Who painted the Mona Lisa. The main secrets that the Mona Lisa hides. Why is she considered beautiful

29.06.2020

We admire paintings by old masters, but rarely think about what exactly they looked like at the time of creation. For some reason, it is believed that dark colors are the original type of paintings. In fact, ALL paintings over 50 years old were completely different. Time destroys the color pigment of many paints. Some disappear, others change.
Therefore, what we see and what the artist wrote, as they say in Odessa: “These are two big differences.”

Mona Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci today.

After a year scientific research, famous American artist Jenness Cortez announced the completion of her work to restore Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Mona Lisa" as it appeared at the beginning of the 16th century.

The restoration was carried out by order of a private American collector. In her work, Genes Cortes used a copy of the Mona Lisa owned by the Prado Museum and data from the French Research Center for Restoration, published in 2004. In addition, the artist independently analyzed a large number of historical data about the painting and its copies made by Leonardo da Vinci’s contemporaries.

According to Giorgio Vasari (1511 - 1574 ), author of biographies 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 named Francesco del Giocondo ( Italian 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 allows anyone who would like to see to what extent art can imitate nature 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 a manner similar to how 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.

Genes Cortes - Mona Lisa (copy of Leonardo da Vinci's painting)

Having completed the work, Jenes Cortes noted that she does not claim complete similarity of her work with the original of the 16th century: “I do not pretend to be equal in skill to Leonardo. But I put all my experience, intuition, imagination and passion into my work. I would like to think that I was helped by the same muse that helped the great Leonardo. I hope that my Mona Lisa will be accepted by fans of the original painting.”

According to famous researchers and restorers, numerous visible changes in the Mona Lisa, which occurred over five centuries, are due to the following factors:

Darkening and yellowing of the varnish.

Complete disappearance of some pigments.

Natural chemical reactions, which changed the original shades.

Consequences of cleansing and reconstruction.

Changes in the wood panel on which the painting is painted due to humidity.

To understand these and other factors, Genes Cortez relied on the results of laboratory research by French restoration scientists. A generalization of historical, scientific material and the artist’s own experience allowed us to draw the following conclusions:

1. Many areas of the painting were lighter and more detailed, but changing the color of the varnish also changed the color of the canvas, hiding some of the details of the painting. The colors that suffered the most were blue, brown and green, which were the main focus of the restoration.

2. Other pigments also underwent a slight color change. To understand how they changed, a special analysis was carried out.

3. The surface of the painting has many cracks, which were formed primarily as a result large number movements, as well as under the influence of moisture on the wooden base.

4. Some details were destroyed due to intensive cleaning of the painting's surface during reconstruction. For example, in the shadow area between the bridge of the nose and the right eye, as well as on the chin, finer detail was lost. There are unexplained traces of white paint above the top edge of the bodice, which convinced Cortes that the original original had a delicate white trim on the bodice, especially since this detail is quite noticeable on the Italian copy of the painting. Note that the version of the Mona Lisa owned by the Prado Museum was made by an unknown artist, a contemporary of Leonardo, and is very likely a fairly accurate representation of the original.

5. On the copy from the Prado Museum, glare in the eyes is also noticeable, although they are not visible on the original. However, Giorgio Vasari, who made the earliest known description of the Mona Lisa, in his book Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, dating from 1550, noted that the woman's gaze in the painting has a "watery sheen." Cortez brought back the sparkle in Gioconda's eyes.

6. Today the picture is quite monotonous appearance, most likely due to Leonardo's extensive use of volatile, organic pigments in fine glazes. The analysis showed a more vivid modeling of the face and hands, and the same Vasari describes “iridescent and tender” nostrils, and “red lips”, and brighter skin tones that accurately convey the color of the flesh. Indeed, some red pigments made from the bodies and secretions of insects were widely used during the Renaissance, but often lost color over time.

7. The sleeves of the dress, which are now bronze in color, may have been red (as can be seen on the copy from the Prado Museum).

8. Mona Lisa's legendary enigmatic expression is greatly aided by her lack of eyebrows. Jenes Cortez raised her eyebrows slightly, because it was known that they were there, albeit very thin. Their subtlety also impressed Vasari, which he noted in his book. Cortez treated this part of the painting very delicately, not speculating on the arch, size and color of the eyebrows, feeling that any misunderstanding on her part would unconditionally change the expression on the woman’s face that is familiar to us, and therefore would distort Leonardo’s intention.

9. Lisa’s hair, which today appears almost black, was probably a warm chestnut shade, but turned black over time under the color-changed hairspray.

10. Throughout the entire area of the painting, small details have been painted, which are now hidden under the old varnish, but traces of which are visible when viewed

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

History of the painting

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 adulthood, took it 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” "

Model identification problem

Information about the identity of the woman in the painting remained uncertain for a long time and many versions were expressed:

Caterina Sforza, illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Milan Galeazzo Sforza

Caterina Sforza

Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan

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

Cecilia Gallerani (model of another portrait of the artist - “Lady with an Ermine”)

Leonardo da Vinci's work, "Lady with an Ermine".

Constanza d'Avalos, who had the nickname "The Cheerful One", that is, La Gioconda in Italian. The Italian art critic Venturi suggested in 1925 that “La Gioconda” is a portrait of the Duchess of Costanza d’Avalos, the widow of Federigo del Balzo, glorified in a small poem by Eneo Irpino, which also mentions her portrait painted by Leonardo. Costanza was the mistress of Giuliano de' Medici.

Pacifica Brandano is another mistress of Giuliano Medici, the mother of Cardinal Ippolito Medici (According to Roberto Zapperi, the portrait of Pacifica was commissioned by Giuliano Medici for his illegitimate son, who was later legitimized by him, who longed to see his mother, who had already died by that time. Moreover, according to the art critic, the customer , as usual, left Leonardo complete freedom of action).

Isabela Gualanda

Just the perfect woman

A young man dressed as a woman (for example, Salai, Leonardo's lover)

Salai in a drawing by Leonardo (Salai is a student of Leonardo da Vinci, with whom the artist had a long-term - more than 25 years - and possibly intimate relationship.)

Self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci himself

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

Leonardo da Vinci

Retrospective portrait of the artist's mother Katerina (suggested by Freud, then by Serge Bramly, Rina de "Firenze, Roni Kempler, etc.).

A note in the margin proved the correct identification of the model of the Mona Lisa.

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.

Description of the picture

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 gathers, with yellow pleated sleeves, cut 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.

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

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.”

Current state

The “Mona Lisa” became very dark, which is considered to be the result of its author’s inherent tendency to experiment with paints, because of which the “Last Supper” fresco practically died. The artist's contemporaries, however, managed to express their admiration not only for the composition, design and play of chiaroscuro - 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.

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

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 a few millimeters above the head of the Mona Lisa.”

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

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 feel that only the last, most difficult tasks of artistic technique deserved to do them. 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 the inner world of man was fully revealed.”

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 contour; 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 an 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.

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.”

Renaissance art researcher Viktor Grashchenkov writes that Leonardo, including thanks to the landscape, managed to create not a portrait of a specific person, but a universal image: “In this mysterious picture he created something more than a portrait of the unknown Florentine Mona Lisa, the third wife of Francesco del Giocondo. The appearance and mental structure of a particular person are conveyed by him with unprecedented syntheticity. This impersonal psychologism is answered by 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 and all the color tones are softened. In the subtle transitions from light to shadow, almost imperceptible to the eye, in the vibration of Leonardo’s “sfumato”, any 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.”

In 2012, a copy of the “Mona Lisa” from the Prado was cleared, and under the later recordings there was a landscape background - the feeling of the canvas immediately changes.

“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.

Theft

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

On August 21, 1911, the painting was stolen by an employee of the Louvre, Italian mirror master Vincenzo Perugia. 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 searches undertaken by the police did not bring any results. The country's borders were closed, the museum administration was fired. 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 in Italy - and the culprit was the thief himself, who responded to an advertisement in the newspaper and offered to sell “Gioconda” to the director of the Uffizi Gallery. It is assumed that he intended to make copies and pass them off as the original. Perugia, on the one hand, was praised for Italian patriotism, on the other hand, he was given a short term in prison.

Vincenzo Perugia. Leaf from a criminal case.

In the end, on January 4, 1914, the painting (after exhibitions on Italian cities) returned to Paris. During this time, the Mona Lisa remained on the covers of newspapers and magazines around the world, as well as postcards, so it is not surprising that the Mona Lisa was copied more often than any other painting. The painting became an object of worship as a masterpiece of world classics.

Vandalism

In 1956, the lower part of the painting was damaged when a visitor threw acid on it. On December 30 of the same year, a young Bolivian, Hugo Ungaza Villegas, threw a stone at her and damaged the paint layer at her elbow (the loss was later recorded). After this, the Mona Lisa was protected with bulletproof glass, which protected it from further serious attacks. Still, in April 1974, a woman, upset by the museum’s policy towards the disabled, tried to spray red paint from a can while the painting was on display in Tokyo, and on April 2, 2009, a Russian woman, who had not received French citizenship, threw a clay cup at the glass. Both of these cases did not harm the picture.

Crowd in the Louvre near the painting, our days.

I want to sing to the smile
Mona Liza.
O n a - a riddle of the Renaissance -
For centuries .
And there is no beautiful red smile,
S o t o r i l i
E GREAT MASTER MODEL -
A Cossack's wife.

H e g o t a l a n t u v i d e l v n e ,
simple citizen,
WHICH HE SAW A LOT
Still ,
Beautiful soulful goddess,
P o n i l t a i n u
W omen and mothers, at a glance
In the eyes

She smiles modestly
MEETS
L o u e m a t e r i n s t a
first call
And there is nothing around,
besides the secrets,
WHICH I LIVE
in n u t r i n e e .

“Mona Lisa”, also known as “Gioconda”; (Italian: Mona Lisa, La Gioconda, French: La Joconde), full title - Portrait of Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo, Italian. Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo) is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, located in the Louvre (Paris, France), one of the most famous works of painting in the world, which is believed to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, written around 1503-1505.

It will soon be four centuries since the Mona Lisa deprives everyone of their sanity who, having seen enough of it, begins to talk about it.

The full title of the painting is Italian. Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo - “Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo.” In Italian, ma donna means “my lady” (cf. English “milady” and French “madam”), in a shortened version this expression was transformed into monna or mona. The second part of the model’s name, considered the surname of her husband - del Giocondo, in Italian also has a direct meaning and is translated as “cheerful, playing” and, accordingly, la Gioconda - “cheerful, playing” (compare with English joking).

The name “La Joconda” was first mentioned in 1525 in the list of the inheritance of the artist Salai, heir and student of da Vinci, who left the painting to his sisters in Milan. The inscription describes it as a portrait of a lady named La Gioconda.

Vasari's message

"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. 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 a manner similar to how 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 major work. 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.

Perhaps the artist really did not 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, not far from the royal castle of Amboise).

In 1517, Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona visited Leonardo in his French workshop. A description of this visit was made by the cardinal's secretary Antonio de Beatis: “On October 10, 1517, Monsignor and others like him visited Messire Leonardo da Vinci, a Florentine, in one of the remote parts of Amboise, 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 de' Medici, another of St. John the Baptist in his youth, and the third of the Saint. Anna with Mary and the Christ child all in; highest degree wonderful. From the master himself, due to the fact that his right hand was paralyzed at that time, 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.

A 19th-century painting by Ingres shows in an exaggeratedly sentimental manner the grief of King Francis at Leonardo da Vinci's deathbed

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 woman’s identity, there was still uncertainty about her for a long time and many versions were expressed:
Caterina Sforza, illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Milan Galeazzo Sforza
Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan
Cecilia Gallerani (model of another portrait of the artist - “Lady with an Ermine”)
Constanza d'Avalos, who also had the nickname "The Cheerful One", that is, La Gioconda in Italian. Venturi in 1925 suggested that “La Gioconda” is a portrait of the Duchess of Costanza d’Avalos, the widow of Federigo del Balzo, glorified in a small poem by Eneo Irpino, which also mentions her portrait painted by Leonardo. Costanza was the mistress of Giuliano de' Medici.
Pacifica Brandano is another mistress of Giuliano Medici, the mother of Cardinal Ippolito Medici (According to Roberto Zapperi, the portrait of Pacifica was commissioned by Giuliano Medici for his illegitimate son, who was later legitimized by him, who longed to see his mother, who by that time had already died. At the same time, according to According to the art critic, the customer, as usual, left Leonardo complete freedom of action).
Isabela Gualanda
Just the perfect woman
A young man dressed as a woman (for example, Salai, Leonardo's lover)
Self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci himself
Retrospective portrait of the artist's mother Catherine (1427-1495) (suggested by Freud, then by Serge Bramly, Rina de "Firenze).

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.

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

A note in the margin proved the correct identification of the model of the Mona Lisa.

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.

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

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 on a 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, of which at the moment there are two bases of the columns, fragments of which are visible along the edges of the parapet.

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.”

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 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 the 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.”

Landscape behind the Mona Lisa

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 contour 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.”

Art critics emphasize the organic way with which the artist combined the portrait characterization 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 demonstrates how much a portrait image loses when placed against a dark, neutral background.

Renaissance art researcher Viktor Grashchenkov writes that Leonardo, including thanks to the landscape, managed to create not a portrait of a specific person, but a universal image: “In this mysterious picture, he created something more than a portrait image of the unknown Florentine Mona Lisa, the third wife of Francesco del Giocondo. 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 and all the color tones are softened. 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 softens to the limit, melts and is ready to disappear. (…) “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.”

In 2012, a copy of the “Mona Lisa” from the Prado was cleared, and under the later recordings there was a landscape background - the feeling of the canvas immediately changes.

"Mona Lisa" is considered one of the best works in the genre of portraiture that influenced the works of High Renaissance and indirectly through them - on all subsequent development of the genre, which “must always return to La Gioconda as an unattainable, but obligatory example.”

Art historians note that the portrait of Mona Lisa was a decisive step in the development of Renaissance portraiture. Rotenberg writes: “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, for all their undeniable physiognomic similarity and the feeling of inner strength they radiated, 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 earlier portraits of Leonardo himself, created by him in the first years of his stay in Milan. (...) 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 importance became on par with the most bright images other pictorial genres."

“Portrait of a Lady” by Lorenzo Costa was painted in the years 1500-06 - approximately the same years as the “Mona Lisa”, but in comparison it shows surprising inertia.

Lazarev agrees with him: “There is hardly any other picture in the world about which art critics would write such an abyss of nonsense as this famous work by Leonardo. (...) If Lisa di Antonio Maria di Noldo Gherardini, the virtuous matron and wife of one of the most respected Florentine citizens, heard all this, she would, no doubt, be sincerely surprised. And Leonardo would have been even more surprised, having set himself here a much more modest and, at the same time, much more difficult task - to give such an image of the human face that would completely dissolve in itself the last vestiges of Quattrocentist statics and psychological immobility. (...) And that’s why he was right a thousand times art critic, who pointed out the futility of deciphering this smile. Its essence lies in the fact that here is one of the first attempts in Italian art to depict a natural mental state for its own sake, as an end in itself, without any added religious and ethical motivations. Thus, Leonardo managed to revive his model so much that in comparison with it, all the older portraits seem like frozen mummies.”

Raphael, "Girl with a Unicorn", c. 1505-1506, Galleria Borghese, Rome. This portrait, painted under the influence of the Mona Lisa, is built according to the same iconographic scheme - with a balcony (also with columns) and a landscape.

In his innovative work, Leonardo transferred the main center of gravity to the face of the portrait. At the same time, he used his hands as a powerful means of psychological characterization. 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, represented by several variants (“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.

“Donna Nuda” (that is, “Naked Donna”). Unknown artist, late 16th century, Hermitage

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 fame later 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 expressed his opinion in his 1867 essay on da Vinci, describing the figure in the painting as a kind of mythical embodiment of the eternal feminine, who is "older than the rocks between which she sits" and who has "died many times and learned the secrets of the afterlife." .

The painting’s further rise in fame is associated with its mysterious disappearance at the beginning of the 20th century and its happy return to the museum several years later (see below, section Theft), thanks to which it 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 half-human, half-snake a 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.

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 it the point of application for many of his creative quests (see the Technique section).

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 light 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: “The endless variety of 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 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 precisely the extraordinary intellectual charge of Leonardo’s portrait that distinguishes it from portrait images 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 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.”

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 “Mona Lisa”. 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, whereas 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 as 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 Leonard's figures, it is built on the finest mathematical measurements, on strict consideration of the expressive values of individual parts of the face. And for all that, this smile is absolutely natural, and this is precisely the power of its charm. It takes away everything hard, tense, and frozen from the face; it turns it into a mirror of vague, indefinite spiritual experiences; in its elusive lightness it can only be compared to a ripple running through water.”

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 the lips of his 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.”

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 master 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 instantly looks away 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 after the 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.

Theft

1911 Empty wall where the Mona Lisa hung
The Mona Lisa would have been known only to fine art connoisseurs for a long time, if not for her exceptional history, 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 country's borders were closed, the museum administration was fired. 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 in Italy. Moreover, the culprit was the thief himself, who responded to an advertisement in the newspaper and offered to sell La Gioconda to the director of the Uffizi Gallery. It is assumed that he intended to make copies and pass them off as the original. Perugia, on the one hand, was praised for Italian patriotism, on the other hand, he was given a short term in prison.

Finally, on January 4, 1914, the painting (after exhibitions in Italian cities) returned to Paris. During this time, the Mona Lisa remained on the covers of newspapers and magazines around the world, as well as postcards, so it is not surprising that the Mona Lisa was copied more often than any other painting. The painting became an object of worship as a masterpiece of world classics.

Vandalism

During World War II, for safety reasons, the painting was transported from the Louvre to the Castle of Amboise (the place of Leonardo's death and burial), then to Loc-Dieu Abbey, and finally to the Ingres Museum in Montauban, 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.

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most famous works of painting in the whole world.

Nowadays, this painting is in the Louvre in Paris.

The creation of the painting and the model depicted on it were surrounded by many legends and rumors, and even today, when there are practically no blank spots left in the history of La Gioconda, myths and legends continue to circulate among many not particularly educated people.

Who is Mona Lisa?

The identity of the girl depicted is quite known today. It is believed that this is Lisa Gherardini, a famous resident of Florence who belonged to an aristocratic but impoverished family.

Gioconda is apparently her married name; Her husband was a successful silk merchant, Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo. It is known that Lisa and her husband gave birth to six children and led a measured life, typical of wealthy citizens of Florence.

One might think that the marriage was concluded for love, but at the same time it also had additional benefits for both spouses: Lisa married into a representative of a richer family, and through her Francesco became related to an old family. More recently, in 2015, scientists discovered the grave of Lisa Gherardini - near one of the ancient Italian churches.

Creating a painting

Leonardo da Vinci immediately took on this order and devoted himself to it completely, literally with some kind of passion. And in the future, the artist was closely attached to his portrait, carried it with him everywhere, and when, at a late age, he decided to leave Italy for France, he took with him “La Gioconda” along with several selected works of his.

What was the reason for Leonardo’s attitude towards this painting? There is an opinion that great artist had a love affair with Lisa. However, it is possible that the painter valued this painting as an example of the highest flowering of his talent: “La Gioconda” truly turned out to be extraordinary for its time.

Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) photo

It is interesting that Leonardo never gave the portrait to the customer, but took it with him to France, where its first owner was King Francis I. Perhaps this action could be due to the fact that the master did not finish the canvas on time and continued painting the painting already after departure: the famous Renaissance writer Giorgio Vasari reports that Leonardo “never finished” his painting.

Vasari, in his biography of Leonardo, reports many facts about the painting of this painting, but not all of them are reliable. Thus, he writes that the artist created the painting over four years, which is a clear exaggeration.

He also writes that while Lisa was posing, there was a whole group of jesters in the studio entertaining the girl, thanks to which Leonardo was able to portray a smile on her face, and not the sadness that was standard for that time. However, most likely, Vasari composed the story about the jesters himself for the amusement of readers, using the girl’s surname - after all, “Gioconda” means “playing”, “laughing”.

However, it can be noted that Vasari was attracted to this picture not so much by realism as such, but by the amazing rendering of physical effects and the smallest details of the image. Apparently, the writer described the picture from memory or from the stories of other eyewitnesses.

Some myths about the painting

Also in late XIX century, Gruye wrote that “La Gioconda” has been literally depriving people of their minds for several centuries. Many people wondered when contemplating this amazing portrait, which is why it became surrounded by many legends.

According to one of them, in the portrait Leonardo allegorically depicted... himself, which is allegedly confirmed by the coincidence of small details of the face;
According to another, the painting depicts a young man in women's clothing– for example, Salai, Leonardo’s student;
Another version says that the picture depicts simply an ideal woman, some kind of abstract image. All of these versions are now recognized as erroneous.

“From a medical point of view, it is not clear how this woman even lived.”

Her mysterious smile mesmerizing. Some see in her divine beauty, others are secret signs, others are a challenge to norms and society. But everyone agrees on one thing - there is something mysterious and attractive about her. We are, of course, talking about the Mona Lisa - the favorite creation of the great Leonardo. A portrait rich in mythology. What is the secret of Mona Lisa? There are countless versions. We have selected the ten most common and intriguing ones.

Today this painting, measuring 77x53 cm, is kept in the Louvre behind thick bulletproof glass. The image, made on a poplar board, is covered with a network of craquelures. It has gone through a number of not very successful restorations and has noticeably darkened over five centuries. However, the older the painting becomes, the more people it attracts: the Louvre is visited by 8-9 million people annually.

And Leonardo himself did not want to part with the Mona Lisa, and perhaps this is the first time in history when the author did not give the work to the customer, despite the fact that he took the fee. The first owner of the painting - after the author - King Francis I of France was also delighted with the portrait. He bought it from da Vinci for incredible money at that time - 4000 gold coins and placed it in Fontainebleau.

Napoleon was also fascinated by Madame Lisa (as he called Gioconda) and took her to his chambers in the Tuileries Palace. And the Italian Vincenzo Perugia stole a masterpiece from the Louvre in 1911, took it home and hid with her for two whole years until he was detained while trying to hand over the painting to the director of the Uffizi Gallery... In a word, at all times the portrait of a Florentine lady attracted, hypnotized, and delighted. ..

What is the secret of her attractiveness?

Version No. 1: classic

We find the first mention of the Mona Lisa in the author of the famous Lives, Giorgio Vasari. From his work we learn that Leonardo undertook to “make for Francesco del Giocondo a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, and, after working on it for four years, left it unfinished.”

The writer admires the artist’s skill, his ability to show “the smallest details that the subtlety of painting can convey,” and most importantly, his smile, which “is given so pleasant that it seems as if one is contemplating a divine rather than a human being.” The art historian explains the secret of her charm by saying that “while painting the portrait, he (Leonardo) held people who were playing the lyre or singing, and there were always jesters who kept her cheerful and removed the melancholy that painting usually imparts to the portraits being painted.” There is no doubt: Leonardo is an unsurpassed master, and the crown of his mastery is this divine portrait. In the image of his heroine there is a duality inherent in life itself: the modesty of the pose is combined with a bold smile, which becomes a kind of challenge to society, canons, art...

But is this really the wife of the silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, whose surname became the middle name of this mysterious lady? Is it true that the story about the musicians who created the right mood for our heroine? Skeptics dispute all this, citing the fact that Vasari was an 8-year-old boy when Leonardo died. He could not personally know the artist or his model, so he presented only information given by the anonymous author of the first biography of Leonardo. Meanwhile, the writer also encounters controversial passages in other biographies. Take, for example, the story of Michelangelo's broken nose. Vasari writes that Pietro Torrigiani hit a classmate because he was attracted to his talent, and Benvenuto Cellini explains the injury by his arrogance and impudence: while copying Masaccio’s frescoes, during the lesson he ridiculed every image, for which he received a punch in the nose from Torrigiani. Cellini's version is supported by the complex character of Buonarroti, about whom there were legends.

Version No. 2: Chinese mother

It really did exist. Italian archaeologists even claim to have found her tomb in the monastery of St. Ursula in Florence. But is she in the picture? A number of researchers claim that Leonardo painted the portrait from several models, because when he refused to give the painting to the fabric merchant Giocondo, it remained unfinished. The master spent his whole life improving his work, adding features of other models - thereby obtaining a collective portrait ideal woman of his era.

Italian scientist Angelo Paratico went further. He is sure that Mona Lisa is Leonardo's mother, who was actually...Chinese. The researcher spent 20 years in the East, studying the connection of local traditions with the Italian Renaissance, and discovered documents showing that Leonardo's father, the notary Piero, had a wealthy client, and he had a slave whom he brought from China. Her name was Katerina - she became the mother of the Renaissance genius. It is precisely by the fact that eastern blood flowed in Leonardo’s veins that the researcher explains the famous “Leonardo’s handwriting” - the master’s ability to write from right to left (this is how entries were made in his diaries). The researcher also saw oriental features in the model’s face and in the landscape behind her. Paratico suggests exhuming Leonardo's remains and testing his DNA to confirm his theory.

The official version says that Leonardo was the son of the notary Piero and the “local peasant woman” Katerina. He could not marry a rootless woman, but took as his wife a girl from a noble family with a dowry, but she turned out to be barren. Katerina raised the child for the first few years of his life, and then the father took his son into his home. Almost nothing is known about Leonardo's mother. But, indeed, there is an opinion that the artist, separated from his mother in early childhood, all his life he tried to recreate the image and smile of his mother in his paintings. This assumption was made by Sigmund Freud in his book “Memories of Childhood. Leonardo da Vinci" and it gained many supporters among art historians.

Version No. 3: Mona Lisa is a man

Viewers often note that in the image of Mona Lisa, despite all the tenderness and modesty, there is some kind of masculinity, and the face of the young model, almost devoid of eyebrows and eyelashes, seems boyish. The famous Mona Lisa researcher Silvano Vincenti believes that this is no accident. He is sure that Leonardo posed ... as a young man in a woman's dress. And this is none other than Salai - a student of da Vinci, who was painted by him in the paintings “John the Baptist” and “Angel in the Flesh”, where the young man is endowed with the same smile as the Mona Lisa. The art historian, however, made this conclusion not only because external resemblance models, and after studying photographs in high resolution, which made it possible to see Vincenti in the eyes of the model L and S - the first letters of the names of the author of the picture and the young man depicted on it, according to the expert.

"John the Baptist" by Leonardo Da Vinci (Louvre)

This version is also supported by a special relationship - Vasari also hinted at it - between the model and the artist, which may have connected Leonardo and Salai. Da Vinci was not married and had no children. At the same time, there is a denunciation document where an anonymous person accuses the artist of sodomy of a certain 17-year-old boy Jacopo Saltarelli.

Leonardo had several students, with some of whom he was more than close, according to a number of researchers. Freud also talks about Leonardo's homosexuality, and he supports this version with a psychiatric analysis of his biography and the diary of the Renaissance genius. Da Vinci's notes about Salai are also considered as an argument in favor. There is even a version that da Vinci left a portrait of Salai (since the painting is mentioned in the will of the master’s student), and from him the painting came to Francis I.

By the way, the same Silvano Vincenti put forward another assumption: that the painting depicts a certain woman from the retinue of Louis Sforza, at whose court in Milan Leonardo worked as an architect and engineer in 1482-1499. This version appeared after Vincenti saw the numbers 149 on the back of the canvas. This, according to the researcher, is the date the painting was painted, only the last number has been erased. It is traditionally believed that the master began painting Gioconda in 1503.

However, there are many other candidates for the title of Mona Lisa who compete with Salai: these are Isabella Gualandi, Ginevra Benci, Constanza d'Avalos, the libertine Caterina Sforza, a certain secret lover of Lorenzo de' Medici and even Leonardo's nurse.

Version No. 4: Gioconda is Leonardo

Another unexpected theory, which Freud hinted at, was confirmed in the research of the American Lillian Schwartz. The Mona Lisa is a self-portrait, Lilian is sure. An artist and graphic consultant at the School of Visual Arts in New York in the 1980s, she compared the famous “Turin Self-Portrait” by a very middle-aged artist with a portrait of the Mona Lisa and found that the proportions of faces (head shape, distance between eyes, forehead height) were the same.

And in 2009, Lilian, together with amateur historian Lynn Picknett, presented the public with another incredible sensation: she claims that the Shroud of Turin is nothing more than an imprint of Leonardo’s face, made using silver sulfate using the camera obscura principle.

However, not many supported Lilian in her research - these theories are not among the most popular, unlike the following assumption.

Version No. 5: a masterpiece with Down syndrome

Gioconda suffered from Down's disease - this was the conclusion that English photographer Leo Vala came to in the 1970s after he came up with a method to “turn” the Mona Lisa in profile.

At the same time, the Danish doctor Finn Becker-Christiansson diagnosed Gioconda with congenital facial paralysis. An asymmetrical smile, in his opinion, speaks of mental deviations up to and including idiocy.

In 1991, the French sculptor Alain Roche decided to embody the Mona Lisa in marble, but it didn’t work out. It turned out that from a physiological point of view, everything in the model is wrong: the face, the arms, and the shoulders. Then the sculptor turned to the physiologist, Professor Henri Greppo, and he attracted a specialist in hand microsurgery, Jean-Jacques Conte. Together, they came to the conclusion that the mysterious woman’s right hand did not rest on her left because it was possibly shorter and could be prone to cramps. Conclusion: the right half of the model’s body is paralyzed, which means the mysterious smile is also just a spasm.

The complete “medical record” of Gioconda was collected by gynecologist Julio Cruz y Hermida in his book “A Look at Gioconda Through the Eyes of a Doctor.” The result was such a terrible picture that it is unclear how this woman even lived. According to various researchers, she suffered from alopecia (hair loss), high level cholesterol in the blood, exposure of the neck of the teeth, their loosening and loss, and even alcoholism. She had Parkinson's disease, a lipoma (benign fatty tumor on right hand), strabismus, cataracts and heterochromia of the iris (different eye colors) and asthma.

However, who said that Leonardo was anatomically accurate - what if the secret of genius lies precisely in this disproportion?

Version No. 6: a child under the heart

There is another polar “medical” version - pregnancy. American gynecologist Kenneth D. Keel is sure that Mona Lisa crossed her arms over her stomach reflexively trying to protect her unborn baby. The probability is high, because Lisa Gherardini had five children (the first-born, by the way, was named Pierrot). A hint of the legitimacy of this version can be found in the title of the portrait: Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo (Italian) - “Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo.” Monna is short for ma donna - Madonna, Mother of God (although it also means “my mistress”, lady). Art critics often explain the genius of the painting precisely because it depicts an earthly woman in the image of the Mother of God.

Version No. 7: iconographic

However, the theory that the Mona Lisa is an icon has no place Mother of God occupied by an earthly woman, popular in her own right. This is the genius of the work and that is why it has become a symbol of the beginning new era in art. Previously, art served the church, government and nobility. Leonardo proves that the artist stands above all this, that the most valuable thing is the creative idea of the master. And the great idea is to show the duality of the world, and the means for this is the image of the Mona Lisa, which combines divine and earthly beauty.

Version No. 8: Leonardo - creator of 3D

This combination was achieved using a special technique invented by Leonardo - sfumato (from Italian - “disappearing like smoke”). It was this painting technique, when paints are applied layer by layer, that allowed Leonardo to create an aerial perspective in the painting. The artist applied countless layers of these, and each one was almost transparent. Thanks to this technique, light is reflected and scattered differently across the canvas, depending on the viewing angle and the angle of incidence of the light. That’s why the model’s facial expression is constantly changing.

The researchers come to a conclusion. Another technical breakthrough of a genius who foresaw and tried to implement many inventions that were implemented centuries later (aircraft, tank, diving suit, etc.). This is evidenced by the version of the portrait stored in the Prado Museum in Madrid, painted either by da Vinci himself or by his student. It depicts the same model - only the angle is shifted by 69 cm. Thus, experts believe, there was a search for the desired point in the image, which will give the 3D effect.

Version No. 9: secret signs

Secret signs are a favorite topic of Mona Lisa researchers. Leonardo is not just an artist, he is an engineer, inventor, scientist, writer, and probably encrypted some universal secrets in his best painting. The most daring and incredible version was voiced in the book and then in the film “The Da Vinci Code.” Of course, fiction novel. However, researchers are constantly making equally fantastic assumptions based on certain symbols found in the painting.

Many speculations stem from the fact that there is another hidden image of the Mona Lisa. For example, the figure of an angel, or a feather in the hands of a model. There is also an interesting version by Valery Chudinov, who discovered in the Mona Lisa the words Yara Mara - the name of the Russian pagan goddess.

Version No. 10: cropped landscape

Many versions are also related to the landscape against which the Mona Lisa is depicted. Researcher Igor Ladov discovered a cyclical nature in it: it seems worth drawing several lines to connect the edges of the landscape. Just a couple of centimeters are missing for everything to come together. But in the version of the painting from the Prado Museum there are columns, which, apparently, were also in the original. Nobody knows who cropped the picture. If you return them, the image develops into a cyclical landscape, which symbolizes the fact that human life (in a global sense) is enchanted just like everything in nature...

It seems that there are as many versions of the solution to the mystery of the Mona Lisa as there are people trying to explore the masterpiece. There was a place for everything: from admiration for unearthly beauty to recognition of complete pathology. Everyone finds something of their own in Mona Lisa and, perhaps, this is where the multidimensionality and semantic multi-layeredness of the canvas is manifested, which gives everyone the opportunity to turn on their imagination. Meanwhile, the secret of Mona Lisa remains the property of this mysterious lady, with a slight smile on her lips...