Mona Lisa

Kawakami 1
Kento Kawakami
Mrs. Wilson
Robinson high school
Session: May 2012
Visual Arts
Word Count: 3289

Mona Lisa, Finding the Key to the Mysteries of Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa, a painting created by a legendary painter: Leonardo da Vinci, leaves various codes and secrets evident in the painting that adds to its mysteriousness. People today have an obsession to finding out the secrets to unlocking the vault of art history. There are many theories that possibly explain the secrets of the painting: Mona Lisa. These theories are formed by the art experts who are curious on why the Mona Lisa was painted. Some of the theories that will be revealed are my personal theory and interpretation of the Mona Lisa, the theory that Mona Lisa is Lisa Gheradini, the theory that believes Mona Lisa is a self-portrait, the theory that da Vinci is homosexual, the theory that explains the land scape, the theory that explains the smile of the figure, and the theory that are made using forensics. Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa
Kawakami 2 and left vague evidence on how it should be interpreted and this ambiguity led to the forming of these theories. led to forming these theories. Although many of these theories seem to be convincing, there is no conclusive evidence that determines how da Vinci really wanted Mona Lisa to be interpreted due to his lack of presence.
Abstract:
How did Leonardo da Vinci intend for the Mona Lisa to be interpreted?
The first thing I performed in this research was create my own critical analysis of the Mona Lisa. In the critical analysis, I took every aspect I could gather and analyze the meaning that I personally derived from the painting. Looking at the painting, I considered paintings by different artists that support the finding of my critical analysis, and compared them with the Mona Lisa. In the critical analysis, I used the same method of analyzing an artwork in the art class. After the forming the critical analysis, I considered research that discussed theories formed by experts, and listed how these theories compare and contrast with my own critical analysis. I wrote source analyses on each theory considering if the sources were reliable or not.
The fragment within this research I attempted to establish, I defined the pros and cons of each theory since these ideas are not absolute in discovering the true knowledge of the Mona Lisa. Finally, I analyzed the artwork where finding the truth of the Mona Lisa is almost impossible. One can gather that finding evidence to define the painting is far too difficult for its standards. Theories are made in order to hypothesize the interpretation the painting gives and that there are no definite answer to how Leonardo da Vinci expected the painting to be interpreted.
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The Mona Lisa is a painting created by Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian painter, sculptor, architect, and a philosopher (Leonardo da Vinci’s life 1) . The painting took three years to
Kawakami 3 complete (1503-1506) while da Vinci was living in Florence, Italy. The Mona Lisa is currently showcased in Louvre which is a museum located in Paris, France. The Mona Lisa is a portrait of a woman wearing a veil with green loose clothing. It appears that the figure is possibly seated in front of a mountain type of landscape. The woman in the painting is resting her arms on a very dark object that is hard to distinguish. The facial expression is hard to determine and expressionless. The smile seems to “disappear” when the eye is focused and the eyes of the figure are made to look directly at the viewer disregarding the position of the viewer. As for the background, there is a river that is surrounded by mountains and hills, a zig zag shaped road, and a bridge that creates a pathway for the right side of the river. The sky is extremely gloomy with clouds and the mountains in the back are painted in a way that a viewer cannot determine an effective line. The major elements and principles of design that stands out in this painting are primarily the line, color, and value. Line such as the road is used in a fashion to attract the attention to a specific point. The color used in this painting consists of various shades of green which I will discuss thoroughly as I approach the topic. Da Vinci included many techniques on his painting such as the Sfumato which shows the value of the painting. These were some of the features that are introduced by viewing the Mona Lisa. When viewing the Mona Lisa, my impression of the emotions are elicited that makes this painting difficult interpret. In my opinion I view the Mona Lisa as Leonardo da Vinci’s lover that was married to someone else. My first impression of the woman was that she is pregnant. The reason is because the woman is wearing a clothing called the “Guarnello” which was a type of clothing that pregnant women wore during the Renaissance era. There are other similar works that uses the Guarnello as a figure’s clothing such as Sandro Botticelli’s Portrait of Smeralda Bandinelli as shown below:
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[pic]

Botticelli, Sandro. Portrait of Smeralda Bandinelli. Tempera on Panel.

In the portrait, it includes a pregnant woman wearing a similar clothing as the Mona Lisa. The way the loose clothing is worn has many aspects that it includes in the Mona Lisa. In Botticelli’s painting, the woman is wearing two layers of clothing. The outer layer is very loose similar to Mona Lisa’s two layered clothing. The style of the clothing is very similar also. The sleeves, the shoulders, and the bosom all share the similar features as the Portrait of Smeralda Bandinelli. The way the woman in the portrait hold her left hand across her abdomen is very similar to Mona Lisa’s. As for Mona Lisa’s hands, they seems to be swollen and according to medical experts, many swollen hands are symptoms of pregnancy. Perhaps this woman is most likely a seductive image that Leonardo da Vinci saw in his lover. There is more to the gesture of Mona Lisa’s hands, as seen on the painting by Raffaello Da Urbino’s Portrait of Maddalena Doni and her hands:

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[pic]
Da Urbino, Raffaello. Portrait of Maddalena Doni. Oil on wood.

One can distinguish the same gestures that this painting and the Mona Lisa creates. The difference is the actual person and the landscape. The proportion of the entire body almost seems identical to each other. The reason on suggesting this painting in this discussion is that this painting expresses the gesture on the hand includes symbolistic features. My thoughts into why the hands are positioned this way is because it displays elegancy to the society they live upon. The hand gesture is laid in a position that they are holding over the abdomen. When focused on the abdomen of the figure in the Mona Lisa and the figure in the Portrait of Maddalena Doni the woman in both paintings seems to be pregnant. I believe that the hand gesture is also a sign of pregnancy. I have also noticed that in many paintings created by da Vinci include lines that focuses into the major subject. For example, the Z shaped pathway on the left side of the painting and the
Kawakami 6 river on the right connecting to her left shoulder’s loose piece of clothing leads the focus towards the body of Mona Lisa. The landscape is painted as if it was a faded view towards nature. The depth created in the landscape is shown by the lower contrast in colors. In my perspective, nature plays a role of freedom from society. The only signs of civilization in the painting is the bridge. Lastly, the color used is mainly various values of green. The color green itself also has various meanings. In the celtic myths, the green man was considered as the god of fertility (Color Matters 1). Green was the color used for clothing for married women in their portrait. The nature here also plays another role in my analysis because early christians banned green since it was used in pagan ceremonies. Leonardo could have used green clothing in contrast to nature vs. civilization. Lastly, factors such as the smile gives an impression to me on the innocence of some women. In the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci included many techniques that made this painting very famous today. One of the major techniques used is the “Sfumato.” Da Vinci was usually credited for using the Sfumato and many of his artworks include this technique. This is a technique that blends colors to create various shades that makes the viewer almost impossible to distinguish where the line of two different colors appear. The Sfumato is used in Mona Lisa’s skin for the most part. It is also used in her eyes, hair, neck, chin, hands, cheeks, and the background. The sfumato creates a realistic emulation of how lighting works in reality and it also creates a very soft feeling towards the texture of the painting. Another technique that Leonardo used in his painting is the way he painted the lips and eyes. The lips shows a slight smile when looking anywhere else in the painting. But when the viewer focuses on the lips, the smile disappears. The images below show a major difference in the tone of the smile when they change some factors such as the level of noise in the image.
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(Lee) Research was conducted by optical researchers who studies the function of human vision and they determined that peripheral vision plays a role on how the perception of the smile changes. In the research, they conducted an experiment that increased the noise in the Mona Lisa and the more noise there was, the more the woman lost her smile. Leonardo managed to conduct a such a difficult technique that it is hard for many people to emulate today. As for the eyes, da Vinci was capable of controlling the direction of the eyes in a way that it follows the viewer in any perspective. Similar to how a photograph of a person’s eye follows the viewer if the photo was taken with the subject looking directly at the lens. The accurate anatomy used in his painting is also an intriguing aspect. Due to da Vinci’s thorough study of human anatomy, the proportions of Mona Lisa’s body is accurate to a human body and its proportion. Da Vinci takes the same ratio of measurements in all of his paintings hence why he uses similar methods or style in most of his paintings. One example is the similarity between Mona Lisa and St. John the Baptist.
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[pic]
Da Vinci, Leonardo. St. John the Baptist. 1513-1516

The facial features and the skin tone are almost identical to Mona Lisa’s. The principle of designs in the Mona Lisa are used in various ways. As I mentioned in my analysis, da Vinci used lines to bring focus to the major theme of the painting. In this case, the painting obviously has a religious tone which is be shown by the cross. The man points towards the heaven if the painting was viewed in a religious perspective. The element of line in St. John the Baptist is used to direct the eye upwards or “heaven.” Other theories about the Mona Lisa that suggest theories that overlap with my personal analysis on how Mona Lisa is pregnant or the disappearance of the smile. One of the major theories popular today is the Lisa Gheradini theory. This theory was formed by a 16th century historian, Giorgio Vasari. He believes that the Mona Lisa was painted before da Vinci left to Milan (1503-1506) for a project commissioned by the governor. He was offered a commission by a wealthy Florentine merchant to paint a portrait of his wife. The merchant’s wife’s name is Lisa Gheradini or also known as Lisa del Giocondo. The name of the painting “Mona Lisa” makes it
Kawakami 9 easy to believe that this painting is a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. Giuseppe Pallanti was also another historian of the time period that da Vinci lived in. He wrote a book on the history of the Giocondos. According to Pallanti’s research, Lisa was the wife of Francesco del Giocondo in 1495. Pallanti dug up Francesco’s will which was signed by Leonardo da Vinci’s father. This leads to a conclusion that Leonardo and Lisa’s families had some distant connection (Cuttle). The self-portrait theory in one of the various aspects on interpreting the Mona Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci made a self portrait sketch in his notebook along with his various studies such as anatomy, mathematics, philosophy, and inventions. The theory states that the proportion of Mona Lisa’s face in the painting is identical to Leonardo’s self-portrait sketch.

(Lee 6) Dr. Lillian Schwartz was the one to measure the length of the face of both the Mona Lisa and the self-portrait (Krystek). To test this theory, the Italy 's National Committee for Cultural Heritage is supposedly leading an association to investigate da Vinci’s corpse to prove the proportion in all of his works. Schwartz believes that the smile behind the Mona Lisa is actually
Kawakami 10 a message from da Vinci to it’s viewers as a “Joke” (Krystek). Other theorists simply believes that the self-portrait theory is absurd and that the dimensions happens to match because of da Vinci’s natural style in all of his paintings. Silvano Vinceti was a researcher who also studied the Mona Lisa and he proposed a theory on how Mona Lisa was actually a man.

Da Vinci, Leonardo. Sketch of Salai

This drawing above is supposedly a sketch of Salai who was da Vinci’s apprentice. Looking at the body gesture of the sketch, one can conclude that it is a preplanned sketch of St. John the Baptist. Da Vinci and Salai cooperated for twenty-five years during his apprenticeship. Salai was used as a model (As shown in the image above) for da Vinci and during this time period. Vincetti believes that their relationship was built during this timeframe. There are not evidence available currently to support that da Vinci ever had a female lover. Because of his lack of relationship, it is understandable on how da Vinci developed his homosexuality for Salai. Vincetti used forensic evidence to prove his theory. He viewed the high-quality digital image of
Kawakami 11 the Mona Lisa with magnification devices that examined various parts of the painting. One of his findings was the letter L and V in Mona Lisa’s eyes. He also found the letter S which most likely was an initial of Salai and letters that seem to look like C and E or B. Vincetti also discovered the number “72” located by the bridge on the right side of the painting. Similarly to how I argued on St. John the Baptiste having the same features as the Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa could have been a portrait of Salai in a female version. As mentioned earlier, Vincetti discovered the letters in the eyes along with the number “72” by the bridge in the painting. Carla Glori who also did a deep study on the Mona Lisa proposed a theory based on Vincetti’s forensic discoveries that defined the landscape that the Mona Lisa is located in. Glori states that the number “72” had a reference to a natural disaster that occurred in history. The Bobbio’s bridge also known as Ponte Gobbo located in Ponte Vecchio, Italy, faced a major flood that destroyed the bridge in 1472. According to Glori, "Leonardo added in the number 72 beneath the bridge to record the devastating flood of the River Trebbia and to allow it to be identified” (Squires). Vincetti’s discovery of letters and numbers in the painting may seem logical. However there are natural factors that could lead to these discoveries. For example, the painting is over 500 years old. The painting does not have the quality it originally had and over these years, one can say that the paintings are starting to deteriorate in sections that could cause illusions when looking directly towards the painting. Although there are not enough evidence to prove these theories, researchers continue to find clues about the painting today. Lastly, I would like to discuss about is the eyebrow theory. Pascal Cotte is a Parisian engineer who studied Mona Lisa for years to find out why she is missing both of her eyebrows. People believed that Mona Lisa had no eyebrows because it was a fashion in the time period for
Kawakami 12 women to have clean foreheads causing women to pluck their eyebrows. Cotte theorized that Mona Lisa actually did have eyebrows when it was first painted. He argues that da Vinci did not paint the Mona Lisa without eyebrows because of fashion but instead the chemical process the painting went through over the years caused it to fade away. Cotte used a 240-megapixel camera that took a clear picture of the Mona Lisa and commenced a few scans. From these scans, Cotte was able to find a strand of hair on the left eyebrow section. He then found various foundations that is shown to be the foundations of the eyebrows. After his research, he concluded that the painting have been restored and cleaned over time and that the painted eyebrows had fragile texture that it faded away during the past 500 years. People still disprove this theory in a similar way as to Vincetti’s and Glori’s theory on how mother nature plays a role in altering the painting from its original state. Many theories and thoughts exist today that tries to explain the secrets of the Mona Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci did not leave enough evidences behind in the past to explain why he painted the Mona Lisa. All of these theories are logical if it was regarded in a certain aspect but it is truly difficult to understand the real meaning behind this masterpiece created by da Vinci. It would make sense that the Mona Lisa was most likely a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo but historical documents create a flaw or a loophole that disproves this theory. The self-portrait theory can only be supported to the extent of how da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa. da Vinci’s style of painting in all of his works are similar and that not all paintings by him would have a specific representation on who the person in his paintings may be. Just because da Vinci worked with Salai for a long period of time, it still does not prove his homosexuality without an actual document to say so. Painting is a subjective object and it can be interpreted in many ways. There will never be a set definition on how the painting was meant to be interpreted.
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Works Cited

Squires, Nick. "Mona Lisa Landscape Location Mystery 'solved '" The Telegraph (2011). Web. 24 Mar. 2011. .
"Mona Lisa Smile Secrets Revealed." BBC News (2003). Web. 24 Mar. 2011. .
"The Secret Code in Mona Lisa 's Eyes: an Instant Guide." The Week (2010). Web. 24 Mar. 2011. .
Cuttle, Vivien. "Mona Lisa: Mystery No More." ABC News: Arts and Entertainment (2007). Web. 24 Mar. 2011. .
"How the Mona Lisa Lost Her Eyebrows." Web log post. ARTINFO. EPublshing, 13 Nov. 2009. Web. 9 Apr. 2011. .
Bentley, Paul. "Mona Geezer: Was Da Vinci 's Young Male Apprentice the Model for That Famous Enigmatic Smile?" Mail Online (2011). Web. 9 Apr. 2011. .
Da Vinci, Leonardo. St. John the Baptist. 1513-1516. Oil on walnut wood. Louvre, Paris.
"Da Vinci Biography." Leonardo 's Da Vinci 's Life. Web. 9 Apr. 2011. .
Da Vinci, Leonardo. Mona Lisa. 1503-1506. Oil on wood. Louvre, Paris.
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Botticelli, Sandro. Portrait of Smeralda Bandinelli. Tempera on Panel. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Da Urbino, Raffaello. Portrait of Maddalena Doni. Oil on wood. Palazzo Pitti, Florence.
Lee, Krystek. "The UnMuseum - Leonardo 's Secrets." The Museum of UnNatural Mystery. The UnMuseum, 2005. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. .
"Color & Culture Matters." Color Matters Welcomes You to the World of Color: Symbolism, Design, Vision, Science, Marketing and More! J.L Morton. 2011. .

Cited: Squires, Nick. "Mona Lisa Landscape Location Mystery 'solved '" The Telegraph (2011). Web. 24 Mar. 2011. . "Mona Lisa Smile Secrets Revealed." BBC News (2003). Web. 24 Mar. 2011. . "The Secret Code in Mona Lisa 's Eyes: an Instant Guide." The Week (2010). Web. 24 Mar. 2011. . Cuttle, Vivien. "Mona Lisa: Mystery No More." ABC News: Arts and Entertainment (2007). Web. 24 Mar. 2011. . "How the Mona Lisa Lost Her Eyebrows." Web log post. ARTINFO. EPublshing, 13 Nov. 2009. Web. 9 Apr. 2011. . Bentley, Paul. "Mona Geezer: Was Da Vinci 's Young Male Apprentice the Model for That Famous Enigmatic Smile?" Mail Online (2011). Web. 9 Apr. 2011. Da Vinci, Leonardo. St. John the Baptist. 1513-1516. Oil on walnut wood. Louvre, Paris. "Da Vinci Biography." Leonardo 's Da Vinci 's Life. Web. 9 Apr. 2011. . Da Vinci, Leonardo. Mona Lisa. 1503-1506. Oil on wood. Louvre, Paris. Lee, Krystek. "The UnMuseum - Leonardo 's Secrets." The Museum of UnNatural Mystery. The UnMuseum, 2005. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. "Color & Culture Matters." Color Matters Welcomes You to the World of Color: Symbolism, Design, Vision, Science, Marketing and More! J.L Morton. 2011. .