Mona Lisa

the Mona Lisa (or “Portrait of Mona LISA”) is a table of Léonard de Vinci, carried out between 1503 and 1506. Oil on panel of Bois of Peuplier of 77 X 53 cm, it is exposed to the Musée of Louvre to Paris. The Mona Lisa is one of the rare tables allotted in an unquestionable way to Léonard de Vinci.

The Mona Lisa became a mythical table because at all the times the artists took it as reference. It indeed constitutes the result of research of the 15th century on the representation of the portrait. At the time romantic, the artists were fascinated by the enigma of the Mona Lisa and contributed to develop the myth which surrounds it, while making of this table one of the most famous works of art of the world.

History

Léonard de Vinci begins the portrait with Florence in 1502, and according to Giorgio Vasari completes it at the end of four years. The Mona Lisa never leaves Léonard of alive sound. It probably carries it with Amboise where François I {{er}} the fact of coming. This last acquires - in Léonard himself or his heirs after his death - and installs it of it with Fontainebleau.

The portrait leaves the castle for Louvre then royal residence, and is then fixed on the Château of Versailles. Louis XIV does of it one of the tables more in sight with Versailles, and exposes it in the Cabinet of the King until 1650.

It regains Louvre become museum in 1798, but is again moved on order of the first consul Bonaparte who makes it hang to the palate Tuileries in 1800 in the apartments of Joséphine, then returns it to the Louvre in 1804.

The table is stolen the August 21st 1911. One suspects the poet Guillaume Apollinaire and the painter Pablo Picasso to be the authors of this flight, asserted in addition by the writer Italy N Gabriele d' Annunzio. The Company of the friends of Louvre offers a reward of twenty-five thousand francs, an anonymity proposing to double this sum. The review the Illustration promises fifty thousand francs for which would bring back the table in the buildings of the newspaper. The robber was the Italy N Vincenzo Perugia, a glazier who had taken part in work of setting under glass of the most important tables of the museum. He preserved the table during two years in his room in Paris, then of return in Italy he proposed to resell it the December 10th 1913 with a Florentin antique dealer who gave alarm.

During the Second world war, the table is put in safety at the castle of Amboise, then with the Abbaye of Loc-God, and finally with the Ingres Museum of Montauban. During a time, it is stored under the bed even of the conservative of the Musée of Louvre in exile in the Château of Montal in Quercy (Lot).

In January 1963, the Minister for the culture André Malraux dispatches the Mona Lisa with the the United States where it is received by the president Kennedy. It is exposed to the National Gallery Washington then with the Metropolitan Museum off Art of New York. She is admired by 1,7 million visitors on the whole. She makes also two other voyages in Russia and to Japan in 1974.

Since March 2005, the Mona Lisa profits with the Museum from Louvre from a room renovated and especially arranged to receive it, the room of the States, in which it faces the not less famous table of Véronèse, the Wedding at Cana.

Description

The Mona Lisa is the Portrait of an young woman, on bottom of a mountainous landscape at the remote and misty horizons.

The woman carries on the head a veil black transparency and a dress. It is noticed that completely depilated, in accordance with the fashion of the time, it presents neither lashes, nor eyebrows. She sat on an armchair which one sees the file on the right table. Its hands are crossed, posed on an arm of the armchair. She is probably in a Loggia : one can see a parapet right behind it with the first third of the table, as well as the starter of the base reinflated of a column on the left. With the background is a mountainous landscape to which seconds a sinuous way and a river that spans a stone bridge. One can notice a break of the horizon. The head of the Mona Lisa separates the table in two parts in which the horizon is not on the same level.

The source of light comes primarily from the left of the table.

The model

Several assumptions were formulated in connection with the identity of the model.

LISA Maria Gherardini

According to the allowed assumption since Giorgio Vasari, the model would be called in the beginning LISA Gherardini, born in May 1479 with Florence. Exit of a modest family, it married at 16 years the son of a silk merchant, Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo. Already widowed twice, Giocondo is 19 years old more than LISA. It gave him three children, Piero Francesco - born in 1496 - a girl with the unknown first name died in 1499 and Andrea - born in 1502.

Francesco del Giocondo had a family vault in the church of Santissima Annunziata, where it was buried later. This church was held by the Servites of Marie, which lodged in 1501 Léonard, wire of Piero da Vinci, the notary of their kind. It is probable that Léonard and Francesco made knowledge at that time. In 1503, Francesco del Giocondo moves in a larger residence, via della Stufa, and seeks a painter to carry out the portrait of his wife. It turns to Léonard de Vinci. LISA Gherardini was old of 24 years, and 51 year old Léonard at the time when it began his table.

Francesco del Giocondo never accepted its table. It was unfinished when the artist left Florence for Milan.

This thesis remains discussed, with the pretext that no trace of a payment was found. The close links between Léonard de Vinci and the family del Giocondo were established in 2004 by Giuseppe Pallanti.

According to Giuseppe Pallanti (2007), the files of a church of the historical center of Florence (Tuscan), refer to a death certificate of “the wife of Francesco Del Giocondo”, dead on July 15th, 1542 and buried with the convent Sant' Orsola.

According to Daniel Arasse, if it were living when the table was finished, Francesco del Giocondo would have felt insult and would have probably refused it. According to him, at that time a woman with the dismantled face and the depilated eyebrows could be only one prostitute. Analyzes of the table after 2000 showed that the Mona Lisa with the covered head of a transparent or not very visible veil.

Other suggestions

Some make the assumption that the table of the Mona Lisa is a disguised self-portrait, as would attest it the superposition of the copies of the self-portraits present in its notebooks of sketch and that of “Monna LISA”.

The last conjecture is based on an analogy: the face of Monna LISA would be superposable with that of Catherine Sforza, princess of Forlì (XVe century), in a portrait painted by Lorenzo di Credi. This portrait is preserved in the Museum of Forlì, in Italy.

Table analyzes

Denomination

The title of the table probably comes from the patronym of the subject - “del Giocondo” - but can also be allotted to the attitude of the woman represented. It is also called “Monna LISA” or its more current deformation “Mona LISA”, a contraction of “ my gave LISA ” which one can translate by “Mrs LISA”.

Symbolism

In Italian, giocondo means " happy, serein". Léonard was surely conscious that it painted not only the portrait of a woman, but also the portrait of an expression. The Mona Lisa constitutes really the portrait of the idea of Sérénité.

According to some, the Mona Lisa is also the expression of femininity, even of maternity, because it seems to seem holding a child in his arms.

The smile and the glance

The smile of the Mona Lisa constitutes one of the enigmatic elements of the table, which contributed to the development of the myth. Its smile seems suspended, ready to die out.

While giving the impression to follow the spectator of the eyes, the glance of Monna LISA fixes a point located beyond the spectator, slightly on his line, thus causing an in-depth setting of the dialog between work and the spectator. Bruno Mathon, critic art, known as as well as the Mona Lisa look at something in you, but who is behind you, in your past. It looks at the child who you were, as a mother looks at her child.

A source of inspiration

As of the 16th century, the Mona Lisa inspired by many painters, who made more or less faithful copies and imitations of them. Corot, Robert Delaunay and Fernand Leger drew some from the variations. At the 20th century the Surrealist S, to protest against “established art” diverted the table. Monna LISA is lived affublée of a moustache by Salvador Dali, and by Marcel Duchamp under the title “L.H.O.O.Q”, accepted a pipe in the mouth, overlapped a motor bike, was disguised in angel of death, dog or siren…

Other arts seized some: singers, like Barbara (words and music of Paul Braffort), Serge Gainsbourg or Patachou sang it. Authors “jocondoclastes”, of Jean Margat with the oulipien Herve Tellier, made of it a literary character.

More recently, the sculptor Daniel Druet gave body to work headlight of Léonard de Vinci by carrying out the bust life size of Monna LISA on behalf of the contemporary designer Yves Cohen. A copy of this bust in Cookie of Porcelaine was entrusted to Henri Loyrette, the current president of the Musée of Louvre.

Postal art (email art) also seized mona LISA. The Mona Lisa is source of inspiration for many mailartists. Examples on http://galeriedesmona.blogspot.com/ or http://monalisartpostal.blogspot.com/.

Technical analyzes

The blur of the table is characteristic of the technique of the Sfumato . The sfumato , of smoked out Italian, is a vaporous effect, obtained by the superposition of several extremely delicate coats of paint which gives to the table contours vague. This technique was employed in particular on the level of the eyes in the setting in shade.

In December 2005, the British magazine The New Scientist reports a study based on a software of recognition of the emotions on the face. According to this study Monna LISA was 83% happy, 9% nauseated, 6% apprehensive and 2% in anger.

The National council of research of the Canada revealed on September 26th, 2006 in Ottawa the results of a study carried out thanks to a system of sweeping sophisticated Laser, colors and in three dimensions. This one made it possible to discover that Monna LISA was wrapped of a " veil gaze" end and transparency normally at the time carried by the pregnant women or have just been confined. Masked by varnish, this detail had never been observed until now. The mysterious smile of the Mona Lisa would be thus that of an expectant mother or who has just had a child.

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