What is the secret of Mona Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Mona Lisa" was painted in 1505, but it still remains the most popular work art. Still an unsolved problem is the mysterious expression on the woman's face. In addition, the painting is famous for the unusual execution methods used by the artist and, most importantly, the Mona Lisa was stolen several times. The most notorious case happened about 100 years ago - on August 21, 1911.

16:24 21.08.2015

Back in 1911, the Mona Lisa, whose full name was “Portrait of Madame 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. Suspicion fell on the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, and even Pablo Picasso! The museum administration was immediately fired and the French borders were temporarily closed. Newspaper hype greatly contributed to the growth of the film's popularity.

The painting was discovered only 2 years later in Italy. Interestingly, due to the thief’s own oversight. He made a fool of himself by responding to an advertisement in the newspaper and offering to buy the Mona Lisa to the director of the Uffizi Gallery.

8 facts about Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa that will surprise you

1. It turns out that Leonardo da Vinci rewrote La Gioconda twice. Experts believe that the colors on the original versions were much brighter. And the sleeves of Gioconda’s dress were originally red, the colors just faded over time.

In addition, in the original version of the painting there were columns along the edges of the canvas. Later the picture was cropped, probably by the artist himself.

2. The first place where they saw “La Gioconda” was the bathhouse of the great politician and collector King Francis I. According to legend, before his death, Leonardo da Vinci sold “Gioconda” to Francis for 4 thousand gold coins. At that time it was simply a huge amount.

The king placed the painting in the bathhouse not because he did not realize what a masterpiece he had received, but quite the opposite. At that time, the bathhouse at Fontainebleau 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 valued da Vinci. True, not as an artist, but as a universal genius, which, by the way, he considered himself to be. After becoming emperor, Napoleon returned the painting to the museum in the Louvre, which he named after himself.

4. Hidden in the eyes of the Mona Lisa are tiny numbers and letters that are unlikely to be visible to the naked eye. researchers suggest that these are the initials of Leonardo da Vinci and the year the painting was created.

5. During World War II, many works from the Louvre collection were hidden in the Chateau de Chambord. Among them was the Mona Lisa. The location where the Mona Lisa was hidden was kept a closely guarded secret. The paintings were hidden for good reason: it would later turn out that Hitler planned to create the world's largest museum in Linz. And he organized a whole campaign for this 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 also 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 fictitious. 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 has its own room in the Louvre. Now the painting is inside a special protective system, which includes bullet-resistant glass, a complex alarm system and an installation to create a microclimate that is optimal for preserving the painting. The cost of this system is $7 million.

“Mona Lisa” (“La Gioconda”; full name - Portrait of Lady Lisa Giocondo) is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, located in the Louvre (Paris, France), one of the most famous works painting in the world, which is believed to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, painted around 1503-1505.

“Soon it will be four centuries since the Mona Lisa deprives everyone of their sanity who, having seen enough of it, begins to talk about it.” (Gruye, late XIX century). »

Gioconda
Paris. Louvre. 77x53. Tree. 1506-1516

Even the first Italian biographers of Leonardo da Vinci wrote about the place this painting occupied in the artist’s work. Leonardo did not shy away from working on the Mona Lisa, as was the case with many other orders, but, on the contrary, devoted himself to it with some kind of passion. All the time he had left from working on “The Battle of Anghiari” was devoted to her. He spent considerable time on it and, leaving Italy in mature age, took with him to France among some other selected paintings. Da Vinci had a special affection for this portrait, and also thought a lot during the process of its creation; in the “Treatise on Painting” and in those notes on painting techniques that were not included in it, one can find many indications that undoubtedly relate to “La Gioconda” "

"Leonardo da Vinci's Studio" in an 1845 engraving: Gioconda is entertained by jesters and musicians

According to Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574), an author of biographies of Italian artists who wrote about Leonardo in 1550, 31 years after his death, Mona Lisa (short for Madonna Lisa) was the wife of a Florentine man named Francesco del Giocondo. Francesco del Giocondo), on whose portrait Leonardo spent 4 years, yet left it unfinished.

“Leonardo undertook to make a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, for Francesco del Giocondo, and, after working on it for four years, he left it unfinished. This work is now in the possession of the French king in Fontainebleau.
This image gives anyone who would like to see to what extent art can imitate nature the opportunity to comprehend this in the easiest way, for it reproduces all the smallest details that the subtlety of painting can convey. Therefore, the eyes have that shine and that moisture that is usually visible in a living person, and around them are all those reddish reflections and hairs that can be depicted only with the greatest subtlety of craftsmanship.
Eyelashes, made in the same way as hair actually grows on the body, where it is thicker and where it is thinner, and located according to the pores of the skin, could not be depicted with more naturalness. The nose, with its lovely holes, pinkish and delicate, seems alive.
The mouth, slightly open, with the edges connected by the scarlet lips, with the physicality of its appearance, seems not like paint, but real flesh. If you look closely, you can see the pulse beating in the hollow of the neck. And truly we can say that this work was written in such a way that it plunges any arrogant artist, no matter who he is, into confusion and fear.
By the way, Leonardo resorted to the following technique: since Mona Lisa was very beautiful, while painting the portrait he held people who played the lyre or sang, and there were always jesters who kept her cheerful and removed the melancholy that she usually conveys. painting performed portraits. Leonardo's smile in this work is so pleasant that it seems as if one is contemplating a divine rather than a human being; the portrait itself is considered an extraordinary work, for life itself could not be different.”

This drawing from the Hyde Collection in New York may be by Leonardo da Vinci and is a preliminary sketch for a portrait of the Mona Lisa. In this case, it is curious that at first he intended to place a magnificent branch in her hands.

Most likely, Vasari simply added a story about jesters to entertain readers. Vasari's text also contains an accurate description of the eyebrows missing from the painting. This inaccuracy could only arise if the author described the picture from memory or from the stories of others. Alexey Dzhivelegov writes that Vasari’s indication that “the work on the portrait lasted four years is clearly exaggerated: Leonardo did not stay in Florence for so long after returning from Caesar Borgia, and if he had started painting the portrait before leaving for Caesar, Vasari would probably , I would say that he wrote it for five years." The scientist also writes about the erroneous indication of the unfinished nature of the portrait - “the portrait undoubtedly took a long time to paint and was completed, no matter what Vasari said, who in his biography of Leonardo stylized him as an artist who, in principle, could not finish any big job. And not only was it finished, but it is one of Leonardo’s most carefully finished works.”

An interesting fact is that in his description Vasari admires Leonardo's talent for conveying physical phenomena, and not the similarity between the model and the painting. It seems that it was this “physical” feature of the masterpiece that left a deep impression on visitors to the artist’s studio and reached Vasari almost fifty years later.

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.

It is possible that the artist did not actually finish the painting in Florence, but took it with him when he left in 1516 and applied the final stroke in the absence of witnesses who could tell Vasari about it. If so, he completed it shortly before his death in 1519. (In France he lived in Clos Luce near royal castle Amboise).

In 1517, Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona visited Leonardo in his French workshop.
A description of this visit was made by the secretary of Cardinal Antonio de Beatis:
“On October 10, 1517, Monsignor and others like him visited in one of the remote parts of Amboise Messire Leonardo da Vinci, a Florentine, a gray-bearded old man, more than seventy years old, the most excellent artist of our time. He showed His Excellency three paintings: one of a Florentine lady, painted from life at the request of Friar Lorenzo the Magnificent Giuliano Medici, another - Saint John the Baptist in his youth and the third - Saint Anne with Mary and the Christ Child; all in highest degree wonderful.
From the master himself, due to the fact that he was paralyzed at that time right hand, one could no longer expect new good works.”
According to some researchers, “a certain Florentine lady” means the “Mona Lisa”. It is possible, however, that this was another portrait, from which no evidence or copies have survived, as a result of which Giuliano Medici could not have any connection with the Mona Lisa.

Painting XIX century by Ingres in an exaggeratedly sentimental manner shows the grief of King Francis at the deathbed of Leonardo da Vinci

Model identification problem

Vasari, born in 1511, could not see Gioconda 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 silk merchant Francesco Giocondo, who ordered a portrait of his third wife from the artist. Despite the words of this anonymous contemporary, many researchers doubted the possibility that the Mona Lisa was painted in Florence (1500–1505), since the sophisticated technique may indicate a later creation of the painting. It was also argued that at that time Leonardo was so busy working on “The Battle of Anghiari” that he even refused to accept the Marquis of Mantua Isabella d’Este’s order (however, he had a very difficult relationship with this lady).

The work of a follower of Leonardo is a depiction of a saint. Perhaps her appearance depicts Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan, one of the candidates for the role of Mona Lisa

Francesco del Giocondo, a prominent Florentine popola, at the age of thirty-five in 1495, married for the third time to a young Neapolitan from the noble Gherardini family, Lisa Gherardini, full name Lisa di Antonio Maria di Noldo Gherardini (15 June 1479 - 15 July 1542, or about 1551). Although Vasari provides information about the identity of the model, there was still uncertainty about her for a long time and many versions were expressed:

According to one of the put forward versions, “Mona Lisa” is a self-portrait of the artist

However, the version about the correspondence of the generally accepted name of the picture to the personality of the model in 2005 is believed to have found final confirmation. Scientists from the University of Heidelberg studied the notes in the margins of the tome, the owner of which was a Florentine official, a personal acquaintance of the artist Agostino Vespucci. In notes in the margins of the book, he compares Leonardo with the famous ancient Greek painter Apelles and notes that “da Vinci is now working on three paintings, one of which is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini.” Thus, the Mona Lisa really turned out to be the wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo - Lisa Gherardini. The painting, as scientists prove in this case, was commissioned by Leonardo for the new home of the young family and to commemorate the birth of their second son, named Andrea.

The copy of the Mona Lisa from the Wallace Collection (Baltimore) was made before the edges of the original were trimmed, and allows the lost columns to be seen

The copy of the Mona Lisa from the Wallace Collection (Baltimore) was made before the edges of the original were trimmed, and allows the lost columns to be seen

The rectangular painting depicts a woman in dark clothes, turning half-turned. She sits in a chair with her hands clasped together, one hand resting on its armrest and the other on top, turning in the chair almost to face the viewer. Parted, smoothly and flatly lying hair, visible through a transparent veil draped over it (according to some assumptions - an attribute of widowhood), falls on the shoulders in two thin, slightly wavy strands. A green dress in thin ruffles, with yellow pleated sleeves, cut out on a white low chest. The head is slightly turned.

Art critic Boris Vipper, describing the picture, points out that traces of Quattrocento fashion are noticeable in the face of Mona Lisa: her eyebrows and hair on the top of her forehead are shaved.

Fragment of the Mona Lisa with the remains of the column base

The lower edge of the painting cuts off the second half of her body, so the portrait is almost half-length. The chair in which the model sits stands on a balcony or loggia, the parapet line of which is visible behind her elbows. It is believed that earlier the picture could have been wider and accommodated two side columns of the loggia, from which this moment two column bases remain, fragments of which are visible along the edges of the parapet.

The loggia overlooks a desolate wilderness with meandering streams and a lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains that extends to a high skyline behind the figure.

“Mona Lisa is represented sitting in a chair against the backdrop of a landscape, and the very juxtaposition of her figure, very close to the viewer, with the landscape visible from afar, like a huge mountain, imparts extraordinary grandeur to the image. The same impression is promoted by the contrast of the heightened plastic tactility of the figure and its smooth, generalized silhouette with a vision-like landscape stretching into the foggy distance with bizarre rocks and water channels winding among them.”

Composition
Mona Lisa depth.jpg

The portrait of Gioconda is one of the best examples of the portrait genre of the Italian High Renaissance.

Boris Vipper writes that, despite traces of the Quattrocento, “with her clothes with a small cutout on the chest and with sleeves in loose folds, just as with her upright posture, slight turn of the body and soft gesture of the hands, Mona Lisa entirely belongs to the era of the classical style.”

Mikhail Alpatov points out that “Gioconda is perfectly inscribed in a strictly proportional rectangle, her half-figure forms something whole, her folded hands give her image completeness. Now, of course, there could be no question of the fanciful curls of the early “Annunciation.”
However, no matter how softened all the contours are, the wavy strand of Mona Lisa’s hair is in tune with the transparent veil, and the hanging fabric thrown over her shoulder finds an echo in the smooth windings of the distant road.
In all this, Leonardo demonstrates his ability to create according to the laws of rhythm and harmony.”
Current state

Macro photography allows you to see a large number of craquelure (cracks) on the surface of the painting.

“Mona Lisa” became very dark, which is considered the result of its author’s inherent tendency to experiment with paints, due to which the fresco “ last supper“In general, she practically died. The artist’s contemporaries, however, managed to express their admiration not only for the composition, design and play of light and shade, but also for the color of the work. It is assumed, for example, that the sleeves of her dress may have originally been red, as can be seen from the copy of the painting from the Prado.

The current condition of the painting is quite poor, which is why the Louvre staff announced that they would no longer give it to exhibitions:
“Cracks have formed in the painting, and one of them stops just millimeters above Mona Lisa’s head.”

Analysis
Technique

As Dzhivelegov notes, by the time of the creation of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo’s mastery “had already entered a phase of such maturity, when all formal tasks of a compositional and other nature were posed and solved, when Leonardo began to think that only the last, most difficult tasks artistic technique deserve to be addressed. And when he found a model in the person of Mona Lisa that satisfied his needs, he tried to solve some of the highest and most difficult problems of painting technique that he had not yet solved. He wanted, with the help of techniques that he had already developed and tested before, especially with the help of his famous sfumato, which had previously given extraordinary effects, to do more than he had done before: to create a living face of a living person and so reproduce the features and expression of this face so that with them was fully revealed inner world person."

Landscape behind the Mona Lisa

Boris Vipper asks the question “by what means was this spirituality achieved, this undying spark of consciousness in the image of the Mona Lisa, then two main means should be named.
One is Leonard’s wonderful sfumato. No wonder Leonardo liked to say that “modeling is the soul of painting.” It is sfumato that creates Gioconda’s moist gaze, her smile as light as the wind, and the incomparable caressing softness of the touch of her hands.”
Sfumato is a subtle haze that envelops the face and figure, softening contours and shadows. For this purpose, Leonardo recommended placing, as he puts it, “a kind of fog” between the light source and the bodies.

Rothenberg writes that “Leonardo managed to introduce into his creation that degree of generalization that allows him to be considered as an image of the Renaissance man as a whole. This high degree of generalization is reflected in all elements figurative language the painting, in its individual motifs - in how a light, transparent veil, covering the head and shoulders of Mona Lisa, unites carefully drawn strands of hair and small folds of the dress into an overall smooth outline; it is palpable in the incomparable softness of the modeling of the face (from which, according to the fashion of that time, eyebrows were removed) and beautiful, sleek hands.”

Alpatov adds that “in the softly melting haze enveloping the face and figure, Leonardo managed to make one feel the limitless variability of human facial expressions. Although Gioconda's eyes look attentively and calmly at the viewer, thanks to the shading of her eye sockets, one might think that they are frowning slightly; her lips are compressed, but near their corners there are subtle shadows that make you believe that every minute they will open, smile, and speak.
The very contrast between her gaze and the half-smile on her lips gives the idea of ​​the inconsistency of her experiences. (...) Leonardo worked on it for several years, ensuring that not a single sharp stroke, not a single angular outline remained in the picture; and although the edges of objects in it are clearly perceptible, they all dissolve in the subtlest transitions from half-shadows to half-lights.”

Scenery

Art critics emphasize the organic way with which the artist combined the portrait characteristics of a person with a landscape full of a special mood, and how much this increased the dignity of the portrait.

An early copy of the Mona Lisa from the Prado shows how much a portrait image loses when placed against a dark, neutral background

Whipper considers landscape to be the second medium that creates the spirituality of a painting: “The second medium is the relationship between figure and background. The fantastic, rocky landscape, as if seen through sea water, in the portrait of Mona Lisa has some other reality than her figure itself. The Mona Lisa has the reality of life, the landscape has the reality of a dream. Thanks to this contrast, Mona Lisa seems so incredibly close and tangible, and we perceive the landscape as the radiation of her own dreams.”

The appearance and mental structure of a particular person are conveyed by him with unprecedented syntheticity.
This impersonal psychologism corresponds to the cosmic abstraction of the landscape, almost completely devoid of any signs of human presence. In smoky chiaroscuro, not only all the outlines of the figure and landscape are softened, but also everything color tones. In the subtle transitions from light to shadow, almost imperceptible to the eye, in the vibration of Leonard’s “sfumato”, all definiteness of individuality and its psychological state. (...) “La Gioconda” is not a portrait. This is a visible symbol of the very life of man and nature, united into one whole and presented abstractly from its individual concrete form. But behind the barely noticeable movement, which, like light ripples, runs across the motionless surface of this harmonious world, one can discern all the richness of the possibilities of physical and spiritual existence.”

“Mona Lisa” is designed in golden brown and reddish tones in the foreground and emerald green tones in the background. “Transparent, like glass, the colors form an alloy, as if created not by the hand of a person, but by that internal force of matter, which gives birth to crystals of perfect shape from a solution.”
Like many of Leonardo's works, this work has darkened over time, and its color relationships have changed somewhat, but even now the thoughtful comparisons in the tones of carnation and clothing and their general contrast with the bluish-green, “underwater” tone of the landscape are clearly perceived.

Art historians note that the portrait of Mona Lisa was a decisive step towards the development of the Renaissance portrait art. Rothenber writes: “although the Quattrocento painters left a number significant works this genre, yet their achievements in portraiture were, so to speak, disproportionate to the achievements in the main painting genres - in compositions on religious and mythological themes. The inequality of the portrait genre was already reflected in the very “iconography” of portrait images.
“Donna Nuda” (that is, “Naked Donna”). Unknown artist, late 16th century, Hermitage

In his pioneering work, Leonardo brought main center heaviness on the portrait's face. At the same time he used his hands, like powerful tool psychological characteristics. By making the portrait generational in format, the artist was able to demonstrate a wider range of artistic techniques. And the most important thing in the figurative structure of a portrait is the subordination of all details to the guiding idea. “The head and hands are the undoubted center of the picture, to which the rest of its elements are sacrificed. The fabulous landscape seems to shine through the sea waters, it seems so distant and intangible. Its main goal is not to distract the viewer's attention from the face. And the same role is intended to be performed by the garment, which falls into the smallest folds. Leonardo deliberately avoids heavy draperies, which could obscure the expressiveness of his hands and face. Thus, he forces the latter to perform with special force, the greater the more modest and neutral the landscape and attire, likened to a quiet, barely noticeable accompaniment.”

Leonardo's students and followers created numerous replicas of the Mona Lisa. Some of them (from the Vernon collection, USA; from the Walter collection, Baltimore, USA; and also for some time the Isleworth Mona Lisa, Switzerland) are considered authentic by their owners, and the painting in the Louvre is considered a copy. There is also the “nude Mona Lisa” iconography, presented in several versions (“Beautiful Gabrielle”, “Monna Vanna”, the Hermitage “Donna Nuda”), apparently made by the artist’s own students. A large number of them gave rise to an unprovable version that there was a version of the nude Mona Lisa, painted by the master himself.

Reputation of the painting

"Mona Lisa" behind bulletproof glass in the Louvre and museum visitors crowding nearby

Despite the fact that the Mona Lisa was highly appreciated by the artist’s contemporaries, its reputation subsequently faded. The picture was not particularly remembered until mid-19th century, when artists close to the Symbolist movement began to praise her, associating her with their ideas regarding female mystique. Critic Walter Pater, in his 1867 essay on da Vinci, expressed his opinion by describing the figure in the painting as a kind of mythical embodiment eternal femininity, which is “older than the rocks between which it sits” and which “has died many times and studied the secrets of the afterlife.”

The further rise of the painting’s fame is associated with its mysterious disappearance at the beginning of the 20th century and a happy return to the museum several years later (see below, section Theft), thanks to which she did not leave the pages of newspapers.

A contemporary of her adventure, critic Abram Efros wrote: “... the museum guard, who now does not leave a single step from the painting since its return to the Louvre after the abduction in 1911, is guarding not a portrait of Francesca del Giocondo’s wife, but an image of some kind of semi-human, a half-snake creature, either smiling or gloomy, dominating the cold, bare, rocky space spread out behind him.”

"Mona Lisa" today is one of the most famous paintings Western European art. Its resounding reputation is associated not only with its high artistic merits, but also with the atmosphere of mystery surrounding this work.

Everyone knows what an unsolvable riddle the Mona Lisa has been asking for fans who crowd in front of her image for almost four hundred years now. Never before has an artist expressed the essence of femininity (I quote lines written by a sophisticated writer hiding behind the pseudonym Pierre Corlet): “Tenderness and bestiality, modesty and hidden voluptuousness, great secret a heart that restrains itself, a reasoning mind, a personality closed in on itself, leaving others to contemplate only its brilliance.” (Eugene Muntz).

One of the mysteries is related to the deep affection that the author felt for this work. Various explanations were offered, for example, a romantic one: Leonardo fell in love with Mona Lisa and deliberately delayed work in order to stay longer with her, and she teased him with her mysterious smile and brought him to the greatest creative ecstasies. This version is considered simply speculation. Dzhivelegov believes that this attachment is due to the fact that he found in her the point of application for many of his creative quests.

Smile of Gioconda

Leonardo da Vinci. "John the Baptist". 1513-1516, Louvre. This picture also has its own mystery: why is John the Baptist smiling and pointing upward?

Leonardo da Vinci. "Saint Anne with the Madonna and Child Christ" (fragment), c. 1510, Louvre.

Mona Lisa's smile is one of the most famous riddles paintings. This slight wandering smile is found in many works by both the master himself and the Leonardesques, but it was in the Mona Lisa that it reached its perfection.

“The viewer is especially fascinated by the demonic charm of this smile. Hundreds of poets and writers have written about this woman, who seems to be either smiling seductively or frozen, looking coldly and soullessly into space, and no one unraveled her smile, no one interpreted her thoughts. Everything, even the landscape, is mysterious, like a dream, tremulous, like a pre-storm haze of sensuality (Muter). »

Grashchenkov writes: “Infinite diversity human feelings and desires, opposing passions and thoughts, smoothed out and fused together, resonates in the harmoniously dispassionate appearance of Gioconda only with the uncertainty of her smile, barely emerging and disappearing.
This meaningless fleeting movement of the corners of her mouth, like a distant echo merged into one sound, brings to us from the boundless distance the colorful polyphony of a person’s spiritual life.”

Art critic Rotenberg believes that “there are few portraits in all of world art that are equal to the Mona Lisa in terms of the power of expression of the human personality, embodied in the unity of character and intellect. It is the extraordinary intellectual charge of Leonardo's portrait that distinguishes it from the portrait images of the Quattrocento. This feature of his is perceived all the more acutely because it relates to a female portrait, in which the character of the model was previously revealed in a completely different, predominantly lyrical, figurative tonality.
The feeling of strength emanating from the Mona Lisa is an organic combination of inner composure and a sense of personal freedom, the spiritual harmony of a person, based on his consciousness of his own significance. And her smile itself does not at all express superiority or disdain; it is perceived as the result of calm self-confidence and complete self-control.”

Boris Vipper points out that the above-mentioned lack of eyebrows and shaved forehead perhaps involuntarily enhances the strange mystery in her facial expression. He further writes about the power of the painting: “If we ask ourselves what is the great attractive power of the Mona Lisa, its truly incomparable hypnotic effect, then there can only be one answer - in its spirituality. The most ingenious and the most opposite interpretations were put into the smile of “La Gioconda”. They wanted to read pride and tenderness, sensuality and coquetry, cruelty and modesty in it.
The mistake was, firstly, in the fact that they were looking for individual, subjective spiritual properties at all costs in the image of the Mona Lisa, while there is no doubt that Leonardo was striving for typical spirituality.
Secondly, and this is perhaps even more important, they tried to attribute emotional content to the spirituality of Mona Lisa, while in fact it has intellectual roots.
The miracle of the Mona Lisa lies precisely in the fact that she thinks; that, standing in front of a yellowed, cracked board, we irresistibly sense the presence of a being endowed with intelligence, a being with whom we can talk and from whom we can expect an answer.”

Lazarev analyzed it as an art scientist: “This smile is not so much an individual feature of Mona Lisa, but a typical formula for psychological revitalization, a formula that runs like a red thread through all of Leonardo’s youthful images, a formula that later turned, in the hands of his students and followers, into traditional stamp. Like the proportions of Leonardo's figures, it is built on the finest mathematical measurements, on strict consideration of expressive values individual parts faces. And for all that, this smile is absolutely natural, and this is precisely the power of its charm. She takes away everything hard, tense, frozen from the face, she turns it into a mirror of vague, indefinite emotional experiences, in its elusive lightness it can only be compared to a ripple running through the water.”

Mona Lisa detail mouth.jpg

Her analysis attracted the attention of not only art historians, but also psychologists. Sigmund Freud writes:
“Whoever imagines Leonardo’s paintings is reminded of a strange, captivating and mysterious smile hidden on his lips female images. The smile frozen on his elongated, tremulous lips became characteristic of him and is most often called “Leonardian.”
In the peculiarly beautiful appearance of the Florentine Mona Lisa del Gioconda, she most captivates and plunges the viewer into confusion. This smile required one interpretation, but found a variety of interpretations, none of which satisfied. (...)
The guess that two different elements were combined in Mona Lisa's smile was born among many critics. Therefore, in the expression on the face of the beautiful Florentine, they saw the most perfect image of the antagonism that governs love life women, restraint and seduction, sacrificial tenderness and recklessly demanding sensuality, absorbing a man as something extraneous. (...) Leonardo, in the person of Mona Lisa, managed to reproduce the double meaning of her smile, the promise of boundless tenderness and ominous threat.”

16th century copy located in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg

The viewer is especially fascinated by the demonic charm of this smile. Hundreds of poets and writers have written about this woman, who seems to be either smiling seductively or frozen, looking coldly and soullessly into space, and no one unraveled her smile, no one interpreted her thoughts. Everything, even the landscape, is mysterious, like a dream, tremulous, like a pre-storm haze of sensuality (Muter).

The philosopher A.F. Losev writes sharply negatively about her:
... "Mona Lisa" with her "demonic smile". “After all, one has only to look closely at Gioconda’s eyes and one can easily notice that she, in fact, does not smile at all. This is not a smile, but a predatory face with cold eyes and a clear knowledge of the helplessness of the victim whom Gioconda wants to take possession of and in which, in addition to weakness, she also counts on powerlessness in the face of the bad feeling that has taken possession of her.”

The discoverer of the term microexpression, psychologist Paul Ekman (the prototype of Dr. Cal Lightman from the television series Lie to Me), writes about the facial expression of Mona Lisa, analyzing it from the point of view of his knowledge of human facial expressions: “the other two types [of smiles] combine a sincere smile with a characteristic expression in the eyes. A flirting smile, although at the same time the seducer averts his eyes away from the object of his interest, in order to then again cast a sly glance at him, which, again, is instantly averted as soon as it is noticed. The unusualness of the impression famous Mona Lisa partly lies in the fact that Leonardo catches his nature precisely at the moment of this playful movement; turning her head in one direction, she looks in the other - at the object of her interest. In life, this facial expression is fleeting - a furtive glance lasts no more than a moment.”

History of the painting in modern times

At the time of his death in 1525, Leonardo's assistant (and possibly lover) named Salai was in possession, according to references in his personal papers, of a portrait of a woman entitled "La Gioconda" (quadro de una dona aretata), which had been bequeathed to him by his teacher. Salai left the painting to his sisters who lived in Milan. It remains a mystery how, in this case, the portrait got from Milan back to France. It is also unknown who and when exactly trimmed the edges of the painting with columns, which, according to most researchers, based on comparison with other portraits, existed in the original version. Unlike another cropped work by Leonardo - “Portrait of Ginevra Benci”, the lower part of which was cropped because it was damaged by water or fire, in this case the reasons were most likely of a compositional nature. There is a version that Leonardo da Vinci himself did it.

Crowd in the Louvre near the painting, our days

King Francis I is believed to have bought the painting from Salai's heirs (for 4,000 ecus) and kept it in his castle of Fontainebleau, where it remained until the time of Louis XIV. The latter transported her to the Palace of Versailles, and then French Revolution she ended up in the Louvre. Napoleon hung the portrait in his bedroom at the Tuileries Palace, then it returned to the museum.

During the Second World War, the painting was transported for safety from the Louvre to the castle of Amboise, then to the Abbey of Loc-Dieu, and finally to the Ingres Museum in Monataban, from where it was safely returned to its place after the victory.

In the twentieth century, the painting almost never left the Louvre, visiting the USA in 1963 and Japan in 1974. On the way from Japan to France, the painting was exhibited at the Museum. A. S. Pushkin in Moscow. The trips only cemented the success and fame of the film.

1911 Empty wall where the Mona Lisa hung

The Mona Lisa would have been known for a long time only subtle connoisseurs visual arts, if not for her exceptional story, which ensured her worldwide fame.

Vincenzo Perugia. Leaf from a criminal case.

On August 21, 1911, the painting was stolen by an employee of the Louvre, Italian mirror master Vincenzo Peruggia. The purpose of this abduction is not clear. Perhaps Perugia wanted to return La Gioconda to its historical homeland, believing that the French had “kidnapped” it and forgetting that Leonardo himself brought the painting to France. The police search was unsuccessful. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested on suspicion of committing a crime and later released. Pablo Picasso was also under suspicion. The painting was found only two years later

Leonardo da Vinci. Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco Giocondo (Mona Lisa or Gioconda). 1503-1519 Louvre, Paris

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci is the most mysterious picture. Because she is very popular. When there is so much attention, an unimaginable number of secrets and speculations appear.

So I couldn’t resist trying to solve one of these mysteries. No, I won't look for encrypted codes. I will not unravel the mystery of her smile.

I'm worried about something else. Why does the description of the Mona Lisa's portrait by Leonardo's contemporaries not coincide with what we see in the portrait from the Louvre? Is there really a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, hanging in the Louvre? And if this is not the Mona Lisa, then where is the real Gioconda kept?

The authorship of Leonardo is indisputable

Almost no one doubts that he painted the Louvre Mona Lisa himself. It is in this portrait that the master’s sfumato method (very subtle transitions from light to shadow) is revealed to the maximum. A barely perceptible haze, shading the lines, makes the Mona Lisa almost alive. It seems that her lips are about to part. She will sigh. The chest will rise.

Few could compete with Leonardo in creating such realism. Except that . But in applying the method, sfumato was still inferior to him.

Even compared to earlier portraits of Leonardo himself, the Louvre Mona Lisa is an obvious advance.

Leonardo da Vinci. Left: Portrait of Ginerva Benci. 1476 National Gallery Washington. Middle: Lady with an ermine. 1490 Czartoryski Museum, Krakow. Right: Mona Lisa. 1503-1519 Louvre, Paris

Leonardo's contemporaries described a completely different Mona Lisa

There is no doubt about Leonardo's authorship. But is it correct to call the lady in the Louvre the Mona Lisa? Anyone may have doubts about this. Just read the description of the portrait, a younger contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci. Here's what he wrote in 1550, 30 years after the master's death:

“Leonardo undertook to make a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, for Francesco del Giocondo, and, having worked on it for four years, left it unfinished... the eyes have that shine and that moisture that is usually visible in a living person... The eyebrows could not be more natural: the hair grow densely in one place and less often in another in accordance with the pores of the skin... The mouth is slightly open with the edges connected by the redness of the lips... Mona Lisa was very beautiful... her smile is so pleasant that it seems as if you are contemplating a divine rather than a human being... ”

Notice how many details from Vasari's description do not match the Mona Lisa from the Louvre.

At the time of painting the portrait, Lisa was no more than 25 years old. The Mona Lisa from the Louvre is clearly older. This is a lady who is over 30-35 years old.

Vasari also talks about eyebrows. Which the Mona Lisa doesn't have. However, this can be attributed to poor restoration. There is a version that they were erased due to unsuccessful cleaning of the painting.
Leonardo da Vinci. Mona Lisa (fragment). 1503-1519

Scarlet lips with their mouth slightly open are completely absent from the Louvre portrait.

One can also argue about the charming smile of the divine being. It doesn't seem that way to everyone. It is sometimes even compared to the smile of a confident predator. But this is a matter of taste. One can also argue about the beauty of the Mona Lisa mentioned by Vasari.

The main thing is that the Louvre Mona Lisa is completely finished. Vasari claims that the portrait was abandoned unfinished. Now this is a serious inconsistency.

Where is the real Mona Lisa?

So if it’s not the Mona Lisa hanging in the Louvre, where is it?

I know of at least three portraits that fit Vasari's description much more closely. In addition, they were all created in the same years as the Louvre portrait.

1. Mona Lisa from Prado

This Mona Lisa received little attention until 2012. Until one day restaurateurs cleared the black background. And lo and behold! Under dark paint turned out to be a landscape - exact copy Louvre background.

Pradovskaya Mona Lisa younger than years by 10 of its competitor from the Louvre. Which corresponds to the real age of the real Lisa. She looks nicer. She has eyebrows after all.

However, experts did not claim the title main picture peace. They admitted that the work was done by one of Leonardo's students.

Thanks to this work, we can imagine what the Louvre Mona Lisa looked like 500 years ago. After all, the portrait from the Prado is much better preserved. Due to Leonardo's constant experiments with paints and varnish, the Mona Lisa became very dark. Most likely, she also once wore a red dress, not a golden brown one.

2. Flora from the Hermitage

Flora fits Vasari's description very well. Young, very beautiful, with an unusually pleasant smile of scarlet lips.

In addition, this is exactly how Melzi himself described his teacher Leonardo’s favorite work. In his correspondence he calls her Gioconda. The painting, he said, depicted a girl of incredible beauty with a Columbine flower in her hand.

However, we do not see her “wet” eyes. In addition, it is unlikely that Signor Giocondo would allow his wife to pose with her breasts exposed.

So why does Melzi call her La Gioconda? After all, it is this name that leads some experts to believe that the real Mona Lisa is not in the Louvre, but in.

Perhaps there has been some confusion over the 500 years. From Italian “Gioconda” is translated as “Merry”. Maybe that’s what the students and Leonardo himself called his Flora. But it so happened that this word coincided with the name of the portrait’s customer, Giocondo.

This portrait was revealed to the general public about 100 years ago. An English collector bought it from Italian owners in 1914. They allegedly had no idea what treasure they had.

A version was put forward that this is the same Mona Lisa that Leonardo painted to order for Signor Giocondo. But he didn’t finish it.

It is also assumed that the Mona Lisa that hangs in the Louvre was already painted by Leonardo 10 years later. Already for himself. Taking as a basis the already familiar image of Signora Giocondo. For the sake of my own artistic experiments. So that no one would bother him or demand a painting.

The version looks plausible. In addition, Isleworth's Mona Lisa is unfinished. I wrote about this. Notice how undeveloped the woman's neck and the landscape behind her are. She also looks younger than her Louvre rival. It’s as if they really portrayed the same woman 10-15 years apart.

The version is very interesting. If not for one big BUT. Isleworth's Mona Lisa was painted on canvas. Whereas Leonardo da Vinci wrote only on the board. Including the Louvre Mona Lisa.

Crime of the century. The abduction of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre

Maybe the real Mona Lisa hangs in the Louvre. But Vasari described it too inaccurately. And Leonardo has nothing to do with the three paintings above.

However, in the 20th century, one incident occurred that still casts doubt on whether the real Mona Lisa hangs in the Louvre.

In August 1911, the Mona Lisa disappeared from the museum. They searched for her for 3 years. Until the criminal revealed himself in the most stupid way. Placed an advertisement in the newspaper for the sale of the painting. A collector came to see the painting and realized that the person who submitted the ad was not crazy. Under his mattress was actually the Mona Lisa collecting dust.
Louvre. Crime scene photo (Mona Lisa disappeared). 1911

The culprit turned out to be Italian Vincenzo Perugia. He was a glazier and artist. Worked for several weeks at the Louvre on glass protective boxes for paintings.

According to his version, patriotic feelings awoke in him. He decided to return to Italy the painting stolen by Napoleon. For some reason, he was sure that all the paintings by Italian masters in the Louvre were stolen by this dictator.

The story is very suspicious. Why did he not let anyone know about himself for 3 years? It is possible that he or his customer needed time to make a copy of the Mona Lisa. As soon as the copy was ready, the thief made an announcement that would obviously lead to his arrest. By the way, he was sentenced to a ridiculous term. Less than a year later, Perugia was already free.

So it may well be that the Louvre received back a very high-quality fake. By that time, they had already learned how to artificially age paintings and pass them off as originals.

In contact with

Art of Italy 15th and 16th centuries
Painting by Leonardo da Vinci “Mona Lisa” or “La Gioconda”. Painting size 77 x 53 cm, wood, oil. Around 1503, Leonardo began work on a portrait of Mona Lisa, the wife of the wealthy Florentine Francesco Giocondo. This work, known to the common public under the name “La Gioconda,” received enthusiastic praise from its contemporaries. The fame of the painting was so great that legends subsequently formed around it. A huge literature is dedicated to her, most of which is far from an objective assessment of Leonard’s creation. It is impossible not to admit that this work, as one of the few monuments of world art, really has a huge attractive force. But this feature of the picture is not connected with the embodiment of some mysterious principle or with other similar inventions, but is born of its amazing artistic depth.

Leonardo da Vinci's portrait "Mona Lisa" is a decisive step towards the development of Renaissance portrait art. Although the Quattrocento painters left a number of significant works of this genre, their achievements in portraiture were, so to speak, disproportionate to the achievements in the main painting genres - in compositions on religious and mythological themes. The inequality of the portrait genre was already reflected in the very “iconography” of portrait images. The actual portrait works of the 15th century, with all their undeniable physiognomic similarity and the feeling they emit inner strength They were also distinguished by external and internal constraint. All the wealth of human feelings and experiences that characterizes the biblical and mythological images of 15th century painters was usually not the property of their portrait works. Echoes of this can be seen in the earlier portraits of Leonardo da Vinci, created by him in the first years of his stay in Milan. This is “Portrait of a Lady with an Ermine” (circa 1483; Krakow, National Museum), depicting Cecilia Gallearani, lover of Lodovico Moro, and a portrait of the musician (circa 1485; Milan, Ambrosian Library).

In comparison, the portrait of Mona Lisa is perceived as the result of a gigantic qualitative shift. For the first time, the portrait image in its significance became on a par with the most striking images of other pictorial genres. Mona Lisa is represented sitting in a chair against the backdrop of a landscape, and the very juxtaposition of her figure, very close to the viewer, with the landscape visible from afar, as if from a huge mountain, imparts extraordinary grandeur to the image. The same impression is promoted by the contrast of the heightened plastic tactility of the figure and its smooth generalized silhouette with a vision-like landscape stretching into the foggy distance with bizarre rocks and water channels winding among them. But first of all, we are attracted by the appearance of Mona Lisa herself - her unusual gaze, as if inextricably following the viewer, radiating intelligence and will, and a subtle smile, the meaning of which seems to elude us - this elusiveness brings into the image a shade of inexhaustibility and endless richness.

Old version of the painting “Mona Lisa” on our website (from 2004)

There are few portraits in all of world art that are equal to the painting “Mona Lisa” in terms of the power of expression of the human personality, embodied in the unity of character and intellect. It is the extraordinary intellectual charge of Leonardo's portrait that distinguishes it from the portrait images of the Quattrocento. This feature of his is perceived all the more acutely because it relates to a female portrait, in which the character of the model was previously revealed in a completely different, predominantly lyrical, figurative tonality. The feeling of strength emanating from the painting “Mona Lisa” is an organic combination of internal composure and a sense of personal freedom, the spiritual harmony of a person, based on his consciousness of his own significance. And her smile itself does not at all express superiority or disdain; it is perceived as the result of calm self-confidence and complete self-control. But the painting of Mona Lisa embodies not only a rational principle - her image is filled with high poetry, which we feel both in her elusive smile and in the mystery of the semi-fantastic landscape unfolding behind her.

Contemporaries admired the striking similarity and extraordinary vitality of the portrait achieved by the artist. But its meaning is much broader: great painter Leonardo da Vinci managed to introduce into the image that degree of generalization that allows us to consider it as an image of the Renaissance man as a whole. The sense of generalization is reflected in all the elements of the pictorial language of the painting, in its individual motifs - in the way the light transparent veil, covering the head and shoulders of Mona Lisa, unites carefully drawn strands of hair and small folds of the dress into an overall smooth outline; this feeling is in the incomparable softness of the modeling of the face (on which, according to the fashion of that time, the eyebrows were removed) and beautiful, sleek hands. This modeling is so strong impression living physicality that Vasari wrote that in the hollow of Mona Lisa’s neck one can see the beating of the pulse. One of the means of such subtle plastic nuances was Leonard’s characteristic “sfumato” - a subtle haze enveloping the face and figure, softening the contours and shadows. For this purpose, Leonardo da Vinci recommends placing, as he puts it, “a kind of fog” between the light source and the bodies. The primacy of the light and shadow modeling is also felt in the subordinate coloring of the picture. Like many of Leonardo da Vinci's works, this painting has darkened over time and its color relationships have changed somewhat, but even now the thoughtful juxtapositions in the tones of carnation and clothing and their overall contrast with the bluish-green, “underwater” tone of the landscape are clearly perceived.

Probably there is no more in the world famous painting, how . It is popular in all countries, widely replicated as a recognizable and catchy image. Over the course of its four-hundred-year history, the Mona Lisa has been both a trademark and a victim of kidnapping, was mentioned in a Nat King Cola song, was quoted in tens of thousands of print publications and films, and the expression “Mona Lisa smile” became stable phrase, even a cliched phrase.

The history of the creation of the painting "Mona Lisa"

This small piece art measuring 76.8 x 53 cm painted in oil on a board made of poplar wood. The painting is located in, where it has a special room named after it. It was brought to the place by the artist himself, who moved here under the patronage of King Francis I.

Myths and speculation

Nowadays, most people are interested in the notorious mystery of Mona Lisa's smile. She is just a hint of a smile, a slight movement of the corners of her lips. Perhaps the decoding of the smile is contained in the very title of the painting - La Gioconda in Italian can mean “cheerful.” Maybe all these centuries the Mona Lisa is simply laughing at our attempts to unravel its mystery?

This type of smile is characteristic of many of the artist’s paintings, for example, a canvas depicting John the Baptist or numerous Madonnas (,).

For many years, identification of the identity of the prototype was of interest, until documents were found confirming the reality of the existence of the real Lisa Gherardini. However, there are claims that the painting is an encrypted self-portrait of da Vinci, who always had unconventional inclinations, or even an image of his young student and lover, nicknamed Salai - the Little Devil. The latter assumption is supported by such evidence as the fact that it was Salai who turned out to be Leonardo’s heir and the first owner of La Gioconda. In addition, the name "Mona Lisa" may be an anagram of "Mon Salai" (my Salai in French).

Of great interest to conspiracy theorists and supporters of the idea that da Vinci belonged to a number of secret societies is the mysterious landscape in the background. It depicts a strange terrain that has not been accurately identified to this day. It was painted, like the whole picture, using the sfumato technique, but in a different color scheme, bluish-greenish, and asymmetrical - the right side does not correspond to the left. In addition, recently there have been allegations that the artist encrypted some letters in the eyes of Gioconda, and numbers in the image of the bridge.

Just a painting or a masterpiece

Most people take the mass point of view and treat the picture as mysterious canvas, a masterpiece sent to us from the past by one of the most brilliant and talented craftsmen in the history of art. The minority sees the Mona Lisa as an unusually beautiful and talented painting. Its mystery lies only in the fact that we attribute to it those features that we ourselves want to see.

Fortunately, the most limited group of people are those who are outraged and irritated by this picture. Yes, this happens, otherwise how can one explain at least four cases of vandalism, due to which the canvas is now protected by thick bulletproof glass.

Be that as it may, “La Gioconda” continues to exist and delight new generations of viewers with its mysterious half-smile and complex unsolved mysteries. Perhaps in the future someone will find answers to existing questions. Or he will create new legends.