The Mona Lisa

Yokoana · Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:20 pm Post subject:

The Mona Lisa is indeed a very famous work of art, and there are many things that involve it: the good, bad, and incrediblly odd.

Here, you can post facts you find, wether commonly referred to, or known by a treasured few.
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One thing I didn't know before is that the Mona Lisa was painted on wood, (Of course, I didn't really know all that much before.) and France made a law that no paintings on wood could leave its borders, just so the Mona Lisa could stay there.

I also remember that only Americans called the Mona Lisa so. In all other countries, it is called by another name, which escapes me....
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Brianhjh · Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:28 pm Post subject:

Couldn't you make a thread about Leonardo Davinci's works? :huh:

just to follow the tradition of this section...
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Yokoana · Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:52 pm Post subject:

Well........^^;; That's one of the reasons I was not sure if it fit here..........^^;;;;;;;
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celestina67 · Would like fries with that Joined: 26 Jun 2005 Posts: 811

Monalisa's hands on the painting are not really her hands...it was someone else's hands.Her hands were not 'pretty' enough.

SolitaryDreamer · Newb Joined: 09 Jul 2005 Posts: 6

Hey! Anyone notice that behind Mona Lisa, one side of the background is different from the other...
And I really doubt that was a stupid mistake... Or was it...?
Probably not, right?

BrokenButterfly · Rookie Joined: 22 Jul 2005 Posts: 33

Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.

1_4lvl · Member Joined: 10 Jun 2005 Posts: 87

[quote="celestina67 (kartina)"] Monalisa's hands on the painting are not really her hands...it was someone else's hands.Her hands were not 'pretty' enough. [/quote]
Actualy, I've been told that no one really knows who Monolisa was. I've seen historians who think it's actualy Davinci in drag. Hard to believe... but meh.

Oh yeah, there's the whole golden ractagle thing. Half of it one way is still proportional to the whole thing, and half of that half is proportional, and half of that is still proportional... @-@ it's a mind boggling concept that we learned about it geometry class. the painting itself is a rectangle like that, and then there are others that fit into the rest of the portrait.

Oh... And I've never confirmed this myself, but my painting teacher told me that her face isn't symetrical, just like our faces are for real. A few of my other art teachers have said the same thing. my photography teacher confirmed it with some rather humorus results.

I'm not sure if any of what I just said is urban ledgend or truth... so yeah, just stuff I've heard from teachers and the history channel.

Ogrim_Doomhammer · Oldbie Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 2116

The other name of Mona Lisa is "La gioconda" and its called that way because the woman that leonardo painted was Lisa Gherardini, who was married with Francesco del Giocondo. Did you know that it was stolen in 1911?
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PunchenAngel666 · Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 7:45 pm Post subject:

i thought they never actualy knew who the person was that davinci based it on but i guess i got confused with something else. isnt it also like a little bit bigger then a pic of computer paper or something? i havent studied davinci's stuff in a long long time so ive totaly forgot. then again in my art class we dont learn shitaki mushrooms.
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Yokoana · Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 9:02 am Post subject:

[quote]Did you know that it was stolen in 1911?[/quote]

Didn't the guy copy and sell it, then accidentally sell the real one to this one guy, who turned it back in to the museum? I'm not sure.
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coolgirlkdd · Forum contributor Joined: 07 Apr 2004 Posts: 704

you know mona lisa wasn't devinci's bestb work? he hated the mona lisa. and it was never finished.
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PhunkYMunkY · Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 11:28 am Post subject:

I heard they got a royal jester to keep her entertained while the guy painted. Hence the smile.

[img]http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/vinci/joconde/joconde.jpg[/img]

Brianhjh · Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 1:16 pm Post subject:

That cracking painting is worth 2 billion euros. :rolleyes:

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Papercut_Dragon · Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 9:32 pm Post subject:

[sorry, double post]
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Papercut_Dragon · Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 9:35 pm Post subject:

I've seen it in person . . . lol there was this huge mob taking pictures of it. And the only English-speaking guard in the whole place was standing off to the side, yelling at people to take one picture and then move on.

It's not technically da Vinci in drag; he just used his face as a reference. He carried that darn thing around with him for a whole bunch of years, and he obviously couldn't have the model with him all that time, so he used his face.

It's a tiny li'l thing . . . not as nearly as big as you'd expect. Isn't it something like 14''x24''?
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SkyBluePink · Newb Joined: 04 Aug 2005 Posts: 9

I know it's in the most surreal room in the whole Louvre.
Its one tiny, frankly plain painting behind glass with SWARMS of people crushing up to see it when they know what it looks like allready, while the GIGANTIC, fancifull paintings surrounding it go unnoticed.
very, very surreal.

Brianhjh · Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2005 7:08 pm Post subject:

It's probably because it is one of the oldest oil paintings.... and it was preserved quite well. (the older ones were Fresco). and also, the smile of Mona Lisa is felt differently by every individual, they credit this to a special way it was painted... I'll add an article from Wikipedia here if I consider it being informative...
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Brianhjh · Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 12:07 pm Post subject:

Mona Lisa's Sfumato,

brought to you from Wikipedia, Free Encyclopedia.

Many researchers have tried to explain why the smile is seen so differently by people. The explanations range from scientific theories about human vision to curious supposition about Mona Lisa's identity and feelings. Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University has argued that the smile is mostly drawn in low spatial frequencies, and so can best be seen with one's peripheral vision. Christopher Tyler and Leonid Kontsevich of the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco believe that the changing nature of the smile is caused by variable levels of random noise in human visual system. Dina Goldin, Adjunct Professor at Brown University, has argued that the secret is in the non-static position of Mona Lisa's facial muscles, where our mind's eye unconsciously extends her smile; the result is an unusual dynamicity to the face that invokes subtle yet strong emotions in the viewer of the painting.

Although utilizing a seemingly simple formula for portraiture, the expressive synthesis that Leonardo achieved between sitter and landscape has placed this work in the canon of the most popular and most analyzed paintings of all time. The sensuous curves of the woman's hair and clothing, created through sfumato, are echoed in the undulating valleys and rivers behind her. The sense of overall harmony achieved in the paintingespecially apparent in the sitter's faint smilereflects Leonardo's idea of the cosmic link connecting humanity and nature, making this painting an enduring record of Leonardo's vision and genius.

The enigmatic woman is portrayed seated in what appears to be an open loggia (note the dark pillar bases on either side). Behind her a vast landscape recedes to icy mountains. Winding paths and a distant bridge give only the slightest indications of human presence. The blurred outlines, graceful figure, dramatic contrasts of light and dark, and overall feeling of calm are characteristic of Leonardo's style.

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Miss_Ratface · Newb Joined: 27 May 2004 Posts: 12

there is a 'theory' that he carried it around so much because she reminded him of his mother. I bet my head that it was Freud? ^^ who else.

i think that also, he was separated from his biological mother and lived mostly with his father. He had a substitute mother/nanny/whatever, so they say that in the pictures where Maria and her mother Anne appear at the same age, there is a background from his experience of 'two mothers'... so much about the mother complex.

Hey, maybe Mona L. was just a woman selling apples on the street. Prove me wrong Very Happy

Ryo88 · Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:15 am Post subject:

i kno why the mona lisa looks like that... the painter he had his son dress up as a woman because no woman would sit there and sit for hours on end just to be painted by some unknown artist... and the reason lisa is smileing is because lisa is really a guy and no one knew... ^^
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