French researcher and consultant at the Leonardo da Vinci Research Center in Los Angeles, Jean Frank, recently announced that he was able to repeat the unique technique of the great master, thanks to which La Gioconda seems alive.
"In terms of technique, the Mona Lisa has always been considered something inexplicable. Now I think I have an answer to that question," says Frank.
Reference: sfumato technique is a painting technique invented by Leonardo da Vinci. It lies in the fact that objects in the paintings should not have clear boundaries. Everything should be like in life: blurry, penetrate one into another, breathe. Da Vinci practiced this technique by looking at damp spots on walls, ash, clouds or dirt. He deliberately fumigated the room where he worked in order to look for images in clubs.
According to Jean Frank, the main difficulty of this technique lies in the smallest smears (about a quarter of a millimeter), which are not available for recognition either under a microscope or with an X-ray. Thus, it took several hundred sessions to paint da Vinci's painting. The image of La Gioconda consists of approximately 30 layers of liquid, almost transparent oil paint... For such jewelry work, da Vinci, apparently, had to use a magnifying glass simultaneously with a brush.
According to the researcher, he managed to reach only the level of the early works of the master. However, already now his research has been honored to be close to the canvases of the great Leonardo da Vinci. The Uffizi Museum in Florence placed 6 tables by Frank next to the masterpieces of the master, which describe in stages how da Vinci painted the eye of Mona Lisa, and two paintings by Leonardo recreated by him.
It is known that the composition of "Mona Lisa" is built on "golden triangles". These triangles, in turn, are pieces of a regular star-shaped pentagon. But researchers do not see any secret meanings in this, they are rather inclined to explain the expressiveness of the Gioconda by the technique of spatial perspective.
Da Vinci was one of the first to use this technique, he made the background of the picture indistinct, slightly blurred, thereby increasing the emphasis on the outlines of the foreground.
Mona Lisa
Unique techniques allowed da Vinci to create such a vivid portrait of a woman that people, looking at him, perceive her feelings in different ways. Is she sad or smiling? Scientists managed to solve this riddle. The computer program Urbana-Champaign, created by scientists from the Netherlands and the USA, made it possible to calculate that Mona Lisa's smile is 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry. The program analyzed the main features of the face, lip curvature and wrinkles around the eyes, and then evaluated the face according to six main groups of emotions.
For decades, historians, art critics, journalists and simply interested people have been arguing about the riddles of the Mona Lisa. What is the secret of her smile? Who is actually depicted in Leonardo's portrait? More than 8 million visitors come to the Louvre every year to admire his creation.
So how did this modestly dressed woman with a slight, subtle smile take pride of place on the podium among the legendary creations of other great artists?
Well-deserved glory
Let's first forget that "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci is a brilliant creation of the artist. What do we see in front of us? An elderly, modestly dressed woman is looking at us with a barely noticeable smile on her face. She is not beautiful, but something in her catches the eye. Glory is an amazing phenomenon. No advertisement will help to promote a mediocre picture, and "La Gioconda" is a visiting card of the famous Florentine, known all over the world.
The quality of the painting is impressive, it brings together all the achievements of the Renaissance at the highest level. Here the landscape is subtly combined with the portrait, the gaze is directed at the viewer, the well-known "counterpost" pose, the pyramidal composition ... The technique itself is admirable: each of the thinnest layers was superimposed on the other only after the previous one had dried. Using the "sfumato" technique, Leonardo achieved a fading image of objects, with a brush he conveyed the outlines of air, resurrected the play of light and shadow. This is the main value of da Vinci's "Mona Lisa".
Universal recognition
It was the artists who were the first admirers of Leonardo da Vinci's La Gioconda. Painting of the XVI century is literally filled with traces of the influence of "Mona Lisa". Take, for example, the great Raphael: he seemed to have fallen ill with a painting by Leonardo, the features of the Gioconda can also be caught in the portrait of the Florentine woman, in The Lady with the Unicorn, and most surprisingly, even in the male portrait of Baldazar Castiglione. Leonardo, without suspecting it, created a visual aid for his followers, who discovered a lot of new things in painting, based on the portrait of "Mona Lisa".
An artist and art critic, he was the first to translate the glory of "La Gioconda" into words. In his "Biographies of Famous Painters ..." he called the portrait more divine than human, in addition, he gave such an assessment, never having seen the picture live. The author only expressed the general opinion, thus giving “Gioconda” a high reputation in professional circles.
Who posed for the portrait?
The only confirmation of how the creation of the portrait went is the words of Giorgio Vasavi, who claims that the painting depicts the wife of Francesco Giocondo, the Florentine magnate, 25-year-old Mona Lisa. He says that while da Vinci was painting the portrait, the girls constantly played the lyre and sang around the girl, and the court jesters supported good mood, it is because of this that Mona Lisa's smile is so gentle and pleasant.
But there is plenty of evidence that Giorgio was wrong. First, the girl's head is covered with a mourning widow's veil, and Francesco Giocondo has lived a long life. Secondly, why didn't Leonardo give the portrait to the client?
It is known that the artist did not part with the portrait until his death, although he was offered a lot of money at that time. In 1925, art critics suggested that the portrait belonged to the mistress of Giuliano Medici, the widow of Constance d'Avalos. Later, Carlo Pedretti put forward another option: it could be Pacifika Bandano, Pedretti's other mistress. She was the widow of a Spanish nobleman, was well educated, had a cheerful disposition and adorned any company with her presence.
Who is the real Mona Lisa Leonardo da Vinci? Opinions differ. Perhaps Lisa Gherardini, and perhaps Isabella Gualando, Filiberta of Savoy, or Pacifika Brandano ... Who knows?
From king to king, from kingdom to kingdom
The most serious collectors of the 16th century were the kings, it was their attention that the work needed to win in order to break out of the tight circle of respect among the artists. The first place where the portrait of Mona Lisa was seen was the bath of the king. The monarch placed the picture there not because of disrespect or ignorance of what kind of brilliant creation he got, on the contrary, the bath in Fontainebleau was the most important place in the French kingdom. There the king rested, entertained himself with his mistresses, received ambassadors.
After Fontainebleau, the painting "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci visited the walls of the Louvre, Versailles, Tuileries, for two centuries it traveled from palace to palace. La Gioconda darkened a lot; due to multiple not entirely successful restorations, her eyebrows and two columns behind her back disappeared. If words could describe everything that Mona Lisa saw outside the walls of French palaces, then the works of Alexandre Dumas would seem dry and boring textbooks.
Have you forgotten about "La Gioconda"?
In the 18th century, luck turned away from the legendary painting. "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci simply did not fit into the parameters of the beauties of classicism and frivolous rococo shepherdesses. At first she was transferred to the rooms of ministers, gradually she sank lower and lower in the court hierarchy until she found herself in one of the darkest corners of Versailles, where only cleaning women and petty officials could see her. The painting was not included in the collection of the best paintings of the French king, presented to the public in 1750.
The French Revolution changed the situation. The painting, along with others, was confiscated from the king's collection for the first museum in the Louvre. It turned out that, unlike kings, artists were not for a moment disappointed in Leonardo's creation. Fragonard, a member of the Commission of the Convention, was able to adequately appreciate the painting and included it in the list of the most valuable works of the museum. After that, the picture was able to admire not only kings and but also everyone who wanted to the best museum the world.
Such different interpretations of the Mona Lisa smile
As you know, you can smile in different ways: seductive, caustic, sad, embarrassed or happy. But none of these definitions fit. One of the "experts" claims that the person depicted in the picture is pregnant, and smiles in an attempt to catch the movement of the fetus. Another says that she smiles at Leonardo, her lover.
One of the famous versions says that "La Gioconda" ("Mona Lisa") is a self-portrait of Leonardo. Recently, using a computer, the anatomical features of the La Gioconda and da Vinci's faces were compared using the artist's self-portrait, drawn. It turned out that they match perfectly. It turns out that Mona Lisa is the female hypostasis of genius, and her smile is the smile of Leonardo himself.
Why does Mona Lisa's smile fade and reappear?
When we look at the portrait of La Gioconda, it seems to us that her smile is fickle: it fades away, then reappears. Why it happens? The point is that there is central vision, which focuses on details, and peripheral vision, which is not so clear. Thus, it is worth focusing your gaze on the lips of the Mona Lisa - the smile disappears, but if you look into the eyes or try to fully cover the face - she smiles.
Today, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is in the Louvre. For an almost perfect security system, about $ 7 million had to be paid. It includes bulletproof glass, the latest alarm system and a specially developed program that maintains the necessary microclimate inside. At the moment, the cost of insuring the painting is $ 3 billion.
Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo - "Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo." In Italian ma donna means "my lady" (cf. Eng. "My lady" and fr. "Madam"), in an abbreviated version this expression was transformed into monna or mona... The second part of the model's name, considered her husband's surname, is del Giocondo, in Italian also has a direct meaning and is translated as "funny, playing" and accordingly la Gioconda - "funny, playing" (compare with English joking).The name "La Joconda" was first mentioned in 1525 in the inheritance list of the artist Salai, heir and pupil of da Vinci, who left the painting to his sisters in Milan. The inscription describes her as a portrait of a lady named La Gioconda.
The history of the painting
Even the first Italian biographers of Leonardo da Vinci wrote about the place that this painting occupied in the artist's work. Leonardo did not shy away from work on Mona Lisa - as was the case with many other orders, but, on the contrary, gave himself up to her with some kind of passion. All the time that remained with him from the work on "The Battle of Anghiari" was devoted to her. He spent considerable time on it and, leaving Italy in adulthood, took with him to France, among some other selected paintings. Da Vinci had a special affection for this portrait, and also reflected 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, you can find many instructions that undoubtedly refer to the "La Gioconda ".
Vasari's message
Most likely, Vasari just added a story about jesters for the entertainment of readers. Vasari's text also contains an accurate description of the eyebrows missing from the painting. This inaccuracy could arise only if the author described the picture from memory or from the stories of others. Alexei 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 started painting the portrait before leaving for Caesar, Vasari , I would say that he wrote it for five years. " The scientist also writes about the erroneous indication of the incompleteness of the portrait - “the portrait, undoubtedly, was written for a long time and was brought to the end, no matter what Vasari said, who in his biography of Leonardo stylized him as an artist who fundamentally did not know how to finish any major work. And not only was it finished, but it is one of the most carefully finished pieces of Leonardo. "
An interesting fact is that in his description, Vasari admires Leonardo's talent to convey physical phenomena, and not the similarities between the model and the painting. It seems that it was this “physical” feature of the masterpiece that left a deep impression on the visitors of 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 it was acquired by him and why Leonardo did not return it to the customer.
Other
Perhaps the artist did not really finish the painting in Florence, but took it with him when he left in 1516 and applied the last stroke in the absence of witnesses who could tell Vasari about it. In that case, he finished it shortly before his death in 1519. (In France, he lived in Clos-Luce near the royal castle of Amboise.)
Although Vasari gives information about the personality of a woman, there has been uncertainty about her for a long time and many versions have been expressed:
Nevertheless, the version about the conformity of the generally accepted name of the model's personality picture in 2005 is considered to have found final confirmation. Scientists from the University of Heidelberg studied the notes in the margins of the folio owned by a Florentine official, a personal friend of the artist Agostino Vespucci. In the notes on the margins of the book, he compares Leonardo with the famous ancient Greek painter Apelles and notes that "Da Vinci is currently working on three paintings, one of which is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini"... Thus, 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 a young family and to commemorate the birth of their second son, named Andrea.
The bottom edge of the painting cuts off the other half of her body, so the portrait is almost half-length. The chair in which the model is sitting is on the balcony or on the loggia, the parapet line of which is visible behind her elbows. It is believed that earlier the picture could be wider and accommodate two side columns of the loggia, from which at the moment there are two column bases, whose fragments are visible along the edges of the parapet.
The Loggia overlooks a desolate wilderness with winding streams and a lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains that stretches to the high-rise horizon behind the figure. “Mona Lisa is shown sitting in a chair against the background of a landscape, and the very juxtaposition of her figure, very close to the viewer, with a landscape visible from afar, like a huge mountain, gives the image extraordinary grandeur. This impression is facilitated by the contrast of the increased plastic tactility of the figure and its smooth, generalized silhouette with a landscape that looks like a vision, receding into the misty distance, with bizarre rocks and water channels winding among them.
Composition
Boris Vipper writes that, despite the traces of the quattrocento, "with her clothes with a small cut on the chest and sleeves in loose folds, just like the straight pose, a slight turn of the body and a gentle gesture of the hands, Mona Lisa entirely belongs to the era of the classical style." Mikhail Alpatov points out that “La Gioconda is perfectly inscribed in a strictly proportional rectangle, its half-figure forms something whole, folded hands give its image completeness. Now, of course, there could be no question of the bizarre curls of the early Annunciation. However, no matter how softened all the contours, the wavy strand of Gioconda's hair is consonant with a transparent veil, and the hanging fabric thrown over her shoulder finds an echo in the smooth windings of a distant road. In all this, Leonardo shows his ability to create according to the laws of rhythm and harmony. "
State of the art
"Mona Lisa" has darkened very much, which is considered the result of the inherent tendency of its author to experiment with paints, because of which the fresco "The Last Supper" practically died out. The artist's contemporaries, however, managed to express their enthusiasm not only for the composition, drawing 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 been originally red, as can be seen from a copy of the Prado painting.
The current state of the picture is bad enough, which is why the staff of the Louvre announced that they would no longer give it to exhibitions: "Cracks have formed in the picture, and one of them stops a few millimeters above the head of Mona Lisa."
Analysis
Technics
As Dzhivelegov notes, by the time of the creation of Mona Lisa, Leonardo's skill “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 seem that only the last, most difficult tasks of artistic technique deserve that. to do them. And when, in the person of Mona Lisa, he found a model that satisfied his needs, he tried to solve some of the highest and most difficult problems of painting technique, which he had not yet solved. He wanted with the help of techniques already developed and tested by him earlier, especially with the help of his famous sfumato, who had given extraordinary effects before, to do more than he did before: to create a living face of a living person and to reproduce the features and expression of this face in such a way that they would fully reveal the inner world of a person. " Boris Vipper asks the question “by what means is this spirituality achieved, this non-dying spark of consciousness in the image of the Mona Lisa, then two main means should be named. One is the wonderful Leonardo sfumato. No wonder Leonardo liked to say that "modeling is the soul of painting." It is sfumato that creates the wet look of Mona Lisa, light as the wind, her smile, incomparable caressing softness of the touch of her hands. Sfumato is a subtle haze that envelops the face and figure, softening contours and shadows. Leonardo recommended for this purpose to place between the light source and the bodies, as he puts it, "a kind of fog."
Alpatov adds that “in the softly melting haze enveloping the face and figure, Leonardo managed to make one feel the boundless variability of human facial expressions. Although Gioconda's eyes are attentively and calmly looking at the viewer, thanks to the shading of her eye sockets, one might think that they are frowning a little; her lips are compressed, but near their corners subtle shadows are outlined, which make one believe that every minute they will open, smile, speak. The very contrast between her gaze and a half-smile on her lips gives an idea of \u200b\u200bthe contradictory nature of her experiences. (...) Leonardo worked on it for several years, making sure 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 penumbra to semi-light. "
Scenery
Art critics emphasize the organic nature with which the artist combined portrait characteristic personalities with a landscape full of special mood, and how much this increased the dignity of the portrait.
Wipper considers landscape to be the second medium that creates the spirituality of the painting: “The second medium is the relationship between figure and background. Fantastic, rocky, as if seen through the sea water, the landscape in the portrait of Mona Lisa has a different reality than her figure itself. Mona Lisa has a reality of life, a landscape has a 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 dream.
Renaissance art researcher Viktor Grashchenkov writes that Leonardo, thanks in part 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 external appearance and mental structure of a particular person is conveyed to them with unprecedented synthetics. This impersonal psychologism corresponds to the cosmic abstraction of a landscape that is almost completely devoid of any signs of human presence. Smoky light and shade not only softens all outlines of the figure and landscape and all color tones. In the subtlest transitions from light to shadow, almost imperceptible to the eye, in the vibration of Leonardo's "sfumato", all certainty 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 abstractedly from their individually-specific form. But behind the barely noticeable movement, which, like a light ripple, runs along the motionless surface of this harmonious world, one guesses all the richness of the possibilities of physical and spiritual existence. "
"Mona Lisa" is sustained in golden-brown and reddish tones of the foreground and emerald green tones of the distance. "Transparent, like glass, paints form an alloy, as if created not by the hand of a person, but by the inner power of matter, which from solution gives rise to crystals that are perfect in shape." Like many of Leonardo's works, this work has darkened with time, and its color ratios have changed somewhat, however, thoughtful juxtapositions in the colors of carnation and clothing and their general contrast with bluish-green are still clearly perceived. The "underwater" tone of the landscape .
Gioconda's smile
The art critic Rotenberg believes that “there are few portraits in the entire world art that are equal to Mona Lisa in terms of the power of expression of the human personality, embodied in the unity of character and intellect. It is the extraordinary intellectual charge of Leonardo's portrait that distinguishes it from the portraits of the Quattrocento. This feature of his is perceived all the more acutely because it refers to a female portrait, in which the character of the model was previously revealed in a completely different, mainly lyrical, figurative tonality. The feeling of strength emanating from Mona Lisa is an organic combination of inner composure and a sense of personal freedom, 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 aforementioned absence of eyebrows and a shaved forehead, perhaps, involuntarily enhances the strange mystery in her expression. Then he writes about the power of the painting: “If we ask ourselves what is the great attractive power of Mona Lisa, its truly incomparable hypnotic effect, then there can be only one answer - in her spirituality. The smartest and most opposite interpretations were put into the smile of "La Gioconda". They wanted to read in it pride and tenderness, sensuality and coquetry, cruelty and modesty. The mistake was, firstly, that they were looking for individual, subjective mental properties in the image of Mona Lisa at all costs, while there is no doubt that Leonardo was striving precisely for typical spirituality. Secondly, and this is perhaps even more important, they tried to ascribe an emotional content to the spirituality of Mona Lisa, while in fact it has intellectual roots. The miracle of the Mona Lisa lies precisely in what she thinks; that, being in front of a yellowed, cracked board, we irresistibly feel the presence of a being endowed with reason, a being with whom we can talk and from whom we can expect a response. "
Lazarev analyzed her as an art scholar: “This smile is not so much an individual feature of Mona Lisa as a typical formula of psychological revival, 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 the strict account of the expressive values \u200b\u200bof 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, stiff from the face, it turns it into a mirror of vague, indefinite emotional experiences, in its elusive lightness it can be compared only with a ripple running through the water ”.
Her analysis attracted the attention of not only art critics, but also psychologists. Sigmund Freud writes: “Whoever imagines Leonardo's paintings will have a memory of a strange, captivating and mysterious smile that lurked on his lips. female images... The smile, frozen on the extended, quivering lips, became characteristic of him and is most often called "Leonard's". In the peculiarly beautiful appearance of the Florentine Mona Lisa del Gioconda, she most of all captures and plunges the viewer into confusion. This smile demanded one interpretation, but found the most diverse, of which none satisfied. (…) The guess that two different elements were combined in the Mona Lisa's smile was born by many critics. Therefore, in the expression on the face of the beautiful Florentine, they saw the most perfect image of antagonism governing a woman's love life, restraint and seduction, sacrificial tenderness and recklessly demanding sensuality, absorbing a man as something foreign. (...) 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 viewer is especially fascinated by the demonic charm of this smile. Hundreds of poets and writers wrote about this woman, who seems now seductively smiling, now frozen, coldly and soullessly staring into space, and no one guessed her smile, no one interpreted her thoughts. Everyone, even the landscape, is mysterious, like a dream, quivering, like a pre-storm haze of sensuality (Muther).
Place in the development of the genre
Mona Lisa is considered one of the best works in the portrait genre, which influenced the works of the High Renaissance and, indirectly, through them, the entire subsequent development of the portrait genre, which “should always return to the Gioconda as an unattainable but obligatory model."
Art historians note that the portrait of Mona Lisa was a decisive step towards 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 those in the main painting genres - in compositions on religious and mythological themes. The inequality of the portrait genre was already evident in the very “iconography” of portrait images. The portraits of the 15th century proper, with all their indisputable physiognomic similarities and the feeling of inner strength emitted by them, were also distinguished by external and internal constraint. All that richness of human feelings and experiences that characterizes the biblical and mythological images of the painters of the 15th century was usually not the property of their portraits. 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 importance of the portrait image has become on a par with the brightest images of other painting genres. "
In his pioneering work, Leonardo shifted the main center of gravity to the face of the portrait. At the same time he also used his hands as a powerful means of psychological characterization. Having made the portrait generational in format, the artist was able to demonstrate a wider range of pictorial techniques. And the most important thing in the figurative structure of the portrait is the subordination of all the details to the guiding idea. “The head and hands are the undoubted center of the picture, to which the rest of its elements were sacrificed. The fabulous landscape, as it were, shines 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 fulfilled by a garment that breaks up into the smallest folds. Leonardo deliberately avoids heavy draperies that could obscure the expressiveness of his hands and face. Thus, he makes the latter perform with a special force, the more the more modest and neutral the landscape and clothing, similar to a quiet, barely noticeable accompaniment. "
Pupils and followers of Leonardo created numerous replicas from "Mona Lisa". Some of them (from the collection of Vernon, USA; from the collection of Walter, 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 a copy. There is also an iconography "Nude Mona Lisa", represented by several versions ("Beautiful Gabrielle", "Monna Bath", the Hermitage "Donna Nuda"), made, apparently, by the students of the artist himself. A large number of them gave rise to an unprovable version that there was a version of a naked Mona Lisa, written by the master himself.
After the Mona Lisa gained incredible popularity due to its theft in 1911 (see section below), artists drew attention to it, making it an object of experiments and giving an additional impetus to its popularity. “Malevich and Duchamp opposed their anti-art of experiment to traditional art with all its 'bourgeois' values. The audience was insulted to the core, and Mona Lisa became even more famous. "
- Kazimir Malevich in 1914 made a collage "Composition with Mona Lisa", where he crossed out the image of her reproduction twice and wrote "Partial Eclipse" at the top.
- Dadaist Marcel Duchamp in 1919 created a work, a landmark for subsequent works of artists "L.H.O.O.Q." which was a reproduction famous painting with an attached mustache. The name hid the greasiness: if you quickly pronounce "L.H.O.O.Q.", then in French you get the phrase "Elle á chaud au cul" ("She has a hot ass", that is, "the girl is very horny").
- Fernand Léger wrote Mona Lisa with Keys in 1930.
- Rene Magritte in 1960 created the painting "La Gioconda", where there is no Mona Lisa, but a window.
- Salvador Dali in 1964 wrote "Self-portrait in the image of Mona Lisa".
The Mona Lisa's worldwide exhibition tour in the 1960s contributed to the globalization of her fame (see below). This was reflected in art as well: “American avant-garde artists did not subvert La Gioconda from the pedestal, as their European colleagues once did. On the contrary, Andy Warhol, Jasper Jones, Robert Rauschenberg and other pop art stars began to exploit the image of Mona Lisa in the same way as other mainstream products - from Campbell's soup can to Marilyn Monroe.
- Andy Warhol in 1963 and 1978 made the composition "Four Mona Lisa" and "Thirty Are Better Than One Andy Warhol" (1963), "Mona Lisa (Two Times)" ().
- The representative of figurative art Fernando Botero wrote "Mona Lisa, Age Twelve" in 1959, and in 1963 he created an image of Mona Lisa in his characteristic manner, exaggerating its weight.
- Jasper Jones used her character for "Figure 7" in 1968.
- Robert Rauschenberg in 1982 created the Pneumonia Lisa.
- The famous graffiti artist Banksy created a drawing of Mona Lisa, depicted full-length, turning her back to the viewer, lifting the hem and showing her naked bottom. He also owns "Mona Lisa Mujaheddin" - Gioconda with a grenade launcher.
In modern times
Location
By the day of his death in 1525, Leonardo's assistant (and possibly lover) named Salai owned, judging by the references in his personal papers, a portrait of a woman named "La Gioconda" ( quadro de una dona aretata), which was 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 cut off the edges of the picture with the columns, which, according to most researchers, based on comparison with other portraits, existed in the original version. Unlike another cropped work of Leonardo - "Portrait of Ginevra Benchi", the lower part of which was cut off, as it suffered from 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.
King Francis I is believed to have bought the painting from the heirs of Salai (for 4,000 crowns) and kept it in his castle of Fontainebleau, where it remained until the time of Louis XIV. The latter moved her to the Palace of Versailles, and after the French Revolution she ended up in the Louvre in 1793. Napoleon hung the portrait in his bedroom at the Tuileries Palace, then she returned back to the museum. During the Second World War, for safety reasons, the painting was transported from the Louvre to the castle of Amboise (the place of death and burial of Leonardo), then to the Abbey of Loc-Dieu, and finally to the Ingres Museum in Montauban, from where, after the victory, it returned safely to its place.
One of the mysteries is connected with the deep affection that the author felt for this work. Various explanations were offered, for example, romantic: Leonardo fell in love with Mona Lisa and deliberately delayed work in order to stay with her longer, and she teased him with her mysterious smile and brought him to the greatest creative ecstasies. This version is considered just speculation. Jivelegov believes that this attachment is due to the fact that he found in it the point of application of many of his creative searches (see the Technique section). Despite the fact that "Mona Lisa" was highly appreciated by the artist's contemporaries, later her fame faded. The painting was not particularly remembered until the middle of the 19th century, when artists close to the Symbolist movement began to praise it, associating it with their ideas about female mystery. Critic Walter Pater, in his 1867 essay on da Vinci, expressed his opinion, describing the figure in the painting as a kind of mythical embodiment of eternal femininity, which is "older than the rocks between which it sits" and which "died many times and learned the secrets of the underworld." ...
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 a few years later, thanks to which it did not leave the pages of newspapers. Art critic Grigory Kozlov in his study "Attempted Art" in the chapter "La Gioconda. How to Become a Star ”details her path to fame over the centuries. He compares her glory to the spread of circles on the water from a fallen stone, and points out that over the centuries this glory went through several stages:
- 1st circle: painters and critics (16th century). Leonardo's contemporaries, who were engaged in art, highly appreciated this work. Among the fans of "Mona Lisa" were Raphael, Vasari and others.
- 2nd circle: kings (XVI-XVIII centuries). Location in the collection of Francis I of France (who hung her in his favorite room - the bath), then her journey through royal palaces (Fontainebleau, Louvre, Versailles, Tuileries). However, to XVIII century it darkened and was completely forgotten, but the French Revolution changed everything - the painting was confiscated for the world's first public museum in the Louvre, where Fragonard saw it and rated it as one of the most valuable paintings in the museum. Napoleon, having come to power, took her to his bedroom, which became a "springboard to glory" for her, but after becoming emperor, after 3 years he returned her to the Louvre Museum, which was named after him. However, the painting was well known only to connoisseurs and was by no means considered the best work of the artist.
- 3rd circle: intelligentsia (19th century). In the Louvre, "Mona Lisa" did not immediately take the leading place - the "prima donna" of the museum was Murillo's "Assumption of the Virgin" (now in the Prado). For the first time in a painting depicting the interior of the Louvre, she appeared in 1833 (artist S. Morse). The decisive role at this stage was played by romantic writers, who found in her the ideal of a femme fatale created by Leonardo, whom they worshiped (Walter Pater, Théophile Gaultier - who "invented" a smile, Jules Verne - who invented the author's love story for a model and a love triangle with her husband ). The “discovery” of the smile became the “discovery” of the painting for intellectuals. The invention of photography contributed to the spread of reproductions. “Victorian intellectuals became a sect that worshiped the mysterious and femme fatale, whose photo they kept on their desk. Walter Pater's words: "She who is older than rocks ..." - became their password. " Merezhkovsky's European bestseller "Resurrected Gods" about Leonardo picked up the theme.
- 4th circle: crowd (since 1911)... A qualitative leap in the fame of the painting is associated with its theft and return (see section below). Then the avant-garde artists took a step, choosing her as the object of their experiments.
- 5th circle: the age of globalization (2nd half of the 20th century)... De Gaulle, sending the painting in 1962 as a "diplomat" to the United States, contributed to further fame. Jacqueline Kennedy was the personal patroness of Leonardo's famous work during the Mona Lisa's visit, and the media compared both ladies, La Gioconda and Jacqueline, calling the second the modern American-French Mona Lisa. America was swept by "La Gioconda", after which the picture appeared in advertising and became a trademark. And American artists (Warhol, Rauschenberg, etc.) introduced her to pop art, like Marilyn Monroe. During a further tour of the picture, which was covered in detail by the press, it was seen by millions, for example, in the USSR it was watched by 4,600 people a day. She was assassinated several times (see Vandalism section below), and each incident spun the flywheel of fame even more.
Theft
Mona Lisa would have been known for a long time only to fine connoisseurs of fine arts, if not for her exceptional history, which ensured her worldwide fame.
The critic Abram Efros, a contemporary of her adventure, wrote: “... the museum watchman, who nowadays does not leave a single step from the picture, since its return to the Louvre after the abduction of 1911, is guarded not by the portrait of Francesco del Giocondo's wife, but by the image of some half-human, half-snake a creature, either smiling or gloomy, dominating the chilled, naked, cliffy space that stretches out behind. "
Vandalism
- In 1956, the lower part of the painting was damaged when one of the visitors doused it with acid.
- On December 30 of the same year, a young Bolivian, Ugo Ungaza Villegas, threw a stone at her and damaged the paint layer at the elbow (the loss was later recorded). The Mona Lisa was then protected with bulletproof glass, which protected it from further serious attacks.
- In April 1974, at an exhibition in Tokyo, a woman, frustrated by the museum's policy towards disabled people (who were not allowed to enter the exhibition to increase the capacity of the hall), tried to spray red paint from a can.
- On April 2, 2009, a Russian woman, who did not receive French citizenship, threw a clay cup into the glass. Both of these cases did not harm the picture.
In culture
- The Mona Lisa crater on Venus is named after her.
- The theft of the Mona Lisa is dedicated to the short story "Thief" by Georg Heim (), which gave the name to the collection of stories of the same name.
Plot
This is a portrait of Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo. Her husband, a fabric merchant from Florence, was very fond of his third wife, and therefore the portrait was commissioned from Leonardo himself.
Mona Lisa. (wikimedia.org)
The woman is sitting on the loggia. It is believed that initially the picture could have been wider and contain two side columns of the loggia, from which at the moment there are two column bases.
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.
How can you not remember the common story at one time about what the doctors saw in the portrait. Doctors of all kinds of specialties analyzed the picture, each in their own way. And as a result, they "found" so many illnesses in the Mona Lisa that it is generally unclear 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 Mona Lisa's story. 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". (wikimedia.org)
The landscape behind the Gioconda 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 Gioconda.
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 very big money to King Francis I.
Further, the fate of the canvas was not easy. He was sometimes praised, sometimes forgotten. But it became cult at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1911, a scandal erupted. The Italian stole Leonardo's work from the Louvre, however, the motivation is still unclear. During the investigation, even Picasso and Apollinaire were under suspicion.
Salvador Dali. Self-portrait as Mona Lisa, 1954. (wikimedia.org)
The media staged a bacchanalia: every day they talked about who the thief was and when the police would find the masterpiece. In terms of sensationalism, only the Titanic could compete.
Black PR has done its job. The painting became almost an icon, the image of Gioconda was replicated as mysterious and mystical. People with a particularly fine mental organization sometimes could not withstand the forces of the newly-minted cult and went crazy. As a result, "Mona Lisa" was awaited by adventures - 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 a free art, and not just a craft.
"Francis I at the death of Leonardo da Vinci" Ingres, 1818. (wikimedia.org)
Before him, the figures in the paintings were more like statues. Leonardo was the first to guess that an understatement is needed on the canvas - when the form, as if covered with a veil, in places seems to dissolve in the shadows. This method is called sfumato. It is to him that Mona Lisa owes its mystery.
The corners of the lips and eyes are covered with soft shadows. This creates a sense of understatement, the expression of a smile and gaze eludes us. And the longer we look at the canvas, the more we are fascinated by this mystery.
Leonardo da Vinci, the genius of the Renaissance, was not only one of greatest artistsbut also a great sculptor, musician, architect, natural scientist and talented inventor. He was born in 1452, died in 1519. He is one of the beacons of that brilliant period in European history of the 15-16th centuries, which gave the world the greatest artists. Everyone knows the names of Raphael, Titian, Bellini, Michelangelo - they are just some of the worthy of mention. However, no one has achieved such skill in so many different areas as Leonardo da Vinci.
"Mona Lisa" is considered the most famous painting Leonardo. We can see her in Paris, in the Louvre. Rows of long galleries, on the walls - precious evidence of the creative genius of man; every sketch, every painting is a storehouse of the historical past, living testimonies of a select few.
Proceed through the suite of halls and you will come to a small gallery, the so-called Square Room, which continues these long galleries, but is still isolated from them. On its walls there are only a few paintings, in the center there are several soft armchairs, and always a group of silent visitors crowd in front of the painting in the center, to the left of the entrance, in front of the Mona Lisa.
Some visitors sit quietly contemplating and reflecting, perhaps on the legends and traditions generated over 400 years by this unique painting, or, perhaps, in thoughtfulness they are trying to absorb all the beauty of this wonderful masterpiece, the most famous work of art and, of course , one of the greatest creations of man.
Next to this painting, the beautiful canvases that surround it pale and lose their charm. Raphael, Titian, Perugino - here they seem only a worthy setting, worthy companions of this unsurpassed masterpiece.
Aren't they from the same era? Weren't their creators fans of this great painting?
Raphael, this immortal genius, this excellent draftsman, was an ardent admirer of Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" and even, inspired by the masterpiece, left us his sketch of this painting.
Hanging in the Louvre, surrounded by beautiful paintings by Raphael and Perugino, the Mona Lisa is a great center of attraction for visitors from all over the world; among them are art connoisseurs and critics, tourists and simply sentimental amateurs.
Like many paintings of that period, this portrait did not escape the ravages of time and damage caused by the hands of inept restorers. But despite all this, he has not lost his special beauty and charm, and his beautiful face still radiates a calm and bewitching smile.
The painting is only 30 inches high and the Mona Lisa is shown sitting on a low folding chair; her body is turned to the left, her right hand rests on her left forearm. The face is slightly angled towards the viewer, while the brown eyes are looking straight at you.
Brown hair, parted in the middle and combed smoothly to the temples, falls in beautiful soft curls over the shoulders. A transparent veil is thrown over the head and curls over the shoulders. The dress was originally greenish in color with a plunging neckline, enlivened by lighter sleeves that must have once been yellow.
In the background - a fantastic landscape with hills and mountains, warm and soft colors, above it the sky is gradually brightening. Two columns at the edges of the landscape are covered by the current frame of the painting. In this canvas, all the details are beautiful, but the attention is primarily captured by the face.
The picture cannot be described in words: the longer you look at it, the more its impact on you increases, and you begin to feel that amazing charm that has conquered so many people over the centuries.
The famous Italian architect and historian Vasari, who lived in that brilliant era, wrote about the Mona Lisa:
“Leonardo agreed to paint for Francesco del Giocondo a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife. He wrote it for four years and then left without completing it. Now this painting is owned by the French king Francis. Anyone who wants to know how close art can get to the natural original should carefully consider this beautiful head.
All its details are executed with the greatest diligence. The eyes have the same shine and are just as hydrated as in life. Around them we see faint reddish-blue circles, and the eyelashes could only have been painted with a very skillful brush. You can notice where the eyebrows are wider and where they become thinner, emerging from the pores of the skin and rounded down. Everything is as natural as it can be portrayed at all. Small, beautifully carved nostrils, pinkish and delicate, executed with the greatest truthfulness. The mouth, the corners of the lips, where the pink tint turns into a natural lively complexion, are painted so excellently that they do not seem drawn, but like living flesh and blood.
Anyone who carefully looks at the dimple in the neck begins to think that he is about to be able to see the beating of the pulse. Indeed, this portrait is painted so perfectly that it makes any established artist, and indeed anyone who looks at him, tremble with excitement.