La Gioconda or The Mona Lisa (english version)

Author: Leonardo Da Vinci

Creation: 1503-1506
Location: Louvre Museum , Paris (France)
Style: Renaissance
Technique: Oil on poplar panel
Dimensions: 77 x 53 cm

The official title of the painting, according to Louvre Museum, is Portrait of Lisa Gherardini though it is more known as La Gioconda or The Mona Lisa. Considered as the most famous pictorial work of the world it´s dealt with a painting that have never been valued and, if it was, it would reach probably the highest amount of the History of Art. 

It was the last great work of Leonardo Da Vinci, retouching it until his last years in the period of more fame and popularity of the artist. Afterwards it belonged to Leonardo da Vinci´s sponsor, The King of France Francis I and later to Napoleon. In any moment it belonged to Giocondo´s family.

Due to its importance it isn´t surprising that it was stolen from Louvre by an Italian painter, Vicenzo Perrugia, in 1911 alleging “patriotism”, although it appeared two years later in Italy. Besides it has been sprayed with acid and hit with a stoned thrown by a man in the own Louvre as well, so that in 2005 it was set up behind a bulletproof display case in a special hall where it´s protected from heat, humidity and vandalism. This relocation cost 6 million dollars and 6 million are its visitors annually turning into the fifth painting more visited of the world.  

Louvre Museum

The protagonist of the painting is a Florentine lady, Lisa Gherardini, who was married with a Neapolitan banker, Francesco of Giocondo. Even so, there isn´t a complete agreement about who is the protagonist of the painting. It is said that it could be the Spanish lady Constanza of Ávalos and there are even others who affirm that the painted one is Francesco of Giocondo or even the own Leonardo.

The combination between the aerial perspective and the sfumato technique (blur) get a wonderful three-dimensional emotion and depth. The art critics agree that the best parts of the painting are the hands and, for sure, the enigmatic smile. Over a steamy landscape background, where it´s stood out the figure of this woman, her enigmatic smile constitute the most attractive part of the painting. Da Vinci got his higher aspiration: he could capture the human soul.

About The Mona Lisa´s mouth, there are studies that say that the curling of the lip is like the same of the people who

Detail of the hall

have lost their incisors or suffer bruxism, a habit that takes to grind the teeth because of stress or during sleeping. Margaret Livingstone, visual perception expert at Harvard University, is of the opinion that due to the human eye´s functioning if it´s looked directly to the mouth the enigmatic smile disappeared while if it´s looked to the eyes or another part of the painting the smile come back to appear in La Gioconda´s face.

On its behalf, it attracts the attention the Sherwin Nulan´s opinion, surgery teacher at Yale University, according to himself the smile is due to the lady is pregnant. He reaches this conclusion after analizing the shape of the face, the swollen fingers and the gesture of the hands over the belly (very typical among pregnant women). This opinion is supported by the fact that the veil of fine and transparent muslin, hooked to the collar of the blouse, was a piece of clothing that used to wear the pregnant women or those who had given birth recently.

With the aim of getting relevant data of her expression it was applied a specialized software about feelings measuring. The conclusion reached by the software is that The Mona Lisa is a 83% happy, a 9% displeased, a 6% scared and a 2% angry. The software works on the basis of analizing characteristics like the curling of the lip or the wrinkles around the eyes. After getting the measurements, it compares with a data basis of female facial expressions, of which it gets an average expression.

Detail of physical area

Another special feature of the lady who appears in the painting is that she hasn´t either eyebrows or eyelashes. There are several theories on that regard. One of them, although nowadays it may be surprise, is the fact of being a common habit in that period among Florentine ladies to shave all the facial hair. The second is that possibly it was dealt with a too aggressive restoration in past centuries, in which the painted glazes or slight lines would have been eliminated. Finally, those who defend that Leonardo avoided painting the eyebrows and the eyelashes to let her expression more ambiguous or maybe because he never come to finish the work.

The fame of this painting isn´t only base on the used technique or its beauty, but also on the mysteries that surrounded it and it´s that, against a large number of questions, the answers don´t used to be too convincing, so that the debates continues being opened.