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Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? How much is the Mona Lisa painting cost? Do you know 5 facts about Mona Lisa Painting?
Hello, Friends!
On August 21, 1911, it was a Monday morning in the French capital, Paris. It was quite bustling. People were going to work in their offices when suddenly, there men came out of the Louvre Museum.
The three had spent the previous night in the museum . and now they were carrying and important portpery of the Louvre Museum. That was hidden in a blanket while they tired to escape. they went to a nearby railway station and caught the train at 8:45 in the morning and disappeared.
The whole world was unaware of the fact that they had stored paintings. The Mona Lisa.
The Mona Lisa
Today, the value of this painting is close to a billion. What is the reason behind this? What are the secrets hidden in the Mona Lisa? Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? Let’s understand the mystery of the Mona Lisa in today’s article.
Table of Contents
The Mona Lisa was painted in 1503 by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. And this man was not only a painter but also an engineer, scientist, sculptor, architect, and theorist. He had knowledge of so many subjects, be it painting, cartography, astronomy, anatomy, botany, hydrology, geology, optics, or even palaeontology.
An entire life can be made in his life. So, without talking about him too much, let’s get to Mona Lisa. Which was his most famous painting? But who was this person in the painting? People have always been curious about the identity of the woman in the painting.
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How is Mona Lisa
The first revelation about this was made by an Italian artist named Giorgio Vasari, who wrote the autobiography of Leonardo da Vinci in 1550. According to Vasari, this woman was Lisa Gherardini. She was married to a silk trader who lived in Florence, Francesco Giocondo.
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? How much does the Mona Lisa painting cost? Do you know five facts about the Mona Lisa painting?
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? How much does the Mona Lisa painting cost? Do you know five facts about the Mona Lisa painting? He believed that Francesco had commissioned this painting of his wife, and that’s the origin of the name of this painting. The first name that we all know, Mona Lisa, is derived from Madonna Lisa. Traditionally, in Italian, the word Madonna was used to mean Madam.
So, Madonna Lisa meant Madam Lisa. Madonna was later shortened to Monna. Monna with a double N. When this was written in English, N was dropped and Monna became Mona. So Mona Lisa means Madam Lisa or Laday Lisa. And then comes Mona Lisa’s other name, which is La Gioconda. After her marriage, Lisa’s other name was La Gioconda.
After her marriage, Lisa Gherardini became Lisa Giocondo. Interestingly, in Italian, gocondo means light-hearted or cheerful.
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? How much does the Mona Lisa painting cost? Do you know five facts about the Mona Lisa painting?
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? How much does the Mona Lisa painting cost? Do you know five facts about the Mona Lisa painting? Meaning, birth, and joy. And today, Mona Lisa is very famous for her smile. So that’s where it got its name, La Giocondao. In French, the word Giocondao is written with a j, like this: Joconde.
So that’s why when you go to the Louvre Museum in Paris and see the painting of the Mona Lisa, in French, it will be identified as La Joconde. Now, the interesting thing is that in 1550, despite this revelation, people were not ready to believe that Vasari’s narrative was correct. Many theories started to emerge about this woman being someone else. Some people said that she was Leonardo da Vinci’s mother. Some said that this was a painting of a queen from the Italian Renaissance. The most interesting theory was that in this painting, da Vinci painted himself.
His painting is not for a woman. but, in fact, a self-portrait of Da Vinci. He imagined how he would have looked had he been a woman. This theory was promoted by artist Lilian Schwartz in an article in 1987. She uses digital tools to try to show similarities between Leonardo Da Vinci’s face and the Mona Lisa’s image.
With this logic, any two faces can be seen as similar by placing them on top of each other. But we can say with a lot of certainty that the woman painted here is indeed Lisa Giocondo. A professor living in Florence researched this for 25 years and found the archives.
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? How much does the Mona Lisa painting cost? Do you know five facts about the Mona Lisa painting?
And in 2004, he discovered clear evidence to prove this fact. He was also fond of the fact that the Vinci family had a close relationship with Francesco Giocandio’s family. He also found a record that Lisa’s marriage was registered on March 5, 1495, when Lisa was 16 years old and Francesco was around 30 years old. He was fond of the fact that Leonardo da Vinci’s father and Lisa’s husband knew each other very well. and it’s possible that this painting was commissioned not by Lisa’s husband but by Leonardo’s father.
Pallanti says that when the Mona Lisa was painted, Lisa was 24 years old. And there might have been two reasons for painting this. The first reason is that in 1503, Francesco and Lisa bought their home, or the second reason is that in December 1502, their second son was born.
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? How much does the Mona Lisa painting cost? Do you know five facts about the Mona Lisa painting?
The second reason seems more likely because, three years before this, in 1499, Lisa lost her daughter. If you look at this painting closely, you will see a veil over Lisa’s hair. Many people call it a mourning veil. It is a veil that is worn when someone in the family has passed away. Now, one question arises here: if Da Vinci was Italian, then why is this painting in France today?
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? How much does the Mona Lisa painting cost? Do you know five facts about the Mona Lisa painting?
Why is this Mona Lisa painting in France today?
Well, the thing about this is that in the year 1516, the king of France, King Fracnis I, invited Leonardo da Vinci to live in France. And so, da Vici moved from Italy to France. And he took with him the Mona Lisa.
Historical records aren’t clear about this, but it’s believed that da Vince hadn’t completed the painting yet. 15 years after starting the painting, he was still working on this painting, trying to modify it and make it better. Meanwhile, in the year 1519, Leonardo da Vinci passed away during his stay in France.
The king kept this painting as a part of his royal collection. About 150 years ago, in 1797, when the French Revolution happened, this painting was taken out of the palace and handed over to the Louvre Museum.
The interesting thing is that this is the reason why the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911. I had talked about this at the beginning of the topic. The mastermind of their theft was Vincenzo Peruggioa.
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? How much does the Mona Lisa painting cost? Do you know five facts about the Mona Lisa painting?
He stole this painting with his two friends. He was an Italian nationalist. He believed that this painting belonged to Italy. Not in France. And so, after stealing it, they took it to Italy. Stealing such a famous painting was a risky job, especially when the value of the painting was millions of dollars. So, obviously, Vincenzo wouldn’t have felt safe after this theft.
Why is it so Mona Lisa Painting Special?
The Mona Lisa was not painted on paper, canvas, or cloth. Instead, it was painted on poplar wood. In those days, it was the favourite wood of Italian painters. Secondly, this painting isn’t large Look at the photos. This is where it hangs in the museum. You can see its size in comparison to the people.
This painting is only 77 cm by 53 cm. But still, it is considered so special because, in its time in Italy, this was the first painting that focused so closely on the person. This is a half-length portrait. These types of shots are very common in photography today. But no one used to make such paintings in those days. If you look at the overall colour grading of this painting, you will see a lot of grey and yellow shades. It looks like a very dull painting.
It is so yellowish that once a professor declared Lisa to be a patient with high cholesterol. But there are two reasons for this. First, there is a layer of varnish on top of this painting. So there are no ill effects of moisture on this painting since it was painted on wood. So it’s necessary to protect it from humidity and moisture.
And secondly, over time, there was bleaching. Originally, when this was painted, it used to be more bright and colourful. Some people tried to recreate this painting to see how it would have looked originally. Da Vinci used a very special painting style in this painting, known as Sfumato.
What is sfumato?
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? How much does the Mona Lisa painting cost? Do you know five facts about the Mona Lisa painting?
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? How much does the Mona Lisa painting cost? Do you know five facts about the Mona Lisa painting? The technique of blending. The background you see in this painting is a landscape. It is the Arno Valley in Italy. There are no clear boundaries or outlines between the background and the Mona Lisa. In some places, Mona Lisa’s hair is blended with the landscape. Blurring the outlines and blending the colours is the technique of sfumato.
This is the secret behind Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile. Look at Mona Lisa’s smile carefully. The more you look at this smile, the more serious this face will look. But now look into Mona Lisa’s eyes. Suddenly, you will see Lisa smiling more. If you look at any part of the painting, be it the background, Mona Lisa’s forehead or her eyes, you will see the effect.
Lisa’s face starts smiling more when you don’t focus on the smile. To perfect this smile, da Vinci spent the most time. He spent many nights in a hospital in Florence, where he used to go and remove the skin of dead bodies.
He wanted to study the facial muscles and nerves and how they work together to create a smile. He wrote in his book that “the muscles that move the lips are more numerous in man than in any other animal.”
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? How much does the Mona Lisa painting cost? Do you know five facts about the Mona Lisa painting? It was very difficult for him to dissect the muscles of the lips. because the muscles here are tiny and numerous. During this experiment, Da Vinci studied horses as well. He compared human expressions to those of horses. In the notes, he wrote, “Notice whether the muscle that raises the nostrils of the horse is the same as that which lies here in man.”
Hardly, throughout history, has any other artist dissected the faces of a horse and a human and done these experiments. His obsession with the Mona Lisa’s smile didn’t end there.
After this, he did research on optics as well. He found that the light rays don’t merge together into a single point on our eyes, rather they spread out over the entire retina. The centre of the retina, known as the Fovea, helps us see the finest details. On the other hand, the rest of the retina he rest of the retina picks up shadows and black-and-white imagery more.
Using this knowledge, he focused on the shadows in such a way that even when you see the Mona Lisa in your peripheral vision, as in, if you are looking this way and the Mona Lisa is on the other side, even if you are not paying attention to the Mona Lisa, the effect of her smile is still there.
When you look at her smile closely, you will see that its central line is a flat line, is why when you look at her smile, it looks like she is not smiling at all.
But on the other hand, the shadows created using the Sfumato technique, have such an effect that when you look elsewhere, your peripheral vision sees that smile and its shadows are reflected. And then you feel that Lisa is smiling. How would it feel if I told you that the Mona Lisa is not one painting, rather two paintings.
This is not a conspiracy theory; it’s the truth. Mona Lisa’s painting—as we know, a similar painting was created at the same time. The story of this second Mona Lisa began in the year 1504, when another legendary artist named Raphael made a rough sketch using pen and ink. This sketch looked something like this, and if you compare it with the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, you can see a huge difference. In this sketch by Raphael,
The Raphael Sketch uses pen and ink.
You can see two columns behind the Mona Lisa. Here, the researchers believed that Raphael must have made his drawing based on the Mona Lisa painting. So, it was initially brushed off. However, this theory was disproved by a German art historian in 1993. Professor Pallanti, whom I had mentioned earlier,
who had been researching the identity of the Mona Lisa for 25 years, confirmed that Raphael lived right in front of the Giocondo family in Florence. So, does this mean that Raphael made an original painting on the same subject?
The same woman in the same pose is unbelievable. ?
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? How much does the Mona Lisa painting cost? Do you know five facts about the Mona Lisa painting? This seems quite unbelievable. Another answer to this question could be that another Mona Lisa painting exists, which inspired Raphael to make this drawing. And this second Mona Lisa painting was revealed to the world in 1914. A novelist living near London, John R. Eyer, had a new version of the Mona Lisa.
This is the new Mona Lisa painting. The same painting is the basis on which Raphael made his drawing.
This second Mona Lisa is 3.5 inches longer and 5 inches wider than the one in the Louvre. If you compare these two paintings, you will notice three things. First, the woman in this new Mona Lisa looks much younger. Second, the head in this new painting is tilted a little forward. And third, the expressions of this new Mona Lisa are very straightforward and clear.
There is nothing mysterious about her smile that is in the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. The two columns in the background are the ones seen in Raphael’s drawing. Due to these reasons, a new theory is coined by the experts. Leonardo da Vinci was actually working on two Mona Lisas. Leonardo da Vinci painted both these Mona Lisa.
However, the Isleworth Mona Lisa, which was later discovered, was the first version of da Vinci’s painting. He was experimenting with his style then. And this is why the Mona Lisa in that painting looks younger than the other Mona Lisa. This theory remains a topic of debate to date. In 2010, the Mona Lisa Foundation started an investigation on the Isleworth Mona Lisa to find out the secret behind it.
And they came up with another theory. They said that the face and hands of this new Mona Lisa were indeed painted by da Vinci. But the background was painted by an inferior artist. Perhaps a person working in Leonardo’s workshop had finished this painting.
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