The Mona Lisa (also known as the Mona Lisa) is a portrait of a young woman painted by the Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci around 1503. The painting is one of the most famous paintings in the world. Refers to the Renaissance. Exhibited in the Louvre (Paris, France).
In no other painting by Leonardo is the depth and haze of the atmosphere conveyed with such perfection as in Mona Lisa. This is an aerial perspective, probably the best in execution. "Mona Lisa" received worldwide fame, not only because of the quality of Leonardo's work, which impresses both art lovers and professionals. The painting has been studied by historians and copied by painters, but it would have long remained known only to connoisseurs of art, if not for its exceptional history. In 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen and only three years later, thanks to a coincidence, was returned to the museum. During this time, "Mona Lisa" did not leave the covers of newspapers and magazines around the world. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Mona Lisa was copied more often than all other paintings. Since then, the painting has become an object of cult and worship, as a masterpiece of world classics.
The person depicted in the portrait is difficult to identify. Until today, many controversial and sometimes absurd opinions have been expressed on this subject:
The mystery that surrounds the stranger to this day attracts millions of visitors to the Louvre every year.
In 1517, Cardinal Louis of Aragon visited Leonardo at his atelier in France. The description of this visit was made by the secretary of Cardinal Antonio de Beatis: “On October 10, 1517, the monsignor and his ilk visited in one of the remote parts of Amboise visited sir 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 nature 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.
According to Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), author of biographies of Italian artists, Mona Lisa (short for Madonna Lisa) was the wife of a Florentine named Francesco del Giocondo (Italian Francesco del Giocondo), whose portrait Leonardo spent four years, still leaving its unfinished.
Vasari expresses a very laudatory opinion about the quality of this picture: “Any person who wants to see how well art can imitate nature can easily be convinced of this by the example of the head, because here Leonardo reproduced all the details ... The eyes are filled with brilliance and moisture, like living people ... Delicate pink nose seems real. The red tone of the mouth harmoniously matches the complexion ... Whoever looked closely at her neck, it seemed to everyone that her pulse was beating ... ". He also explains the slight smile on her face: "Leonardo allegedly invited musicians and clowns to entertain a lady bored from a long posing."
This story may be true, but, most likely, Vasari simply added it to Leonardo's biography for the entertainment of readers. Vasari's description 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. 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.
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 uninfluential silk merchant Francesco Giocondo, who commissioned a portrait of his third wife, Lisa, from the artist. Despite the words of this anonymous contemporary, many researchers still doubt the possibility that the Mona Lisa was written in Florence (1500-1505). The refined technique indicates a later creation of the painting. In addition, at that time Leonardo was so busy working on the Battle of Anghiari that he even refused Princess Isabella d'Este to accept her order. Could then a simple merchant persuade the famous master to paint a portrait of his wife?
It is also interesting that in his description, Vasari admires Leonardo's talent for conveying physical phenomena, and not the similarity between model and painting. It seems that this physical feature of the masterpiece left a deep impression among the visitors of the artist's studio and reached Vasari almost fifty years later.
A careful analysis of the composition leads to the conclusion that Leonardo did not seek to create an individual portrait. "Mona Lisa" became the implementation of the ideas of the artist, expressed by him in his treatise on painting. Leonardo's approach to his work has always been scientific. Therefore, the Mona Lisa, which he spent many years creating, became beautiful, but at the same time inaccessible and insensitive way. She seems voluptuous and cold at the same time. Despite the fact that Jaconda's gaze is directed at us, a visual barrier has been created between us and her - a chair handle acting as a partition. Such a concept excludes the possibility of an intimate dialogue, as, for example, in the portrait of Baltasar Castiglione (exhibited in the Louvre, Paris), painted by Raphael about ten years later. However, our gaze constantly returns to her illuminated face, surrounded as a frame by dark, hidden under a transparent veil, hair, shadows on her neck and a dark smoky landscape in the background. Against the backdrop of distant mountains, the figure gives the impression of being monumental, although the size of the picture is small (77x53 cm). This monumentality, inherent in sublime divine beings, keeps us mere mortals at a respectful distance and at the same time makes us unsuccessfully strive for the unattainable. Not without reason, Leonardo chose the position of the model, very similar to the positions of the Mother of God in Italian paintings of the 15th century. Additional distance is created by the artificiality that arises from the flawless sfumato effect (rejection of clear outlines in favor of creating an airy impression). It must be assumed that Leonardo actually completely freed himself from portrait resemblance in favor of creating the illusion of an atmosphere and a living breathing body with the help of a plane, paints and a brush. For us, Gioconda will forever remain Leonardo's masterpiece.
Mona Lisa would have long been known only to connoisseurs of fine art, if not for her exceptional history, which made her world famous.
From the beginning of the sixteenth century, the painting, acquired by Francis I after the death of Leonardo, remained in the royal collection. Since 1793 it has been placed in the Central Museum of Art in the Louvre. Mona Lisa has always remained in the Louvre as one of the assets of the national collection. 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. The painting was found only two years later in Italy. Moreover, the thief himself was to blame for this, responding to an ad in a newspaper and offering to sell the Gioconda. In the end, on January 1, 1914, the painting returned to France.
In the twentieth century, the picture almost did not leave the Louvre, visiting the USA in 1963 and Japan in 1974. Trips only consolidated the success and fame of the picture.
Painting by Leonardo da Vinci "Mona Lisa" was written in 1505, but it still remains the most popular work of art. Still unsolved problem is the enigmatic expression of the woman's face. In addition, the painting is famous for the unusual methods of execution that the artist used and, most importantly, the Mona Lisa was repeatedly stolen. The most high-profile case happened about 100 years ago - on August 21, 1911.
Back in 1911, the Mona Lisa, whose full name is "Portrait of Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo", was stolen by an employee of the Louvre, the Italian mirror master Vincenzo Perugia. But then no one even suspected him of stealing. Suspicions fell on the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, and even Pablo Picasso! The administration of the museum was immediately dismissed, and the borders of France were temporarily closed. Newspaper hype greatly contributed to the growth of the popularity of the picture.
The painting was discovered only 2 years later in Italy. What is interesting, according to the oversight of the thief himself. He made a fool of himself by responding to an ad in a newspaper and offering the director of the Uffizi Gallery to buy Mona Lisa.
8 facts about Gioconda Leonardo da Vinci that will surprise you
1. It turns out that Leonardo da Vinci rewrote the Mona Lisa twice. Experts believe that the colors on the original versions were much brighter. And the sleeves of the Gioconda dress were originally red, just the colors faded over time.
In addition, on the original version of the painting, there were columns along the edges of the canvas. The painting was later cropped, probably by the artist himself.
2. The first place where they saw the Gioconda was the bathhouse of the great politician and collector King Francis I. According to legend, before his death, Leonardo da Vinci sold the Gioconda to Francis for 4,000 gold coins. At that time it was just a huge sum.
The king placed the painting in the bath not because he did not realize what kind of masterpiece he got, but quite the opposite. At that time, the Fontainebleau bath was the most important place in the French kingdom. There, Francis not only had fun with his mistresses, but also received ambassadors.
3. At one time, Napoleon Bonaparte liked the Mona Lisa so much that he moved it from the Louvre to the Tuileries Palace and hung it in his bedroom. Napoleon knew nothing about painting, but he highly appreciated da Vinci. True, not as an artist, but as a universal genius, which, by the way, he considered himself. After becoming emperor, Napoleon returned the painting to the museum in the Louvre, which he named after himself.
4. Mona Lisa's eyes are hidden tiny numbers and letters that are unlikely to be noticed with the naked eye. researchers suggest that these are the initials of Leonardo da Vinci and the year the painting was created.
5. During the Second World War, many works from the Louvre collection were hidden in the Chateau de Chambord. Among them was the Mona Lisa. The place where the Mona Lisa is hidden was kept in the strictest confidence. The paintings were not hidden in vain: it would later turn out that Hitler planned to create the world's largest museum in Linz. And for this he organized a whole campaign under the leadership of the German art connoisseur Hans Posse.
6. It is believed that the painting depicts Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Gioconda, a Florentine silk merchant. True, there are more exotic versions. According to one of them, Mona Lisa is Leonardo's mother Katerina, according to another, it is a self-portrait of the artist in a female form, and according to the third, it is Salai, Leonardo's student, dressed in a woman's dress.
7. Most researchers believe that the landscape painted behind the Mona Lisa is fictional. There are versions that this is the Valdarno Valley or the Montefeltro region, but there is no convincing evidence for these versions. It is known that Leonardo painted the painting in his Milan workshop.
8. The painting in the Louvre has its own room. Now the painting is inside a special protective system, which includes bulletproof glass, a sophisticated alarm system and an installation for creating a microclimate that is optimal for preserving the canvas. The cost of this system is $7 million.
Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa, of course, is not only the most significant, successful and popular work of the Renaissance master da Vinci, but also his most discussed creation.
The work template itself is extremely revolutionary, especially in the technique of realizing the portrait. Leonardo refused to use a clean background, as he had done before. The location of the figure from the waist, the position of the hands is an absolute novelty. Although it may seem paradoxical, there is movement in this painting. The background shrouded in mist, the bridge over the river, the colors used by the artist create a feeling of naturalness and liveliness. It is assumed that a slight blur of the figure reflects the heartbeat of the heroine. The author also uses the author's sfumato technique in his work, creating a haze effect.
Framed work
One of the elements of the work that touches all viewers is Mona Lisa's smile, known all over the world. The smile is on the verge of recognition. Its presence and form varies depending on the points of observation. It is believed that she, for all her mystery, embodies the impossibility of finding a foothold in human feelings.
Leonardo transforms this portrait into an ideal image, paying special attention to his own vision of reality and nature, which are never in a static position, on the contrary, they are dynamic and alive.
There is an assumption that the picture depicts an androgynous lover Leonardo. Some scholars believe that the Mona Lisa is a self-portrait of the artist. The use of modern technologies made it possible to look under the outer layer of paints and see another portrait there, reminiscent of both a draft version of the Mona Lisa and an independent work. However, the Louvre staff and many experts are skeptical of many studies and do not comment on the main high-profile statements.
Gioconda - a picture that perfectly represents "poetry" Leonardo da Vinci: this work shows the personal experiences of the creator, the complexity of the universe in the smallest detail. The background behind Lisa Gherardini is done in an exceptional way: corrosion and rocks formed by rivers, with light filtering, create a landscape. One can trace the transformation of matter from solid to liquid and then to gaseous. The woman, as the subject of the composition, does not contradict this theme, but rather represents the last step in the evolution of this list.
Light in this work plays a fundamental role, it completely “embraces” the woman, creates sharp contrasts with dark fragments, and is also the subject of controversy.
Entire books and scientific works are dedicated to Gioconda, the authors of which are trying to understand the content, but the work still hides many secrets. "Mona Lisa" has generated a lot of controversy and talk, still remaining one of the most popular paintings in the history of art. The elusiveness of nature and the human soul, as well as other symbolism, is still trying to be interpreted with the help of the mentioned smile, the colors and colors used, as well as modern technologies.
Painting "Mona Lisa" updated: October 25, 2017 by: Gleb
culture
"Mona Lisa" - one of the most famous works of art in history hides more than one portrait.
The French scientist Pascal Cotte stated that discovered hidden portraits using light reflection technology.
The scientist said that he had been studying and analyzing the painting for more than 10 years.
"The result debunks many myths and forever changes our understanding of Leonardo's masterpiece.", said Kotte.
The scientist believes that one of the hidden portraits is the real portrait of Lisa de Giocondo, the woman with whom they painted the Mona Lisa.
With the help of reconstruction, you can see the image of the model, which looks to the side.
Instead of the famous direct look, on the image of the model no trace of a mysterious smile that has intrigued art connoisseurs for over 500 years.
Leonardo worked on the painting between 1503 and 1517 in Florence and then in France.
For a long time there were disputes about the identity of the Mona Lisa. For many centuries it was believed that this was Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant.
However, when Mr. Cotte made a reconstruction of Lisa Gerardini, he discovered completely different "Mona Lisa".
In addition, he claims that there are two more images below the surface of the painting - a blurry outline of a portrait with a larger head and nose, larger hands, but smaller lips. The scientist also discovered another image in the style of the Madonna engraved by Leonardo in the form of a pearl rim.
Pascal Cottet used a technique known as layer enhancement method, projecting intense radiation onto a painting and measuring the reflection, allowing what was between layers of paint to be reconstructed. Thanks to this method, the scientist was able to look into the very heart of the famous painting.
The Mona Lisa is considered one of the the greatest treasures of Renaissance art. The painting is also known as "Gioconda" and is considered one of the finest examples of portrait art.
Despite its fame, "Mona Lisa", like all the works of Leonardo da Vinci, was not signed, and there was no date on it. The name was taken from a biography of Leonardo written by the biographer Giorgio Vasari, published in the 1550s, where it was said that the artist agreed to paint a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a silk merchant.
Leonardo worked on the piece for a long time, especially on the position of the model's hands. The mysterious smile and the secret of the model's identity is a source of constant research and admiration.
The Mona Lisa painting is now in the Louvre in Paris and is considered the most valuable painting in the world, it is insured against inflation for $782 million.
Introduction………………………………………………………………………3
1. Biography of the artist…………………………………………………..5
2. The mystery of the identification of the Mona Lisa model………………………………6
3. Technique of execution of Mona Lisa……………………………………...11
4. The composition of the picture…………………………………………………..16
5. Curious facts…………………………………………………… 18
Conclusion………………………………………………………………..20
List of sources and literature……………………………………….21
Appendix……………………………………………………………….22
Introduction
ital. Gioconda; Monna Lisa) is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, a young woman, painted by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci around 1503. The painting is one of the most famous paintings in the world. Refers to the Renaissance. Exhibited in the Louvre (Paris, France).
ital. Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo- Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo.
Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" is considered the most priceless painting of all mankind. The work was created over several years, it is unique. The picture is so familiar to everyone, so deeply imprinted in the memory of people that it is hard to believe that it once looked different.
The picture has been copied so often and has had such a strong (perhaps even too strong) influence on art that it is very difficult to look at it with an unbiased eye, but a close examination of color illustrations can lead to surprising discoveries even for those who are tired or think they are tired. , from Mona Lisa.
There are four main questions:
The genius of the creator of the painting, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Perfect technique of performance, secrets that are still unsolved
The halo of mystery of the woman (who posed)
· A picture story that is as amazing as a detective story.
You can talk about genius for a long time, it is better to read the biography on this site. Objectively, without artistic speculation. Although the abilities were bright, but the main thing is a huge capacity for work and a desire to know the world around. Leonardo studied topics that were then considered essential for an artist: mathematics, perspective, geometry, and all the sciences of observation and study of the natural environment. He also began studying architecture and sculpture. After completing his studies, he began his career as a painter of portraits and religious paintings, commissioned by wealthy citizens or monasteries. Throughout his life he developed his technical and artistic talents. Unusual ability to deal with any topic and in any field of life, he should have been better known as a talented engineer than as a painter, but he surprised even all his contemporaries, as well as his greedy curiosity with which he continuously studied natural phenomena: " Where does urine come from? ... and despite the fact that his technical experimentation in painting was not always successful.
1. Artist biography
Leonardo got his last name from the town of Vinci, west of Florence, where he was supposedly born on April 15, 1452. He was the illegitimate son of a Florentine notary and a peasant girl, but was brought up in the house and his father, so he received a thorough education in reading, writing and counting. At the age of 15, he was apprenticed to one of the leading masters of the early Renaissance, Andrea del Verrocchio, and five years later he joined the guild of artists. In 1482, already a professional artist, Leonardo moved to Milan. There he painted the famous fresco "The Last Supper" and began to keep his unique records, in which he acts more as an architect-designer, anatomist, hydraulics, inventor of mechanisms, musician. For many years, moving from city to city, da Vinci was so fascinated by mathematics that he could not bring himself to pick up brushes. In Florence he entered into a rivalry with Michelangelo; this rivalry culminated in the enormous battle compositions that the two artists painted for Palazzo della Signoria (also Palazzo Vecchio). The French, first Louis XII and then Francis I, admired the works of the Italian Renaissance, especially Leonardo's Last Supper. Therefore, it is not surprising that in 1516 Francis I, well aware of Leonardo's various talents, invited him to court, which was then located in the Amboise castle in the Loire Valley. Leonardo died at Amboise on May 2, 1519; his paintings by this time were scattered mainly in private collections, and the notes lay in various collections almost in complete oblivion for several more centuries.
2. MysteryidentityMona Lisa models
The person depicted in the portrait is difficult to identify. Until today, many controversial and sometimes absurd opinions have been expressed on this subject:
The wife of the Florentine merchant del Giocondo
Isabella of Este
Just the perfect woman
A young boy in a woman's attire
Self-portrait of Leonardo
The mystery that surrounds the stranger to this day attracts millions of visitors to the Louvre every year.
In 1517, Cardinal Louis of Aragon visited Leonardo at his atelier in France. The 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, visited sir Leonardo da Vinci, a Florentine, 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 nature 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.
According to Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), a biographer of Italian artists, Mona Lisa (short for Madonna Lisa) was the wife of a Florentine named Francesco del Giocondo, whose portrait Leonardo spent four years, yet left unfinished.
Vasari expresses a very laudatory opinion about the quality of this picture: “Any person who wants to see how well art can imitate nature can easily be convinced of this by the example of the head, because here Leonardo reproduced all the details ... The eyes are filled with brilliance and moisture, like living people ... Delicate pink nose seems real. The red tone of the mouth harmoniously matches the complexion ... Whoever looked closely at her neck, it seemed to everyone that her pulse was beating ... ". He also explains the slight smile on her face: "Leonardo allegedly invited musicians and clowns to entertain a lady bored from a long posing."
Maybe this story is true, but, most likely, Vasari simply added it to Leonardo's biography for the entertainment of readers. Vasari's description 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. 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.
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 uninfluential silk merchant Francesco Giocondo, who commissioned a portrait of his third wife, Lisa, from the artist. Despite the words of this anonymous contemporary, many researchers still doubt the possibility that the Mona Lisa was written in Florence (1500-1505). The refined technique indicates a later creation of the painting. In addition, at this time, Leonardo was so busy working on the "Battle of Anghiari" that he even refused Princess Isabella d'Este to accept her order. Could a simple merchant then persuade a famous master to paint a portrait of his wife?
It is also interesting that in his description, Vasari admires Leonardo's talent for conveying physical phenomena, and not the similarity between model and painting. It seems that this physical feature of the masterpiece left a deep impression among the visitors of the artist's studio and reached Vasari almost fifty years later.
Who is Mona Lisa? There are many versions. The most plausible of them is the second wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo and the mother of five children. At the time of painting (about 1503-1506), the girl was, according to various sources, from 24 to 30 years old. It is because of her husband's surname that the painting is now known under two names.
According to the second version, the mysterious girl was not at all an angelic innocent beauty. At the time of writing, she was already 40 years old. The duchess was the illegitimate daughter of the ruler of Milan, the legendary hero of the Italian Renaissance, the Duke of Sforza, and became infamous for her promiscuity: from the age of 15, she was married three times and gave birth to 11 children. The Duchess died in 1509, six years after the start of work on the painting. This version is supported by a portrait of a twenty-five-year-old duchess who looks remarkably like Mona Lisa.
You can often hear the version that Leonardo da Vinci did not go far for a model for his masterpiece, but simply painted a self-portrait in women's clothes. This version is difficult to reject, because there is an obvious similarity between the Mona Lisa and the later self-portrait of the master. Moreover, this similarity was confirmed by a computer analysis of the main anthropometric indicators.
The most scandalous version affects the personal life of the master. Some scholars claim that the model for the painting was da Vinci's student and assistant Gian Giacomo, who was by his side for 26 years and may have been his lover. This version is supported by the fact that Leonardo left this painting to him as a legacy when he died in 1519.
However, no matter how much you solve the master's puzzle, there are still more questions than answers. The ambiguity in the name of the painting has caused a lot of speculation regarding its authenticity. There is a version that Contemporaries have repeatedly noted that the painting was not finished by the master. Moreover, Raphael, having visited the artist's studio, made a sketch from the still unfinished painting. The sketch turned out to be a well-known woman, on both sides of which Greek columns were located. In addition, according to contemporaries, the painting was larger and was made to order just for Mona Lisa's husband, Francesco del Giocondo. The author handed over the unfinished painting to the customer, and it was kept in the family archive for many centuries.
However, the Louvre exhibited a completely different canvas. It is smaller in size (only 77 by 53 centimeters) and looks quite finished without columns. So, according to historians, the Louvre painting depicts the mistress of Giuliano Medici - Constanza D'Avalos. It was this picture that the artist brought with him to France in 1516. He kept her in his room in the estate near the city of Amboise until his death. From there, the painting came into the collection of King Francis I in 1517. It is this painting that is called “Mona Lisa”.
