"La Gioconda" (Mona Lisa) by Leonardo da Vinci is a brilliant creation of the master. Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Mona Lisa" is the first thing tourists from any country associate with the Louvre. This is the most famous and mysterious work of painting in the history of world art. Her mysterious smile still makes people think and charm people who do not like or are not interested in painting. And the story of her abduction at the beginning of the 20th century turned the picture into living legend. But first things first.

The history of the painting

“Mona Lisa” is just an abbreviated name for the painting. In the original it sounds like “Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo” (Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo). From Italian the word ma donna translates as “my lady.” Over time, it turned into simply mona, and from it the well-known name of the painting came.

Contemporary biographers of the artist wrote that he rarely took orders, but with the Mona Lisa there was initially a special story. He devoted himself to the work with particular passion, spent almost all his time painting it and took it with him to France (Leonardo was leaving Italy forever) along with other selected paintings.

It is known that the artist began the painting in 1503-1505 and only applied the last stroke in 1516, shortly before his death. According to the will, the painting was given to Leonardo's student, Salai. It remains unknown how the painting migrated back to France (most likely Francis I acquired it from the heirs of Salai). During the time of Louis XIV, the painting moved to the Palace of Versailles, and after French Revolution The Louvre became her permanent home.

There is nothing special in the creation story, more interest calls a lady with a mysterious smile in the picture. Who is she?

According to official version, this is a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, the young wife of the prominent Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. Very little is known about Lisa: she was born in Florence into a family of nobility. She got married early and led a calm, measured life. Francesco del Giocondo was a great admirer of art and painting and patronized artists. It was his idea to order a portrait of his wife in honor of the birth of their first child. There is a hypothesis that Leonardo was in love with Lisa. This can explain his special attachment to the painting and long time work on it.

This is surprising, practically nothing is known about the life of Lisa herself, and her portrait is the main work of world painting.

But Leonardo’s contemporary historians are not so clear. According to Giorgio Vasari, the model could have been Caterina Sforza (a representative of the ruling dynasty Italian Renaissance, was considered main woman that era), Cecilia Gallerani (the beloved of Duke Louis Sforza, the model of another portrait of a genius - “Lady with an Ermine”), the artist’s mother, Leonardo himself, a young man in women’s clothing and simply a portrait of a woman who was the standard of beauty of the Renaissance.

Description of the picture

The small-sized canvas depicts a woman of average size, wearing a dark cape (according to historians, a sign of widowhood), sitting half-turned. Like other Italian Renaissance portraits, Mona Lisa has no eyebrows and the hair on the top of her forehead is shaved. Most likely, the model posed on the balcony, as the parapet line is visible. It is believed that the painting was slightly cropped; the columns visible behind were fully included in the original size.

It is believed that the composition of the painting is the standard of the portrait genre. It is painted according to all the laws of harmony and rhythm: the model is inscribed in a proportional rectangle, the wavy strand of hair is in harmony with the translucent veil, and folded hands give the picture a special compositional completeness.

Mona Lisa Smile

This phrase has long lived separately from the picture, turning into literary stamp. This main mystery and the charm of the canvas. It attracts the attention of not only ordinary viewers and art critics, but also psychologists. For example, Sigmund Freud calls her smile “flirting.” And the special look is “fleeting.”

Current state

Due to the fact that the artist loved to experiment with paints and painting techniques, the painting has become very dark by now. And strong cracks form on its surface. One of them is located a millimeter above Gioconda's head. In the middle of the last century, the canvas went on “tour” to museums in the USA and Japan. to the museum fine arts them. A.S. Pushkin was lucky enough to host the masterpiece during the exhibition.

Fame of Gioconda

The painting was very highly regarded among Leonardo's contemporaries, but over the decades it became forgotten. Until the 19th century, it was not remembered until the moment when the romantic writer Théophile Gautier spoke about the “Gioconda smile” in one of his literary works. It’s strange, but until that moment this feature of the picture was simply called “pleasant” and there was no secret in it.

The painting gained real popularity among the general public in connection with its mysterious abduction in 1911. The newspaper hype surrounding this story gained enormous popularity for the film. She was only found in 1914, where she was all this time remains a mystery. Her kidnapper was Vincezo Perugio, an employee of the Louvre, an Italian by nationality. The exact motives for the theft are unknown; he probably wanted to take the painting to Leonardo’s historical homeland, Italy.

Mona Lisa today

“Mona Lisa” still “lives” in the Louvre; as the main artistic figure, she is given a separate room in the museum. She suffered from vandalism several times, after which in 1956 she was placed in bulletproof glass. Because of this, it glares a lot, so seeing it can sometimes be problematic. Nevertheless, it is she who attracts the majority of visitors to the Louvre with her smile and fleeting glance.

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 picture is famous using unusual methods performances that the artist used 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 a Louvre employee, Italian master on the mirrors of 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 picture was probably cut 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.

Perhaps no painting in history causes as much heated debate as Leonardo da Vinci’s “La Gioconda.” Scientists, art critics and historians are struggling with the mystery of who is depicted in the painting - some kind of woman or is it a veiled self-portrait of Leonardo? But most of all, her mysterious smile raises questions. The woman seems to be hiding something from the audience and at the same time mocking them.

It got to the point that doctors began to examine the picture and rendered a verdict: the woman depicted in the picture is sick with such and such diseases, which cause facial contractions mistaken for a smile. Tons of books have been written on the topic of La Gioconda, hundreds of documentaries and feature films, thousands of scientific and research articles have been published.

In order to understand the mystery of the painting, first let’s talk a little about Leonardo himself. Nature has never known geniuses like Leonardo either before or since. Two opposing, mutually exclusive views of the world combined in him with some incredible ease. Scientist and painter, naturalist and philosopher, mechanic and astronomer... In a word, physicist and lyricist in one bottle.

The mystery of La Gioconda was solved only in the 20th century, and then only partially. When painting, Leonardo used the sfumato technique, based on the principle of dispersion, the absence of clear boundaries between objects. This technique was one way or another mastered by his contemporaries, but he surpassed everyone. And Mona Lisa's shimmering smile is the result of this technique. Thanks to the soft range of tones that smoothly flow from one to another, the viewer, depending on the focus of the gaze, gets the impression that she is either smiling tenderly or grinning arrogantly.

It turns out that the mystery of the painting has been solved? Not at all! After all, there is another mysterious moment associated with La Gioconda; the painting lives its own life and influences the people around it in an incomprehensible way. And this mystical influence was noticed a very, very long time ago.

First of all, the painter himself suffered. He had never worked on any of his works for such a long time! But this was a regular order. For four long years, spending, according to estimates, at least 10,000 hours, with a magnifying glass in hand, Leonardo created his masterpiece, applying strokes measuring 1/20-1/40 mm. Only Leonardo was capable of this - this is hard labor, the work of an obsessed person. Especially when you consider the dimensions: only 54x79 cm!

While working on La Gioconda, Leonardo suffered severe health problems. Possessing almost incredible vitality, he practically lost it by the time the picture was completed. By the way, this most perfect and mysterious work of his remained unfinished. In principle, da Vinci always gravitated toward incompleteness. He saw this as a manifestation divine harmony and perhaps he was absolutely right. After all, history knows many examples of how the desperate desire to finish what was started became the cause of the most incredible cases.

However, he took this particular work of his with him everywhere and did not part with it for a moment. And she kept sucking and sucking the strength out of him... As a result, within three years after stopping work on the painting, the artist began to grow decrepit very quickly and died.

Misfortunes and misfortunes also haunted those who were in one way or another connected with the painting. According to one version, the painting depicts real woman, not a figment of the imagination: Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine merchant. She posed for the artist for four years, and then died very quickly - at the age of twenty-eight. Her husband did not live very long after the wedding; lover Giuliano Medici soon died of consumption; his illegitimate son was poisoned by the Mona Lisa.

John the Baptist in another painting by Leonardo is very feminine and his facial features resemble those of Mona Lisa

Perhaps no painting in history causes as much heated debate as "La Gioconda" by Leonardo da Vinci.

Scientists, art critics and historians are struggling with the mystery of who is depicted in the painting - some kind of woman or is it a veiled self-portrait of Leonardo?

But most of all, her mysterious smile raises questions. The woman seems to be hiding something from the audience and at the same time mocking them.

It got to the point that doctors began to examine the picture and rendered a verdict: the woman depicted in the picture is sick with such and such diseases, which cause facial contractions mistaken for a smile. Tons of books have been written on the topic of La Gioconda, hundreds of documentaries and feature films have been shot, and thousands of scientific and research articles have been published.

In order to understand the mystery of the painting, first let’s talk a little about Leonardo himself. Nature has never known geniuses like Leonardo either before or since. Two opposing, mutually exclusive views of the world combined in him with some incredible ease. Scientist and painter, naturalist and philosopher, mechanic and astronomer... In a word, physicist and lyricist in one bottle.

The mystery of La Gioconda was solved only in the 20th century, and then only partially. When painting, Leonardo used the sfumato technique, based on the principle of dispersion, the absence of clear boundaries between objects. This technique was one way or another mastered by his contemporaries, but he surpassed everyone. And Mona Lisa's shimmering smile is the result of this technique. Thanks to the soft range of tones that smoothly flow from one to another, the viewer, depending on the focus of the gaze, gets the impression that she is either smiling tenderly or grinning arrogantly.

It turns out that the mystery of the painting has been solved? Not at all! After all, there is another mysterious moment associated with La Gioconda; the painting lives its own life and influences the people around it in an incomprehensible way. And this mystical influence was noticed a very, very long time ago.

First of all, the painter himself suffered. He had never worked on any of his works for such a long time! But this was a regular order. For four long years, spending, according to estimates, at least 10,000 hours, with a magnifying glass in hand, Leonardo created his masterpiece, applying strokes measuring 1/20-1/40 mm. Only Leonardo was capable of this - this is hard labor, the work of an obsessed person. Especially when you consider the dimensions: only 54x79 cm!

While working on La Gioconda, Leonardo suffered severe health problems. Possessing almost incredible vitality, he practically lost it by the time the picture was completed. By the way, this is his most perfect and mysterious work it remained unfinished. In principle, da Vinci always gravitated toward incompleteness. In this he saw a manifestation of divine harmony and, perhaps, he was absolutely right. After all, history knows many examples of how the desperate desire to finish what was started became the cause of the most incredible cases.

However, he took this particular work of his with him everywhere and did not part with it for a moment. And she kept sucking and sucking the strength out of him... As a result, within three years after stopping work on the painting, the artist began to grow decrepit very quickly and died.

Misfortunes and misfortunes also haunted those who were in one way or another connected with the painting. According to one version, the painting depicts a real woman, and not a figment of the imagination: Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant. She posed for the artist for four years, and then died very quickly - at the age of twenty-eight. Her husband did not live very long after the wedding; lover Giuliano de' Medici soon died of consumption; his illegitimate son from La Gioconda was poisoned.

The mystical influence of the picture did not stop there: historians dispassionately state more and more new facts of its paranormal influence on people. The servants of the Louvre, the museum where the masterpiece is kept, were among the first to note this. They have long ceased to be surprised by the frequent fainting that happens to visitors near this painting, and note that if there is a long break in the museum’s work, “La Gioconda” seems to “darken its face,” but as soon as visitors fill the halls of the museum again and give her a portion of admiring glances It’s like the Mona Lisa comes to life, rich colors appear, the background brightens, the smile is more clearly visible. Well, how can you not believe in energy vampirism?

The fact that a painting has an incomprehensible effect on those who look at it for a long time was noted back in the 19th century. Stendhal, who himself, after admiring her for a long time, fainted. To date, there have been more than a hundred such documented fainting episodes. I immediately remember Leonardo himself, who spent hours looking at his painting, eager to finish something in it, to redo it... His hand was already trembling, and his legs were almost unable to be used, and he still sat near the “La Gioconda”, not noticing how she was carrying away his strength. By the way, Leonardo also had fainting near the La Gioconda.

It is no secret that the picture not only delights, but also frightens people - and there are not much fewer frightened people than admired ones. Most often, children frankly do not like the picture. Children are more finely organized beings and feel the world more at the level of emotions and intuition. They are not confused by the general opinion that La Gioconda is a masterpiece, and it is customary to admire it.

They are the ones who most often ask the question: what is there to admire? Some kind of evil aunt, ugly at the same time... And, probably not without reason, there is such a joke, which was once repeated by Faina Ranevskaya: “Gioconda has lived in the world for so long that she already chooses who she likes and who she doesn’t.” ". About not a single painting in the history of mankind would it even occur to anyone to say, even jokingly, that the painting itself chooses whom to make what impression on.

Even copies or reproductions of Leonardo’s masterpiece have a surprising effect on people. Researchers of the paranormal influence of paintings on people have long noted that if a family hangs a reproduction of Ilya Repin’s “Ivan the Terrible Kills His Son,” a copy of Bryullov’s masterpiece “The Death of Pompeii,” a number of other reproductions, including “La Gioconda,” in that family Unexplained illnesses, depression, and loss of strength occur much more often. Very often such families get divorced.

Thus, there is a known case when a woman came to Georgy Kostomarsky, a well-known St. Petersburg psychic and researcher of the paranormal influence of paintings, with the desire to somehow save her family, which was on the verge of collapse. Kostomarsky asked if there was a reproduction of “La Gioconda” in the house? And when I received an affirmative answer, I strongly recommended removing the reproduction. You may not believe it, but the family was saved: the woman did not just throw away the reproduction - she burned it.

John the Baptist in another painting by Leonardo is very feminine and his facial features resemble those of Mona Lisa

Many researchers could not help but wonder: what is the secret of such a negative influence of the painting on living people? There are many versions. Almost all researchers agree that Leonardo’s colossal energy is “to blame” for everything. He spent too much effort and nerves on this picture. Especially if the fate of the latest research on the topic of who is actually depicted.

According to Top News, Italian art critic Silvano Vinceti, one of the most famous Mona Lisa researchers, has proven that da Vinci painted the painting from a man. Vinceti claims that in the eyes of "Gioconda" he discovered the letters L and S, which are the first letters of the names "Leonardo" and "Salai". Salai was Leonardo's apprentice for twenty years and, according to many historians, his lover.

So what, the skeptics will ask? If there is a version that “La Gioconda” is a self-portrait of da Vinci, why shouldn’t it be a portrait of a young man? What is the mysticism here? Yes, everything is in the same crazy energy of Leonardo! Homosexual relations not only now outrage normal society, it was exactly the same during the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci suffered from a lack of understanding of society, so he “transformed” a man into a woman.

It is not for nothing that artists are often called “creators,” alluding to the Almighty Creator. The Lord God created people, the artist also creates them in his own way. If it’s just an artist, without Leonardo’s colossal talent, without his energetic power, you end up with just portraits. If there is an energy message of incredible strength, the result is very mysterious works that can somehow influence the viewer with their energy.

In the case of Salai, we have a desire not only to somehow legalize the young man, but also an attempt to generally go against human nature: to turn a young man into a girl. Why not gender reassignment surgery? It is quite logical that this act of creation, contrary to Divine and human nature, has the consequences described above.

According to another version, da Vinci, being a member of a secret esoteric sect, tried to find a balance between the masculine and feminine principles. He believed that a person’s soul can be considered enlightened only when both principles coexist happily in it. And he created “La Gioconda” - neither a man nor a woman. It combines opposite properties. But, apparently, it somehow doesn’t connect well, and that’s why there’s a negative influence...

Comparison of self-portrait of Leonardo and Gioconda. Almost one to one.

The third version says that it’s all about the personality of the model named Pacifica Brandano, who was an energy vampire. Leakage of vital energy initial stage causes apathy and weakened immunity in the victim of energy aggression, and then leads to severe health problems.

So, it is very likely that Pacifica was just such a person, an absorber of the vital energy of other people. Therefore, with short-term contact of a person with paintings depicting energy vampires, a manifestation of Stendhal syndrome may occur, and with prolonged contact, more unpleasant consequences may occur.

"La Gioconda" contains the quintessence of the great master's achievements on the path of approaching reality. These are the results of his anatomical research, which allowed him to depict people and animals in completely natural poses, this is the famous sfumato, this is the perfect use of chiaroscuro, this is a mysterious smile, this is the careful preparation of a special ground for each part of the picture, this is an unusually subtle elaboration details. And the fact that the picture was painted on a poplar board, and poplar is a vampire tree, may also play a certain role.

And, finally, the most important thing is the correct transfer of the intangible, or more precisely, the subtle-material essence of the painting object. With his extraordinary talent, Leonardo created a truly living creation, giving a long life, continuing to this day, to Pacifica with all its characteristic features. And this creation, like Frankenstein’s creation, destroyed and outlived its creator.

So if “La Gioconda” can bring evil to people trying to penetrate its meaning, then perhaps it is necessary to destroy all reproductions and the original itself? But this would be an act of crime against humanity, especially since there are many paintings with a similar effect on humans in the world.

You just need to know about the peculiarities of such paintings (and not only paintings) and take appropriate measures, for example, limit their reproduction, warn visitors in museums with such works and be able to provide them with medical assistance, etc. Well, if you have reproductions of La Gioconda and you think that they have a bad influence on you, put them away or burn them.

Leonardo da Vinci "La Gioconda":
History of the painting

On August 22, 1911, it disappeared worldwide from the Square Hall of the Louvre. famous picture Leonardo da Vinci "La Gioconda". At 1 p.m., when the museum opened to visitors, she was not there. Confusion began among the Louvre workers. The network announced that the museum was closing for the whole day due to a water supply failure.

The prefect of police appeared with a detachment of inspectors. All exits from the Louvre were closed, and the museum began to be searched. But check out the ancient palace of the French kings with an area of ​​198 square meters in one day it is impossible. However, by the end of the day, the police still managed to find a glass case and frame from the Mona Lisa on the landing of a small service staircase. The painting itself - a rectangle measuring 54x79 centimeters - disappeared without a trace.

“The loss of La Gioconda is a national disaster,” wrote the French magazine Illustration, “since it is almost certain that whoever committed this theft cannot derive any benefit from it. It must be feared that he, in fear of being caught, may destroy this fragile work.”

The magazine announced a reward: “40,000 francs to the one who brings “La Gioconda” to the editorial office of the magazine. 20,000 francs to anyone who can point out where the painting can be found. 45,000 to the one who returns La Gioconda before September 1.” The first of September passed, but there was no picture. Then Illustration published a new sentence: “The editors guarantee complete secret to the one who brings "La Gioconda". They’ll give him 45,000 in cash and won’t even ask him his name.” But no one came.

Month after month passed. All this time, the portrait of the beautiful Florentine woman lay hidden in a heap of rubbish on the third floor of the large Parisian house “Cité du Heroes”, in which Italian seasonal workers lived.

A few more months passed, a year, two...
One day, Italian antique dealer Alfredo Geri received a letter from Paris. On bad school paper, in clumsy letters, a certain Vincenzo Leopardi offered to buy an antique dealer the portrait of Mona Lisa that had disappeared from the Louvre. Leopardi wrote that he wanted to return one of the best works Italian art.
This letter was sent in November 1913.
When, after long negotiations, correspondence and meetings, Leopardi delivered the painting to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, he said:
“This is a good, holy thing! The Louvre is chock full of treasures that rightfully belong to Italy. I wouldn’t be an Italian if I looked at this with indifference!”

Fortunately, the two years and three months that the Mona Lisa spent in captivity did not affect the painting. Under police protection, La Gioconda was exhibited in Rome, Florence, Milan, and then, after a solemn farewell ceremony, it left for Paris.

The investigation into the Perugia case (this is real name kidnapper) took several months. The arrested man did not hide anything and said that he periodically worked in the Louvre as a glazier. During this time he explored the halls art gallery and met many museum employees. He openly stated that he had long ago decided to steal La Gioconda.

Peruggi did not know the history of painting well. He sincerely and naively believed that La Gioconda was taken from Italy during the time of Napoleon.
Meanwhile, Leonardo da Vinci himself brought it to France and sold it to the French King Francis I for 4,000 ecus - a huge amount at that time. This picture for a long time decorated the Golden Cabinet royal castle in Fontainebleau, under Louis XIV it was moved to Versailles, and after the revolution it was transferred to the Louvre.

After a 20-year stay in Milan, Leonardo da Vinci returned to Florence. How everything changed for him hometown! Those whom he left here were already at the height of their glory; and he, who once enjoyed universal worship, has almost been forgotten. His old friends, caught in a whirlwind of unrest and unrest, changed a lot... One of them became a monk; another, in despair over the death of the frantic Savonarola, gave up painting and decided to spend the rest of his days in the Santa Maria Novella hospital; the third, aged in spirit and body, could no longer be Leonardo’s former comrade.

Only P. Perugino, already experienced in everyday affairs, talked with Leonardo in the old way and gave him useful tips. His words were true, and Leonardo da Vinci also really needed these tips. In the service of the duke, he did not earn money for a comfortable life and returned to Florence with meager funds. About big and serious work Leonardo didn’t even think about it, and no one ordered them for him. To write to own risk out of love for art, he had neither money nor time. The entire Florentine nobility strove for mediocre masters, and the brilliant da Vinci lived in poverty, content with the crumbs that fell to him from the orders of his lucky brothers.
But in Florence Leonardo da Vinci created his masterpiece of masterpieces - famous painting"Gioconda".

Soviet art critic I. Dolgopolov noted that writing about this painting “is simply scary, because poets, prose writers, and art critics have written hundreds of books about it. There are countless publications in which every inch of this picture is carefully studied. And although the history of its creation is quite well known, the name of the painting, the date of its painting and even the city in which the great Leonardo I met my model."

Giorgio Vasari in his “Biographies” reports about this painting: “Leonardo undertook to make for Francesco del Giocondo a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife.”
As some researchers now suggest, Vasari was apparently mistaken. The latest research shows that the painting does not depict the wife of the Florentine nobleman del Giocondo, but some other high-ranking lady. M.A. Gukovsky, for example, wrote several decades ago that this portrait conveys the features of one of the many ladies of Giulio Medici’s heart and was made according to his order. This is unequivocally reported by Antonio de Beatis, who saw the portrait in Leonardo’s studio in France.

In his diary dated October 10, 1517, he reports: “In one of the suburbs, Mr. Cardinal went with us sinners to see Mr. Luonardo Vinci, a Florentine... an excellent painter of our time. The latter showed his lordship three paintings - one of a certain Florentine lady, painted from life, at the request of the late Magnificent Giulio Medici.

Many researchers were amazed why the merchant del Giocondo did not leave a portrait of his wife. Indeed, the portrait became the property of the artist. And this fact is also perceived by some as an argument in favor of the fact that Leonardo did not depict the Mona Lisa. But perhaps the Florentine was quite amazed and surprised? Maybe he simply did not recognize his young wife Mona Lisa Gherardini in the depicted goddess? But Leonardo himself, who painted the portrait for four years and invested so much in it, could not part with it and took the painting away from Florence?

Be that as it may, in fact, thanks to D. Vasari, this female image entered the history of world culture under the name “Mona Lisa”, or “La Gioconda”. Was she beautiful? Probably, but there were many women in Florence more beautiful than her.
However, Mona Lisa was surprisingly attractive, although her facial features were not harmonious. A small smiling mouth, soft hair falling onto the shoulders...
“But her fully developed figure,” writes M. Alpatov, “was perfect, and her well-groomed hands were especially perfect in shape. But what was remarkable about her, despite her wealth, fashionably plucked eyebrows, rouge and a lot of jewelry on her hands and neck, was the simplicity and naturalness spilled throughout her entire appearance...
And then her face lit up with a smile and became unusually attractive for the artist - embarrassed and a little sly, as if the lost playfulness of youth and something hidden in the depths of his soul, unsolved, had returned to him.”

Leonardo resorted to all sorts of tricks to ensure that his model didn’t get bored during the sessions. In a beautifully decorated room, among flowers and luxurious furniture, musicians sat, delighting the ears with singing and music, and a beautiful, sophisticated artist watched for a wondrous smile on the face of Mona Lisa.
He invited jesters and clowns, but the music did not quite satisfy Mona Lisa. She listened famous motifs with a bored face, the magician-juggler didn’t really revive her either. And then Leonardo told her a fairy tale.

Once upon a time there lived a poor man, and he had four sons; three were smart, and one was this and that. - neither intelligence nor stupidity. Yes, however, they could not judge his intelligence properly: he was more silent and loved to walk in the field, to the sea, listen and think to himself; I also loved looking at the stars at night.

And then death came for the father. Before taking his own life, he called his children to him and told them:
“My sons, I will soon die. As soon as you bury me, lock the hut and go to the ends of the world to find happiness for yourself. Let everyone learn something so that they can feed themselves.”

The father died, and the sons, having buried him, went to the ends of the world to seek their happiness and agreed that in three years they would return to the clearing of their native grove, where they went for dead wood, and tell each other who had learned what during these three years.
Three years passed, and, remembering the agreement, the brothers returned from the end of the world to the clearing of their native grove. The first brother came and learned to carpenter. Out of boredom, he cut down a tree and hewed it, making a woman out of it. He walked away a little and waited.
The second brother returned, saw a wooden woman, and since he was a tailor, he decided to dress her and at that very moment, like a skilled craftsman, made her beautiful silk clothes.
The third son came and decorated the wooden girl with gold and precious stones, because he was a jeweler and managed to accumulate enormous wealth.

And the fourth brother came. He could neither carpenter nor sew - he only knew how to listen to what the earth said, what the trees, herbs, animals and birds said, he knew the course of the celestial planets and also knew how to sing wonderful songs. He saw a wooden girl in luxurious clothes, gold and precious stones. But she was deaf and dumb and did not move. Then he collected all his art - after all, he learned to talk with everything that is on earth, he learned to revive stones with his song... And he sang a beautiful song, from which the brothers hiding behind the bushes cried, and with this song he breathed the soul into the wooden woman . And she smiled and sighed...

Then the brothers rushed to her and shouted:
- I created you, you should be my wife!
- You must be my wife, I dressed you, naked and miserable!
- And I made you rich, you should be my wife!

But the girl answered:
- You created me - be my father. You dressed me, and you decorated me - be my brothers. And you, who breathed my soul into me and taught me to enjoy life, you alone will be my husband for life...
And the trees, and the flowers, and the whole earth, together with the birds, sang a hymn of love to them...

Having finished the tale, Leonardo looked at the Mona Lisa. God, what happened to her face! It seemed to be lit up with light, the eyes were shining. A smile of bliss, slowly disappearing from her face, remained in the corners of her mouth and trembled, giving it an amazing, mysterious and slightly sly expression.

It's been a long time since Leonardo da Vinci experienced such a huge tide creative forces. Everything that was most cheerful, bright and clear in him, he put into his work.
To enhance the impression of the face, Leonardo dressed Mona Lisa in a simple dress, devoid of any decoration, modest and dark. The impression of simplicity and naturalness is enhanced by the skillfully painted folds of the dress and light scarf.

Artists and art lovers who sometimes visited Leonardo saw La Gioconda and were delighted:
- What magical skill does Messer Leonardo possess in depicting this living sparkle, this moisture in the eyes!
- She's definitely breathing!
- She'll laugh now!
- You can almost feel the living skin of this lovely face... It seems that in the deepening of the neck you can see the pulse beating.
- What a strange smile she has. It's like she's thinking about something and not saying anything...

Indeed, in the eyes of “La Gioconda” there is light and a damp shine, as in living eyes, and the finest lilac veins are noticeable in the eyelids. But great artist created an unprecedented thing: he also painted the air, permeated with moist vapors and enveloping the figure in a transparent haze.

The most famous, studied and described many times in all languages ​​of the world, “La Gioconda” still remains the most mysterious picture the great da Vinci. It still remains incomprehensible and continues to disturb the imagination for several centuries, perhaps precisely because it is not a portrait in the usual sense of the word. Leonardo da Vinci wrote it contrary to the very concept of “portrait”, which presupposes an image real person, similar to the original and to the attributes that characterize it (at least indirectly).
What the artist wrote goes far beyond simple portrait. Every shade of skin, every fold of clothing, the warm shine of the eyes, the life of arteries and veins - the artist provided his painting with all this. But in front of the viewer in the background there also appears a steep chain of rocks with icy peaks at the foot of the mountains, a surface of water with a wide and winding river flowing from it, which, narrowing under a small bridge, turns into a miniature waterfall, disappearing outside the picture.

Golden light pours onto the viewer warm light Italian evening and the magical charm of Leonardo da Vinci's painting. Attentively, understanding everything, “La Gioconda” looks at the world and people. More than one century has passed since the artist created it, and with the last touch of Leonardo’s brush it became eternally alive. He himself had long felt that the Mona Lisa lived against his will.

As art critic V. Lipatov writes:
“La Gioconda” was copied many times and always unsuccessfully: she was elusive, did not even appear in a remote resemblance on someone else’s canvas, and remained faithful to her creator.
They tried to tear her apart, take her away and repeat at least her eternal smile, but in the paintings of her students and followers, the smile faded, became false, died, like a creature imprisoned in captivity.”
Indeed, not a single reproduction will convey even a thousandth of the charm that flows from the portrait.

The Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset wrote that in La Gioconda one can feel the desire for internal liberation:
“Look how tense her temples and smoothly shaved eyebrows are, how tightly her lips are compressed, with what hidden effort she is trying to lift the heavy load of melancholy sadness. However, this tension is so imperceptible, her whole figure breathes with such graceful calm and her whole being is filled with such immobility that this internal effort is more likely to be guessed by the viewer than consciously expressed by the master. It wriggles, bites its tail like a snake, and, completing the movement in a circle, finally giving vent to despair, manifests itself in famous smile Mona Lisa."

The unique “La Giaconda” by Leonardo da Vinci was ahead of the development of painting by many centuries. Trying to explain the secret of its witchcraft charm, an endless amount was written about the painting. They made the most incredible assumptions (that “La Gioconda” is pregnant, that she is askew, that it is a man in disguise, that this is a self-portrait of the artist himself), but it is unlikely that it will ever be possible to fully explain why this work, created by Leonardo in his declining years, has such amazing and attractive force For this canvas is the creation of a truly divine, and not a human hand.
"One Hundred Great Paintings" by N.A. Ionin, Veche Publishing House, 2002