Mona Lisa Leonardo da Vinci description briefly. "Mona Lisa" description of the painting

portrait of mistress Lisa del Giocondo(Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo) was written by Leonardo da Vinci around 1503-1519. It is believed that this is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a silk merchant from Florence. del Giocondo in Italian sounds like a cheerful or playing. According to the writings of the biographer Giorgio Vasari, Leonardo da Vinci wrote this portrait for 4 years, but he left it unfinished (however, modern researchers claim that the work is completely finished and even carefully brought to the end). The portrait is made on a poplar board measuring 76.8 × 53 cm. It currently hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Mona Lisa or Gioconda - the canvas of the great artist is the most mysterious work of art to date. So many mysteries and secrets are associated with it that even the most experienced art critics sometimes do not know what is actually drawn in this picture. Who is the Gioconda, what goals did da Vinci pursue when he created this canvas? If you believe all the same biographers, Leonardo, at the time when he painted this picture kept various musicians and jesters around him, who entertained the model and created a special atmosphere, so the canvas turned out to be so refined and unlike all other creations of this author.

One of the mysteries is that under ultraviolet and infrared radiation this picture looks completely different. The original Mona Lisa, which was dug up under a layer of paint using a special camera, was different from what visitors now see in the museum. She had a broader face, a more accentuated smile and different eyes.

Another secret is that Mona Lisa has no eyebrows and eyelashes. There is an assumption that in the Renaissance, most women looked like this, and this was a tribute to the fashion of that time. Women of the 15th-16th century got rid of any facial hair. Others claim that the eyebrows and eyelashes actually were, but were worn out over time. A certain researcher Kott, who is studying and carefully researching this work of the great master, debunked many myths about the Mona Lisa. For example, once the question arose about Mona Lisa's hand. From the side, even an inexperienced gas can see that the hand is bent in a very bizarre way. However, Kott found on the hand the smoothed features of the cape, the colors of which faded over time and it began to seem that this hand itself had a strange unnatural shape. Thus, we can safely say that the Mona Lisa at the time of its writing was very different from what we see now. Time has mercilessly distorted the picture to such an extent that many are still looking for such secrets of the Mona Lisa, which simply do not exist.

An interesting fact is that, having painted a portrait of Mona Lisa, da Vinci kept it with him, and then he moved to the collection of the French king Francis I. Why, having completed the work, the artist did not give it to the customer, remains unknown. Besides, in different time various assumptions have been made about whether the Mona Lisa is considered correctly - Lisa del Giocondo. Her role is still claimed by such women as: Caterina Sforza - the daughter of the Duke of Milan; Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan; Cecilia Gallerani, she is the Lady with an Ermine; Constanza d'Avalos, also called Merry or La Gioconda; Pacifica Brandano mistress of Giuliano de' Medici; Isabela Galand; A young man in a woman's attire; Self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci himself. In the end, many are inclined to the version that the artist simply depicted the image perfect woman what she is in his opinion. As you can see, there are a lot of assumptions and they all have the right to life. And yet, researchers are almost 100% sure that the Mona Lisa is Lisa del Giocondo, as they found a record of a Florentine official who wrote: “da Vinci is currently working on three paintings, one of which is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini.”

The greatness of the picture, which is transmitted to the viewer, is also the result of the fact that the artist first painted the landscape and only on top of it the model itself. As a result (it was so conceived or it happened by accident, it is not known) the figure of the Mona Lisa was very close to the viewer, which emphasizes its significance. The perception is also affected by the existing contrast between the gentle curves and colors of a woman and the bizarre landscape behind, as if fabulous, spiritualized, with the sfumato inherent in the master. Thus, he combined reality and fairy tale, reality and dream into one whole, which creates an incredible feeling for everyone who looks at the canvas. By the time this picture was painted, Leonardo da Vinci had achieved such mastery that he created a masterpiece. The picture acts like hypnosis, the secrets of painting, elusive to the eye, mysterious transitions from light to shadow, attracting demonic smile, act on a person like a boa constrictor looks at a rabbit.

The secret of the Mona Lisa is linked in the most precise mathematical calculation of Leonardo, who by that time had developed the secret of the painting formula. With the help of this formula and precise mathematical calculations, a work of terrifying power came out from under the brush of the master. The strength of her charm is comparable to the living and animated, and not drawn on the board. There is a feeling that the artist painted the Mona Lisa in an instant, as if by clicking a camera, and did not draw it for 4 years. In an instant, he caught her sly glance, a fleeting smile, one single movement, which was embodied in the picture. No one is destined to unravel how the great master of painting managed to do this and will remain a secret forever.

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Mona Lisa is the most famous work in the art world, which was created by famous author— Leonardo da Vinci. This is a legendary work of art, which is shrouded in hundreds of secrets and unsolved mysteries, which fascinates the minds of many researchers and ordinary uninitiated viewers.

There has always been interest in creation, but it has become especially acute in recent years after the release of the novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, as well as films based on this book. And now you will learn about the most incredible and interesting facts about Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

Facts about the Mona Lisa

• The prefix Mona means "Madonna" or "Milady", while Lisa is just a name.
• The identity of the person in the painting has forever remained a mystery. Some researchers tend to think that this is a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci in female image, however, most consider the Mona Lisa to be the 24-year-old Lisa Geraldine, also known as Lisa del Giocondo, who was the wife of the merchant Francesco del Giocondo. It is also possible that this is a portrait of the artist's mother.
• In 1956, an emergency occurred at the Louvre. Hugo Ungaze threw a stone at the portrait, from which the masterpiece was damaged near the left elbow of Mona Lisa.
• How much do you think this painting is worth? Hundreds of thousands of dollars? Millions? Billions? Not! She is priceless! And that's why the masterpiece is still uninsured.
• Interesting Facts about Mona Lisa Leonardo da Vinci must be supplemented with the fact that the woman depicted in the picture does not have eyebrows. It is not known for certain why this happened. It is believed that the eyebrows were erased during one of the restorations in the Middle Ages, since then it was in fashion to completely remove the eyebrows. There is also an opinion that the picture is deliberately unfinished by the author.

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• The painting is located in a special room in the Louvre. This room was created for $7 million specifically for the Mona Lisa. The masterpiece is under armored glass, and the required temperature is maintained using a computer and a complex system of sensors.
• The Mona Lisa was completed at the Château d'Amboise in France around 1505. According to one hypothesis, Leonardo da Vinci is buried in this castle.
• The pupils of the Mona Lisa are painted with microscopic numbers and letters. They can only be seen with special equipment. It is believed that this is the date of completion of the painting and the initials of the author.
• Mona Lisa is considered one of the most disappointing sights. So much noise and legends, but you come to the museum, it is hidden under glass, and so far away from you ... just a picture ...
• A special wave of popularity of the Mona Lisa arose after the abduction. On August 21, 1911, the painting was stolen by Vincenzo Perugio, an employee of Parisian museum. During the investigation, the leadership of the Louvre was fired, and under suspicion were famous people such as Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire. As a result, the painting was discovered on January 4, 1914 in Italy. After that, several exhibitions were held with her, and then she was returned to Paris. The motives for the crime are not known for certain, it is likely that Perugio wanted to return the masterpiece to the homeland of Leonardo da Vinci.

/ / Description of the painting by Leonardo da Vinci “Mona Lisa” (La Gioconda)

Leonardo da Vinci (04/15/1452 - 05/2/1519) - a brilliant scientist and artist of the Renaissance. AT fine arts took a realistic approach. His legacy as an artist is small, but all paintings are true masterpieces. Among them are famous paintings like "La Gioconda", "Annunciation", " The Last Supper”, “Lady with an Ermine”, “Madonna Litta” and others.

"Mona Lisa", or "La Gioconda", (c. 1503 - 1505) was written in the portrait genre. In the work of Leonardo, this picture occupied a special place. Biographers note that he did not devote so much time and passion to any picture. Leonardo painted a portrait of the wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo. During four years the artist selflessly worked on the embodiment of the image of the Madonna Lisa and still did not bring it to completion ...

The picture is a half-length image of a woman sitting in a half-turn. She's wearing a dark dress left hand it lies on the armrest of the chair, the right one lies on top of the left one. Sparse dark hair is parted in the middle and falls to the shoulders in small waves, as if from a perm.

Her head is covered with a barely noticeable veil, which may have been a sign of the expectation of a child. The dress is embellished with graceful gathers in the neckline at the chest and loose pleats in the yellowish sleeves. The woman's head is slightly turned towards the viewer. Art historians note that, according to the fashion of that time, the eyebrows and hair of the upper part of the forehead of Mona Lisa are shaved.

By the location of the figure, it is clear that she is sitting on a balcony, since a parapet is visible behind her. The background of the portrait is a beautiful and majestic landscape. Hills, mountains, a lake, a winding path and the sky brightening over this nature are captured in a light haze. Such a background, of course, gives greatness to the depicted figure. The impression is enhanced by the contrast of the tangible reality of the depicted woman with a foggy, like a dream, landscape.

The foreground of the picture is designed in shades Brown color: from golden to reddish. The background is presented in bluish-green tones, reaching the emerald color. Time has done its job, the picture has darkened, the colors have undergone some changes, but the contrast ratio of the tones of the picture, thought out by the author, has been preserved and still makes an impression.

There was a lot of controversy about the smile, or rather the half-smile, of the Mona Lisa. A slight smile was encountered more than once in the works of Leonardo, but in La Gioconda he brought it to perfection. Mona Lisa's smile has been interpreted in many ways. A.F. Losev even called her a “demonic smile.” Boris Vipper, perhaps, gave the most objective interpretation of the image. He noted that shaved eyebrows and forehead can enhance the impression of mystery. The attraction of the picture, its effect, similar to hypnosis, lies in the spirituality of the image. It was a mistake to look for manifestations of Mona Lisa's individual properties in a smile. Leonardo sought to convey spirituality that is typical, not concrete. And most importantly, it was not the emotional content of the Mona Lisa that was the source of spirituality, but the intellect.

Indeed, in this masterpiece, cracked by time, we see a thinking woman, endowed with a rich inner content and able to conduct a dialogue with Leonardo himself.

Probably there is no more in the world famous canvas, how . It is popular in all countries, widely replicated as a recognizable and catchy image. "Mona Lisa" in its four hundred years of history has been a trademark, and became a victim of abduction, was mentioned in the song Nat King Cola, her name was quoted in tens of thousands of print publications and films, and the expression "Mona Lisa's smile" became set phrase, even a stamped phrase.

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

It is believed that the painting is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine cloth merchant named Del Giocondo. Time of writing, approximately 1503 - 1505. Created a great canvas. Perhaps, if the picture had been painted by another master, it would not have been enveloped in such a dense veil of mystery.

it small work art size 76.8 x 53 cm painted in oil on a board of poplar wood. The painting is located in where she is assigned a special room that bears her name. It was brought to the artist himself, who moved here under the auspices of King Francis I.

Myths and conjectures

It must be said that the halo of legend and unusualness envelops this canvas only recent years 100 plus, with light hand Theophile Gauthier, who wrote about the Mona Lisa's smile. Prior to this, contemporaries admired the artist’s skill in conveying facial expressions, virtuoso performance and choice of colors, liveliness and naturalness of the image, but did not see hidden signs, allusions and encrypted messages in the picture.

Now most people are occupied with the notorious mystery of Mona Lisa's smile. She is just a hint of a smile, a slight movement of the corners of her lips. Perhaps the decoding of the smile lies in the very name of the picture - La Gioconda in Italian can mean "cheerful". Maybe all these centuries, "Mona Lisa" just laughs at our attempts to unravel its mystery?

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

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

Of great interest to conspiracy theorists and supporters of the idea that Da Vinci belongs to a series secret societies represents the mysterious landscape in the background. It depicts a strange area that has not been accurately identified to this day. It was painted, like the whole picture, in the sfumato technique, but in a different color scheme, bluish-greenish, and asymmetrical - the right side does not match the left. Besides, in recent times there were allegations that the artist encrypted some letters in the eyes of the Mona Lisa, and numbers in the image of the bridge.

Just a painting or a masterpiece

It's pointless to deny the great artistic merit this picture. She is an unconditional masterpiece of the Renaissance and a significant achievement in the work of the master, it is not for nothing that Leonardo himself highly appreciated this work of his and did not part with it for many years.

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

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

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

Plot

This is a portrait of Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo. Her husband, a fabric merchant from Florence, loved his third wife very much, and therefore the portrait was commissioned from Leonardo himself.

The woman is sitting on the balcony. It is believed that initially the picture could be wider and contain two side columns of the loggia, from which this moment two column bases remain.

One of the mysteries is whether Lisa del Giocondo is really depicted on the canvas. There is no doubt that this woman lived at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. However, some researchers believe that Leonardo painted the portrait from several models. Be that as it may, the result was the image of the ideal woman of that era.

There is a version that a man posed for the Gioconda

How can one not recall the story that was common at one time about what the doctors saw in the portrait. Doctors of various specialties analyzed the picture in their own way. And in the end, they “found” so many illnesses in Gioconda that it’s generally incomprehensible how this woman could live.

By the way, there is a hypothesis that the model was not a woman, but a man. This, of course, adds to the mystery of the history of the Mona Lisa. Especially if you compare the picture with another work by da Vinci - "John the Baptist", in which the young man is endowed with the same smile as the Mona Lisa.

"John the Baptist"

The landscape behind the Mona Lisa seems mystical, like the embodiment of dreams. It does not distract our attention, does not allow our eyes to wander. On the contrary, such a landscape makes us completely immerse ourselves in the contemplation of the Mona Lisa.

Context

Da Vinci painted the portrait for several years. Despite the fee paid in full, the Giocondo family never received the order - the artist simply refused to give the canvas. Why is unknown. And when da Vinci left Italy for France, he took the painting with him, where he sold it for a very large sum of money to King Francis I.

Da Vinci did not give the "Mona Lisa" to the customer

Further, the fate of the canvas was not easy. He was either praised or forgotten. But it became a cult at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1911, a scandal erupted. The Italian stole Leonardo's work from the Louvre, although the motivation is still unclear. During the investigation, even Picasso and Apollinaire were under suspicion.

Salvador Dali. Self-portrait as Mona Lisa, 1954

The media staged an orgy: every day, this way and that, it was discussed who the thief was and when the police would find the masterpiece. In terms of sensationalism, only the Titanic could compete.

The secret of the mystery of the "Mona Lisa" - in the way Leonardo used sfumato

Black PR has done its job. The picture became almost an icon, the image of the Mona Lisa was replicated as mysterious and mystical. People with a particularly fine mental organization sometimes could not withstand the forces of the newly appeared cult and went crazy. As a result, adventures awaited the Mona Lisa - from an assassination attempt with acid to an attack with heavy objects.

The fate of the artist

Painter, philosopher, musician, naturalist, engineer. Man is universal. That was Leonardo. Painting was for him an instrument of universal knowledge of the world. And it was thanks to him that painting began to be understood as free art and not just a craft.

"Francis I at the death of Leonardo da Vinci". Ingres, 1818

Before him, the figures in the paintings looked more like statues. Leonardo was the first to guess that understatement is needed on the canvas - when the form, as if covered with a veil, in some places seems to dissolve into the shadows. This method is called sfumato. It is to him that the Mona Lisa owes its mystery.

The corners of the lips and eyes are covered with soft shadows. This creates a feeling of understatement, the expression of a smile and a glance elude us. And the longer we look at the canvas, the more we are fascinated by this mystery.