author
Da vinci
Year 1503
Original dimensions 77 x 53
Original material oil paint. Sketchpad
A Painter, Sculptor, Architect, Engineer and Scientist of Italy, Leonardo da Vinci was one of the most original of the renaissance celebrities, and his most important achievement was the combination of science and works of art.
Da Vinci's composition, simple and magnificent, is not arranged in some planes found in linear vision, as in the fifteenth century composition, but in the form radiating from the central point or rotating around the inner axis as the cornerstone, and he also uses oil paint as the medium to expand the field, so that it contains the entire color field from dark to light, that is, the "chiaroscuro method", and the space in his paintings and many sketches seems to be filled with light and atmosphere, and the edges of his figures and objects are therefore many blurred.
The Mona Lisa, created between 1503 and 1506, in addition to being famous for being a beautiful woman, is also a typical representative of portraiture, and also expresses a high degree of oil painting technique, especially with its background smudge effect, and the mona Lisa's face and hand treatment of light and shade, the whole painting is shrouded in a comfortable, quiet atmosphere. The portrait took Da Vinci four years, and when he finished it, he was reluctant to give it to Zorgondo (Mona Lisa's husband) or anyone else. When he was invited by the King of France, he left Italy with this portrait and went to France. Leonardo da Vinci died in France, which is why the painting was in France.
This portrait of a Florentine woman set against the backdrop of a mysterious mountain scenery can be said to be the best in portraiture. Da Vinci seems to have injected life into the painting, and now the color of the painting has dimmed, cracks have appeared, covered with dirt and a layer of paint, but the profound power of Da Vinci's painting technique can still be felt. Before the fifteenth century, portraits in Italy were almost always depicting sides, and there were fewer works that could express the breath of life, one of the reasons for which was influenced by the side portraits on Roman coins. Portraits were originally ordered only by the wealthy, high-ranking classes, who demanded portraits that would demonstrate individual power, but by the fifteenth century portraits had become common among the wealthy merchant class, and these new patrons of the arts preferred rigid, formalized postures to positive portraits that conveyed the personality of the people in the paintings.
Da Vinci used a halo method, that is, to apply transparent oil paint layers to gradually blur the light and dark lines of the underlying colors, and he also removed the obstructive contour lines. Let the characters emerge softly. Mona Lisa's smile always carries a veil of secrecy, because the corners of her slightly upturned mouth are not evenly balanced, the contours of the lips are not clear, and the halo method makes the subtle fusion of light and shadow, successfully showing a unique effect.
Mona Lisa's eyes were very graceful and gentle, and she looked ahead with an unfathomable meaning. But if you look closely at the painting in the Louvre, she has neither eyelashes nor eyebrows. This may be because of the beauty technique of shaving eyebrows that was popular in Florence at that time, so the eyebrows and eyelashes were removed. Her right hand is gently resting on her left hand, and the posture is very elegant, which also exudes her peaceful and calm state of mind. This arm and hand posture makes the body form a stable triangular composition, guiding the viewer's gaze to rotate with her surroundings, showing the dynamic sense of the picture.
The background that sets off the elegant gesture of the Mona Lisa is a vast desert and desolate mountain landscape. Compared to the delicate depiction of her face, the brushstrokes of the background are much lighter. Leonardo da Vinci's preference for depicting natural landscapes that exude a mysterious atmosphere. Therefore, in this painting, except for the winding roads and bridges in the middle scene, the rest is not at all like a real-world scene.