SOME IDIOSYNCRATIC FACTS OF MONA LISA

 

 

 

Mona Lisa.......the name is only enough to bring some beautiful, mysterious and bizarre thoughts in mind. The most famous and talked about painting was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci during Italian Renaissance. It is believed that this art piece is the most visited, the most written about and the most parodied in the world. Whether it be her ticklish smile or her charming and eyes, it bounds one to question about her mood and spirit. Mona Lisa is so beautiful and alluring that she can be used as a parameter to express beauty. People congregate in huge numbers to its home, the Louvre museum of Paris. Let’s have some glimpses on it’s history, creation and mysteries most importantly.            

 

 

 

 

1- It is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506. Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517.

 

2- The actual name of the painting is not Mona Lisa. It’s name is Monna Lisa, which means “ My Lady” in Italian language.

 

3- The painting is small than one can imagine. It measures just 30 by 21 inches and weighs 18 pounds.

 

4- It is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel. A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together.

 

5- The painting is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo. Her husband authorized the production of the portrait. They had five children and led a comfortable and satisfactory middle class life.

 

6- The most mysterious part of this unique painting is her smile. Some thinks that her smile shows that she is sad while other thinks that she is happy. Some believed that her smile changed when seen from different angles. But in 2000, Harvard neuro scientist 

Dr. Margaret Livingstone appealed a scientific mechanism to why Mona Lisa's smile seems to shift. It's all about where our focus is, and how our brain responds.

 

7- The beautiful Mona Lisa has no eye brows. Yes, this is another interesting fact. It is said that Da Vinci never completed the painting. Another reason which came to light is that when the authorities were re-establishing the painting, it got removed accidentally.

 

8- Researches shows that the portrait had three layers of painting before the present version of Mona Lisa.

 

9- Like a chapter straight out of the popular book "The Da Vinci Code," art historians have found microscopic codes hidden within the eye of the perplexing charming painting.

 

10- The technique Leonardo Da Vinci used to paint Mona Lisa was sfumato which means painting without outlines or boarders.

 

11- The painting has an imperfection. In 1956, a man named Ugo Ungaza threw a stone at the painting. This resulted in a small patch of vandalize paint next to her left elbow.

 

12- In 1911, Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. It wasn’t recovered until two years later, in December 1913.

 

13- In 1852, an artist named Luc Maspero threw himself from the fourth floor of a Parisian hotel, leaving a suicide note containing that for years he had grapple desperately with her smile. Thus he preferred to die. Then in 1910, one fascinated fan came before her exclusiveness and uniqueness to shoot himself as he looked upon her.

 

14- The painting is extremely well kept and maintained. In Louvre, it has a room of its own. It is protected in a climate controlled environment and encased in bullet proof glass. The room was built exclusively for the painting and it cost the museum over seven million dollars.

 

15- The painting is considered priceless and so it cannot be insured.