The portrait of Mona Lisa is also known as La Giocondo, she was the wife of Francesco del Giocondo. This painting was done in oil paints on poplar wood by Leonardo da Vinci from the year 1503 to 1506. The dimensions of this painting are 76.2 x 53.3 cm. The painting is now in the Musee du Louvre in Paris. The Mona Lisa is a painting of a woman, dressed in a dark green dress with her hands overlapping. The background of the painting is a mountainous landscape. The whole painting is a remarkable example of Leonardo’s sfumato technique of painting. Sfumato is the blurred outline and mellowed colors that allow one form to merge with another and always leave something to our imagination. This is a technique that only Leonardo perfected. Other famous painters such as Van Eyck, Mantegna, and Botticelli tried, but were unsuccessful in duplicating Leonardo’s technique.
The Mona Lisa has been analyzed over and over by many intelligent people who have theories about the painting, and its mysterious appearance. It is the expression on the face of the Mona Lisa that seems to be attractive yet distant; these qualities have given the portrait universal fame. Leonardo deliberately used sfumato technique in the corners of the mouth and around the eyes leaving them indistinct by letting them merge into a soft shadow. What strikes us first about the Mona Lisa is the amazing degree to which she looks alive. She really seems to look at us and to have a mind of her own. Like a living being, she seems to change before our eyes and to look a little different each time she is viewed. This is one of the reasons that the Mona Lisa is greatly admired, and is copied all over the world.
If we look carefully at the Mona Lisa we will see that the two sides do not quite match. This is most obvious in the landscape in the background. The horizon on the left side seems to lie much lower that the one on the right. When we look at the left side of the woman she appears to be taller than if we look at the right side. Her face seems to change depending which side we are focusing on, because even here the two sides do not match.
Many years ago people looked at portraits with wonder, because they had thought that in preserving the likeness the artist could preserve the soul of the person.
In my opinion the Mona Lisa was a turning point in the art of expression, because of sfumato technique of Leonardo do Vinci. Today the Mona Lisa is still one of the most beautiful, and mysterious works of art, as it is still being analyzed to this day.
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