MONA LISA
Questions to arouse interest. What is this woman doing? Where do you think she is sitting? How is she dressed? How has she arranged her hair? What can you say of her hands? How many think she is smiling? that she is sad? that she is vain and self-conscious, or dreamy and forgetful of self? How many think she is looking at us? beyond us? What is there mysterious about her expression? Why do you think no one is able to understand it?
Original Picture: Louvre Gallery, Paris.
Artist: Leonardo da Vinci (lā´ō när´dō dä vēn´chē).
Birthplace: Vinci, Italy.
Dates: Born, 1452; died, 1519.
The story of the picture. When the artist, Leonardo da Vinci, was a boy he liked nothing better than to model in clay. Although he modeled many figures in action, his chief delight was to model heads of smiling women and children. His boyhood was such a happy one, and he was so well liked, that even people with the most severe features relaxed them in a smile when he appeared. If they did not, he quickly made a sketch so comical in expression that they could not fail to be amused.
After he grew to manhood he had a very dear friend named Francesco del Gioconda, who asked him to paint a portrait of his wife, Mona Lisa, or La Gioconda, as the picture is often called. Leonardo wished to make this something more than a mere likeness. He wished it to show the character and soul of the woman herself. It proved to be a most difficult task, for after four years the portrait was put aside as unfinished.
Many critics claim that he intended to paint a face that no one could understand; others claim that the lady’s moods were so changeable and her expressions so various that he tried to paint them all in one. The picture remains a mystery which no one seems to understand, yet like all mysteries it is fascinating and our interest in it grows stronger the longer we study it.
Many do not care for it at first, especially those who see it without its beautiful coloring, but few fail to find it interesting if they but linger long enough.