess of Costanza d'Avalos, the widow of Federigo del Balzo, sung in a short poem by Eneo Irpino, which also mentions her portrait painted by Leonardo. Costanza was the mistress of Giuliano de' Medici.

Pacifica Brandano is another mistress of Giuliano Medici, the mother of Cardinal Ippolito Medici (According to Roberto Zapperi, the portrait of Pacifica was commissioned by Giuliano Medici for an illegitimate son legalized by him later, who longed to see his mother, who had already died by that time. At the same time, according to the art critic, the customer , as usual, left for Leonardo complete freedom of action).

Isabela Gualanda

Just the perfect woman

A young man in a woman's attire (for example, Salai, beloved of Leonardo)

Salai in Leonardo's drawing

Self portrait of Leonardo da Vinci

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

Leonardo da Vinci

Retrospective portrait of the artist's mother Katerina (proposed by Freud, then by Serge Bramly, Rina de "Firenze, Roni Kempler, and others).

Marginal check proves correct identification of Mona Lisa model

Thus, 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 young family's new home and to commemorate the birth of their second son, named Andrea.

Description of the picture

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

A copy of the "Mona Lisa" from the Wallace Collection (Baltimore) was made before the edges of the original were trimmed, and allows you to see the lost columns.

The loggia overlooks a desolate wilderness of meandering streams and a lake surrounded by snowy mountains that extends to a high skyline behind the figure. “Mona Lisa is represented sitting in an armchair against the backdrop of a landscape, and the very comparison of her figure, which is very close to the viewer, with a landscape visible from afar, like a huge mountain, gives the image extraordinary grandeur. The same impression is facilitated by the contrast of the increased plastic tangibility of the figure and its smooth, generalized silhouette with a landscape receding into a foggy distance, like a vision, with bizarre rocks and water channels winding among them.

Current state

The Mona Lisa became very dark, which is considered the result of its author's tendency to experiment with paints, because of which the Last Supper fresco almost died. The artist's contemporaries, however, managed to express their enthusiasm not only about the composition, drawing and play of chiaroscuro - but also about the color of the work. It is assumed, for example, that initially the sleeves of her dress could be red - as can be seen from a copy of the painting from the Prado.

An early copy of the "Mona Lisa" from the Prado shows how much the portrait image is lost when placed against a dark neutral background.

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

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

Technique

As Dzhivelegov notes, by the time of the creation of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo’s skill “has already entered a phase of such maturity, when all formal tasks of a compositional and other nature have been set and solved, when Leonardo began to think that only the last, most difficult tasks of artistic technique deserve to be to take care of them. And when he found in the face of Mona Lisa a model that satisfied his needs, he tried to solve some of the highest and most difficult tasks of painting technique that he had not yet solved. 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, he wanted to do more than he had done 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 the inner world of man was revealed to the end.

Boris Whipper asks the question, “by what means is this spirituality achieved, this undying spark of consciousness in the image of Mona Lisa, then two main means should be named. One is a wonderful Leonard's sfumato. No wonder Leonardo liked to say that "modeling is the soul of painting." It is sfumato that creates the Mona Lisa's wet gaze, her smile, 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. Leonardo recommended for this purpose to place between the source of light and the bodies, as he puts it, "a kind of fog."

Rotenberg writes that “Leonardo managed to bring into his creation that degree of generalization that allows us to consider him as an image of a Renaissance person as a whole. This high degree of generalization is reflected in all the elements of the pictorial language of the picture, in its individual motifs - in how a light, transparent veil, covering the head and shoulders of Mona Lisa, combines the carefully drawn strands of hair and small folds of the dress into a common smooth contour; it is palpable in the modeling of the face, incomparable in its gentle softness (on which the eyebrows were removed in the fashion of that time) and beautiful well-groomed hands.

Alpatov adds that “in a softly melting haze enveloping the face and figure, Leonardo managed to make one feel the boundless variability of human facial expressions. Although the eyes of the Gioconda look attentively and calmly at the viewer, due to the shading of her eye sockets, one might think that they are slightly frowning; her lips are compressed, but barely perceptible shadows are outlined near their corners, which make you believe that every minute they will open, smile, 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 contour remained in the picture; and although the edges of objects in it are clearly perceptible, they all dissolve in the subtlest transitions from penumbra to half-light.

Scenery

Vipper considers the landscape the second means that creates the spirituality of the picture: “The second means is the relationship between the figure and the background. The fantastic, rocky, as if seen through the sea water landscape 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, the Mona Lisa seems so incredibly close and tangible, and we perceive the landscape as the radiance of her own dream.”

Renaissance art researcher Viktor Grashchenkov writes that Leonardo, including 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 image of the unknown Florentine Mona Lisa, the third wife of Francesco del Giocondo. The appearance and mental structure of a particular person are conveyed to them 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 color tones are softened. In the most subtle transitions, almost imperceptible to the eye, from light to shadow, in the vibration of Leonard's "sfumato" softens to the limit, melts and is ready to disappear any certainty 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 their individual concrete form. But behind the barely noticeable movement, which, like light ripples, runs along the motionless surface of this harmonious world, one can guess all the richness of the possibilities of physical and spiritual existence.

In 2012, a copy of the "Mona Lisa" from the Prado was cleared, and a landscape background turned out to be under the later recordings - the feeling of the canvas immediately changes.

"Mona Lisa" is sustained in golden brown and reddish tones of the foreground and emerald green tones of the distance. “Transparent as glass, paints form an alloy, as if created not by a human hand, but by that inner force of matter, which from a solution gives rise to crystals perfect in shape.” Like many of Leonardo's works, this work has darkened with time, and its color ratios have changed somewhat, but even now the thoughtful juxtapositions in the tones of carnation and clothing and their general contrast with the bluish-green, "underwater" tone of the landscape are clearly perceived.

Theft

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

On August 21, 1911, the painting was stolen by an employee of the Louvre, the Italian mirror master Vincenzo Perugia. The purpose of this kidnapping is not clear. Perhaps Perugia wanted to return the Gioconda to its historical homeland, believing that the French had “kidnapped” it and forgetting that Leonardo himself brought the painting to France. A search by the police turned up nothing. The country's borders were closed, the museum administration was fired. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested on suspicion of committing a crime and later released. Pablo Picasso was also under suspicion. The picture was found only two years later in Italy - and the thief himself was to blame for this, responding to an ad in a newspaper and offering to sell the Gioconda to the director of the Uffizi Gallery. It is assumed that he was going to make copies and pass them off as the original. Perugia, on the one hand, was praised for Italian patriotism, on the other hand, they gave him a short term in prison.

Vincenzo Perugia. Sheet from the criminal case.

In the end, on January 4, 1914, the painting (after exhibitions in Italian cities) returned to Paris. During this time, "Mona Lisa" did not leave the covers of newspapers and magazines around the world, as well as postcards, so it is not surprising that the "Mona Lisa" was copied more than all other paintings. The painting became an object of worship as a masterpiece of world classics.

Vandalism

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

Crowd in the Louvre at the painting, today.

The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most famous paintings in the world.

This painting is now in the Louvre in Paris.

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

Who is Mona Lisa?

The identity of the girl depicted today is quite known. 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 last name in marriage; 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 for wealthy citizens of Florence.

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

Painting creation

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

What was the reason for such an attitude of Leonardo to this picture? It is believed that the great artist had a love affair with Liza. However, it is possible that the painter appreciated this picture as an example of the highest flowering of his talent: "La Gioconda" really turned out to be unusual 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 King Francis I became its first owner. Perhaps such an act could be due to the fact that the master did not finish the canvas by the deadline and continued to paint the picture already after departure: the fact that Leonardo “never finished his painting” is reported by the famous Renaissance writer Giorgio Vasari.

Vasari, in his biography of Leonardo, reports many facts about the painting of this picture, but not all of them are reliable. So, he writes that the artist created the picture for 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 who entertained the girl, thanks to which Leonardo managed to portray her smile on her face, and not the sadness that was standard for that time. However, most likely, the story about the jesters Vasari himself composed for the entertainment of readers, using the girl's surname - after all, "La Gioconda" means "playing", "laughing".

However, it can be noted that Vasari was attracted in this picture not so much by realism as such, but by the amazing transmission 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, Gruyet wrote that the La Gioconda had been literally depriving people of their minds for several centuries. Many thought, contemplating this amazing portrait, which is why it has acquired many legends.

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