Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian
polymath born on April 15, 1942. A polymath is a person whose expertise varies
in several fields of study. Da Vinci is a scientist, sculptor, architect,
mathematician, draftsman, engineer, inventor, musician, anatomist, geologist,
cartographer, botanist, and writer. However, he was most renowned mainly as a
painter. Among his greatest works are: The
Last Supper, which is perhaps the most reproduced religious painting of all
time, and the Mona Lisa, arguably the
most famous painting in the world. Mona Lisa is also called the “La Gioconda” by the Italians meaning “a
light-hearted woman”, but the French refer to it as “La Joconde”. The Mona Lisa is an oil painting done by Da Vinci on a
poplar wood panel sometime between 1503 and 1506, when he was living in
Florence, Italy, and it now hangs in the Louvre, in Paris. The painting
presents a woman with an iconic smile in half-body portrait, which has a
landscape background. The reason behind the fame of the Mona Lisa is the mysterious
smile on the woman’s face, in which the exact nature of the smile cannot be
determined. Da Vinci managed to capture so many different emotions and
character-traits in one painting that whenever one looks at Mona Lisa; one sees
something different depending on which direction the painting is looked at. He
continuously worked on the Mona Lisa, completing it technically in 1507, but
his death in 1519 finally ended his work on it.
Da Vinci may have been the greatest portraitist of
all time. The Mona Lisa painting was among the first portraits to illustrate
the sitter before an imaginary landscape and he was one of the first painters
to use aerial perspective to create the illusion of depth. Leonardo was a
scientist and from his study of the human anatomy, he applied what he knew to
give the Mona Lisa realism. He effectively created a visual impression of
distance between a seated female figure and the observer. The woman sits
upright with her arms folded and her gaze is fixed on the observer. The armrest
of the chair functions as a dividing element between Mona Lisa and the viewer.
Behind her is a vast landscape of mountains, valleys and rivers. The sense of
overall harmony achieved in the painting reflects the idea of a link that
connects humanity and nature. Leonardo da Vinci created the dark mood and smoky
colors that added to Mona Lisa’s charm. He had applied techniques and elements
new to the era. Da Vinci perfected the technique known as sfumato, which comes
from the Italian word “sfumare”, meaning “to tone down” or “to evaporate like
smoke”. His painting technique used mostly earthy browns, greens and blues in
muted intensity that unites the elements in the painting.
Leonardo da Vinci usually painted with oil paint that
he made by hand from ground pigments; and later in his career, he worked with
tempera made from egg whites. He would first start covering his canvass with a
detailed underpainting in a neutral gray or brown color and apply dark
transparent glazes on top to add a depth that could not be achieved otherwise. Some
of the underpainting would show through the layers subtly helping to create
form. He did not use bold colors or tints in contrasting colors which explains
why the Mona Lisa’s lips and eyes are so pale. The use of sfumato in the Mona
Lisa gave the painting an illusion of somberness and mystery. Da Vinci’s soft
gentle lighting was essential to his paintings. Facial features were not
strongly defined but conveyed by soft, blended variations in tone and color. He
has created vague transitions between light and shade and sometimes between colors,
his brush strokes so faint as to be invisible to the naked eye. The gauzy veil,
Mona Lisa’s hair, and the luminous glow of her skin, are all created with
layers of transparent color, giving the painting an ethereal, almost magical
quality.
Leonardo da Vinci has only about a dozen or so paintings
in existence today, because of his revolutionary techniques. However, from the
surviving da Vinci paintings we are able to understand a little more about his
painting style. Few paintings are so well known as da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and her
popularity and status as a reputable work of art continues to intrigue people.
Because it’s difficult to view all the portrayed emotions and aspects of Mona
Lisa’s personality in one glance, one is left with a sense of mystery. “Giorgio
Vasari, for example, wrote in his early biography of da Vinci, Lives of the
Painters: “As art may imitate nature, she does not appear to be painted, but
truly of flesh and blood. On looking closely at the pit of her throat, one
could swear that the pulses were beating.” We may never know who sat for the
portrait of Mona Lisa or what she’s smiling about but the Mona Lisa looks so
natural, and so familiar, that we forget how ingenious the painting was because
it went against all the trends of the time. Although the painting is a perfect
example of how Leonardo never followed traditions, the Mona Lisa has set the
standard for all future portraits and became an enduring record of Leonardo’s
vision.
References:
Polymath. (n.d.). Wikipedia,
The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 23, 2014 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath
Leonardo da Vinci. (n.d.). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
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Mona Lisa. (n.d.). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved November 23, 2014 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa
Sfumato. (n.d.). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved November 23, 2014 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sfumato
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2014, August
22). Mona Lisa. Britannica.com.
Retrieved November 23, 2014 from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/388735/Mona-Lisa
Mona Lisa. (n.d.). lairweb.org. Retrieved November 23, 2014
from http://www.lairweb.org.nz/leonardo/mona.html
Evans, M. B. (n.d.). “The Mona
Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci. painting.about.com.
Retrieved November 23, 2014 from http://painting.about.com/od/famouspainters/ig/famous-paintings/Leonardo-Mona-Lisa.htm
Lively, A. (n.d.). The Mona
Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci: History, Facts & Location. education-portal.com. Retrieved November 23, 2014 from http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-mona-lisa-by-leonardo-da-vinci-history-facts-location.html#lesson
Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. (n.d.). leonardo-da-vinci.paintings.name.
Retrieved November 23, 2014 from http://leonardo-da-vinci.paintings.name/
Evans, M. B. (n.d.). Palettes
and Techniques of the Old Masters: Leonardo da Vinci. painting.about.com. Retrieved November 23, 2014 from http://painting.about.com/od/oldmastertechniques/a/LeonardodaVinci.htm
…Leonardo’s masterful
technique. (n.d.). pbs.org. Retrieved November 23, 2014 from http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/mona_lisa/mlevel_1/m3technique.html
Grey, L. (n.d.). Leonardo Da
Vinci’s Life. davincilife.com. Retrieved November 23, 2014 from http://www.davincilife.com/article4-davinci-painting-technique.html
Images from:
en.wikipedia.org
leonardodavinci.net
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