In the Royal Castle of Amboise (France), Leonardo da Vinci completed the famous "La Gioconda" - "Mona Lisa". It is generally accepted that Leonardo is buried in the Chapel of St. Hubert at Amboise Castle.

Hidden in Mona Lisa's eyes are tiny numbers and letters that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Perhaps these are the initials of Leonardo da Vinci and the year the painting was created.

"Mona Lisa" is considered the most mysterious painting ever created. Art experts are still unraveling its secrets. At the same time, the Mona Lisa is one of the most disappointing attractions in Paris. The fact is that huge queues line up every day. Mona Lisa is protected by bulletproof glass.

On August 21, 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen. She was kidnapped by Louvre employee Vincenzo Perugia. There is an assumption that Perugia wanted to return the painting to its historical homeland. The first attempts to find the painting led nowhere. The museum administration was fired. As part of this case, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested and later released. Pablo Picasso was also under suspicion. The painting was found two years later in Italy. On January 4, 1914, the painting (after exhibitions in Italian cities) returned to Paris. After these events, the picture gained unprecedented popularity.

In the DIDU cafe there is a large plasticine Mona Lisa. She was sculpted for a month regular visitors cafe. The process was led by artist Nikas Safronov. Mona Lisa, which was sculpted by 1,700 Muscovites and city guests, was included in the Guinness Book of Records. It became the largest plasticine reproduction of the Mona Lisa made by people.

During World War II, many works from the Louvre collection were hidden in the Chateau de Chambord. Among them was the Mona Lisa. The photographs show emergency preparations for sending the painting before the Nazis arrived in Paris. The location where the Mona Lisa was hidden was kept a closely guarded secret. The paintings were hidden for good reason: it would later turn out that Hitler planned to create “the world’s largest museum” in Linz. And he organized a whole campaign for this under the leadership of the German art connoisseur Hans Posse.

According to the History Channel movie Life After People, after 100 years without people, the Mona Lisa is eaten by bugs.

Most researchers believe that the landscape painted behind the Mona Lisa is fictitious. There are versions that this is the Valdarno Valley or the Montefeltro region, but there is no convincing evidence for these versions. It is known that Leonardo painted the painting in his Milan workshop.

There are many legends regarding the origin of the Great Leonardo's Painting - "Mona Lisa", however, everything as a rule is noisy gossip designed to increase the rating of a given Picture and improve business based on the image of this work- instant recognition and box office revenue are guaranteed to you :)

However, let's return to the source and the main version of who is depicted on Da Vinci's Canvas.

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Mona Lisa (Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo) - this is Lisa Giocondo,

née Girardini Lisa Gherardini

Portrait Mons Lisa(also known as the painting La Gioconda, or La Joconde, or Portrait Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo) is a portrait by the great Florentine artist Leonardo da Vinci.

The painting is done in oil on a poplar base and was completed around 1503-1519.

The portrait is on permanent exhibition at the Louvre in Paris.

A copy of the 16th century painting is also exhibited in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

Identification of the painting.

The traditional work was originally called "Lisa Gherardini".
And the prefix “Mona” (from Monikue - “The Only One”, and a diminutive from Madonna (“Mother of God”) - the Catholic analogue of the “One” in Orthodoxy) today in Italian this abbreviation has the same meaning as "lady".
Thus the expression "Monna Lisa" is literally understood as " Lisa, wife of Francesco del Giocondo", hence the name in Russian - " Mona Lisa". ***
Lisa del Giocondo

Lisa del Giocondo Italian. Lisa del Giocondo (June 15, 1479 - July 15, 1542, according to other sources c. 1551), also known as Lisa Gherardini, Gioconda and Mona Lisa- a noble Florentine woman, supposedly depicted in the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci.

Little is known about Lisa del Giocondo. Born in Florence into a noble family. She married a cloth merchant at an early age, gave birth to six children, and, in all likelihood, led a quiet, middle-class Renaissance life.

Several centuries after her death, her portrait, Mona Lisa, I bought global recognition and is currently considered one of the greatest works art in history.

The picture arouses the interest of researchers and amateurs and has become the subject of a wide variety of speculations.

Speculation by scholars and amateurs has made this work of art an internationally recognized icon and object of commercialization.

The final correspondence between Lisa del Giocondo and Mona Lisa was installed in 2005.

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Lisa del Giocondo - Lisa del Giocondo -

Fragment Mona Lisa (1503-06) Leonardo da Vinci, Louvre

Place of Birth: Florence, Italy

Citizenship: Italy

Date of death: 15 July 1542 (age 63)

A place of death: Florence, Italy

Spouse: Francesco del Giocondo

Children: Pierrot, Camilla, Andrea, Gioconda and Marietta

Biography

Childhood

During the Quattrocento era, Florence was one of the largest and richest cities in Europe. Of course, life was not equally good for everyone - there was huge social inequality at that time. Lisa belonged to an ancient aristocratic family, which lost influence over time.

Her mother, Lucrezia del Caccia, was Italy's third wife. Antonmaria di Noldo Gherardini. The other two died during childbirth. Gherardini owned six farms in Chianti, where they grew wheat and produced wines olive oil and kept cattle.

Lisa was born on June 15, 1479 on Via Maggio. However, for a long time The place of her birth was considered to be the estate of Villa Vignamaggio (Italian: Villa Vignamaggio), not far from Italy. Greve. The girl was named Lisa in honor of her grandmother paternal line. Lisa had three sisters and three brothers, she was the eldest child in the family.

The family lived in Florence, first near Santa Trinita, later moving to a rented house near Santo Spirito, most likely due to financial problems, which did not allow maintaining the previous house in good condition.

Marriage and later years

On March 5, 1495, at the age of 15, Lisa married Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo, a relatively successful textile merchant, and became his third wife. Lisa's dowry amounted to 170 florins and the farm of San Silvestro near family home. Based on these data, we can conclude that, firstly, the Gherardinis were not rich, and, secondly, that the marriage was based on love.
It can be argued that the couple belonged to the middle class. Marriage could increase social status Lisa, since her husband’s family could be richer than her own. On the other hand, the marriage was also beneficial for Francesco, since he became related to the “old family.”

Mona Lisa

Like many other Florentines, Francesco was a connoisseur of art and patronized artists. His son, Bartolomeo, commissioned Antonio di Donnino Mazzieri to decorate the fresco family crypt in the Basilica of Santissima Annunziata. Andrea del Sarto, commissioned by another family member, painted Madonna. Francesco ordered ital from Domenico Puligo. Domenico Puligo painting depicting Saint Francis of Assisi.

The generally accepted version is that the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo was painted by Leonardo, and in this case, it could have been commissioned from the artist by her husband, probably to celebrate the birth of his son and the purchase of the house. ( Detailed review versions, as well as a description of the painting, see the corresponding article ***.

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grave Mons Lisa Russian descendants are looking for her

Monu Lisa excavated.
In May 20011 Italian archaeologists began excavations in the Florentine monastery of St. Ursula. It is there, according to scientists, that the body of Lisa Gherardini, the girl who posed for Leonardo da Vinci for his famous “La Gioconda,” may be buried. Today, archaeologists have dug into the first of several underground tombs, but so far they have only found a few medallions.

The first piece of evidence in the case Mons Lisa appeared on the first day of excavations. The bone lay on top, under a layer of concrete. Archaeologists doubt the value of the find, but will conduct an examination of any object, even of suspicious origin.

"It looks like a human bone. It could be a humerus. But it is unlikely to belong to someone who lived 500 years ago; it lay too shallow," says anthropologist Giorgio Gruppioni.

A week later, archaeologists were already at a depth of 2 meters 60 centimeters. But in the bag of finds there is no change - the same bone and several ceramic fragments.

The first crypt, which took so long to excavate, turned out to be empty. According to one version, fearing a fire, the monks hid the contents in a more secure place, leaving only a few medallions on the shelves.

But to descendants Mons Lisa everything is interesting. Having abandoned the theater and the family wine business, Princesses Irina and Natalia Strozzi closely monitor the excavations.

They also believe the archives - Lisa Gherardini was buried here, in the monastery of St. Ursula.

A family historian has calculated: to explain how Lisa Gherardini relates to the Tuscan princesses, the prefix “great-” before the word grandmother must be pronounced 15 times.
Ira and Natasha speak Russian (in descendants Mons Lisa Russian blood flows), they adore Russian ballet and even danced at the Mariinsky Theater.

Having abandoned the theater and the family wine business, Princesses Irina and Natalia Strozzi have been monitoring the excavations for a week."

Unlike historians, who have every year a new version, the girls are absolutely sure that Leonardo’s painting depicts exactly Mona Lisa.

And there is convincing evidence: when the sisters stand next to the painting, everyone thinks that if they put on a veil and don’t smile so widely...

“Dad has the same half-smile, but we smile broadly, in Russian,” the sisters say.
What their great-great-great-grandmother really was, the computer will tell you. As soon as Mona's grave is found.

Lisa and DNA analysis will confirm that it is her, the machine will draw its own version of Mona Lisa. If it suddenly turns out that the model does not look like Leonardo’s, this could be the beginning of a new search and new excavations.

The list of versions of who is depicted in the portrait is long, and it does not only include women’s names.

One bone and several medallions is not the greatest success yet.

But Mona Lisa somewhere nearby, archaeologists are sure. The ground penetrating radar agrees with them. Research has shown that somewhere in the center of the church there is a crypt - 15 square meters.

www.vesti.ru

Mona Lisa, heroines famous portrait Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci.

Historian Silvano Vinceti, the initiator of the search, said that it is possible to talk about the discovery of remains “with a high probability.” In the same time Professor of Anthropology at the University of Bologna Giorgio Gruppioni noted that the condition of the remains is such that it does not allow us to restore the appearance of the person found in the burial.

Opening of the burial in former church the monastery of St. Ursula, where, according to documents, she was buried Lisa Gherardini, wife merchant Francesco del Giocondo, took place in 2011.

www.globallookpress.com

Researchers are waiting for technology progress

The remains of 12 people were found in the burial. When analyzing them, it was found that only one of the graves contained bones dating back to the time of the death of Lisa Gherardini. To the disappointment of anthropologists, the skull was not preserved, which ruled out the possibility of restoring the appearance of the alleged Mona Lisa.

Opening of a burial in the former church of the monastery of St. Ursula in 2011. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

In order to establish the truth, in 2013, scientists opened another crypt of the Gherardini family, in which the children of Lisa Gherardini were buried. But here, too, the researchers failed - the remains were so seriously damaged that they were not suitable for DNA analysis.

Italian experts have stated that at present the possibilities of identifying the alleged Mona Lisa have been exhausted. Scientists hope that it will be possible to finally establish the truth in the future, along with the improvement of DNA analysis methods.

Love-match. And according to calculation

Lisa Gherardini was born on June 15, 1479 in Florence, into a family that belonged to an ancient aristocratic family.

The girl was named Lisa in honor of her paternal grandmother. Lisa had three sisters and three brothers, she was the eldest child in the family.

At the age of 15, Lisa married 35-year-old Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo, a textile merchant. Despite the fact that this was Francesco’s third marriage, historians come to the conclusion that this union was concluded for love. At the same time, it was beneficial to both parties - Lisa’s family, despite their aristocratic origins, lived quite poorly, while Francesco del Giocondo was a successful entrepreneur. The husband, in turn, became related to a noble family.

Da Vinci's favorite creation

According to the most common version, the portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo was commissioned by Leonardo da Vinci by her husband in 1503. The reason for ordering a portrait could be some important family event - the birth of a son or the purchase of a new house.

The artist worked on the portrait for several years. It is still unclear why the painting was never transferred to the customer. Some of Leonardo da Vinci's contemporaries argued that the artist considered the portrait unfinished.

Already in the first years, the portrait of Mona Lisa became famous among art lovers. Contemporaries note that the author felt extraordinary affection for this work of his.

Having left Italy for France, Leonardo da Vinci took the painting with him in 1516, and it subsequently ended up in the collection French king Francis I. How and when it came to the monarch is one of the mysteries of the famous portrait.

Immortality as a gift

Over the five centuries that the painting has existed, many versions have been expressed about who is actually depicted in the portrait. Among the candidates were women, men, and even da Vinci himself (according to this version, the painting was his distorted self-portrait).

Only in 2005, scientists from the University of Heidelberg, after analyzing notes in the margins of a tome that belonged to one of Leonardo da Vinci’s close acquaintances, discovered convincing evidence that the portrait actually depicts Lisa Gherardini.

As for the heroine of the portrait herself, historians agree that she lived a typical measured life of a middle-class woman of that era. Lisa gave birth to five children, whose names were Pierrot, Camilla, Andrea, Gioconda And Marietta. She died, according to the most common version, on July 15, 1542 in Florence at the age of 63.

But Leonardo da Vinci's talent gave this woman true immortality.

Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Mona Lisa" is the first thing tourists from any country associate with the Louvre. This is the most famous and mysterious work of painting in the history of world art. Her mysterious smile still makes people think and charm people who do not like or are not interested in painting. And the story of her abduction at the beginning of the 20th century turned the picture into living legend. But first things first.

The history of the painting

“Mona Lisa” is just an abbreviated name for the painting. In the original it sounds like “Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo” (Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo). From Italian the word ma donna translates as “my lady.” Over time, it turned into simply mona, and from it the well-known name of the painting came.

Contemporary biographers of the artist wrote that he rarely took orders, but with the Mona Lisa there was initially a special story. He devoted himself to the work with particular passion, spent almost all his time painting it and took it with him to France (Leonardo was leaving Italy forever) along with other selected paintings.

It is known that the artist began the painting in 1503-1505 and only applied the last stroke in 1516, shortly before his death. According to the will, the painting was given to Leonardo's student, Salai. It remains unknown how the painting migrated back to France (most likely Francis I acquired it from the heirs of Salai). During the time of Louis XIV, the painting moved to the Palace of Versailles, and after French Revolution

The Louvre became her permanent home.

There is nothing special in the creation story; the lady with the mysterious smile in the picture is of greater interest. Who is she?

According to the official version, this is a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, the young wife of the prominent Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo.

But Leonardo’s contemporary historians are not so clear. According to Giorgio Vasari, the model could have been Caterina Sforza (a representative of the ruling dynasty Italian Renaissance, was considered main woman that era), Cecilia Gallerani (the beloved of Duke Louis Sforza, the model of another portrait of a genius - “Lady with an Ermine”), the artist’s mother, Leonardo himself, a young man in women’s clothing and simply a portrait of a woman who was the standard of beauty of the Renaissance.

Description of the picture

The small-sized canvas depicts a woman of average size, wearing a dark cape (according to historians, a sign of widowhood), sitting half-turned. Like other Italian Renaissance portraits, Mona Lisa has no eyebrows and the hair on the top of her forehead is shaved. Most likely, the model posed on the balcony, as the parapet line is visible. It is believed that the painting was slightly cropped; the columns visible behind were fully included in the original size.

It is believed that the composition of the painting is the standard of the portrait genre. It is painted according to all the laws of harmony and rhythm: the model is inscribed in a proportional rectangle, the wavy strand of hair is in tune with the translucent veil, and folded hands give the picture a special compositional completeness.

Mona Lisa Smile

This phrase has long lived separately from the picture, having turned into a literary cliche. This is the main mystery and charm of the canvas. It attracts the attention of not only ordinary viewers and art critics, but also psychologists. For example, Sigmund Freud calls her smile “flirting.” And the special look is “fleeting.”

Current state

Due to the fact that the artist loved to experiment with paints and painting techniques, the painting has become very dark by now. And strong cracks form on its surface. One of them is located a millimeter above Gioconda's head. In the middle of the last century, the canvas went on “tour” to museums in the USA and Japan. to the museum fine arts them. A.S. Pushkin was lucky enough to host the masterpiece during the exhibition.

Fame of Gioconda

The painting was very highly regarded among Leonardo's contemporaries, but over the decades it became forgotten. Until the 19th century, it was not remembered until the moment when the romantic writer Théophile Gautier spoke about the “Gioconda smile” in one of his literary works. It’s strange, but until that moment this feature of the picture was simply called “pleasant” and there was no secret in it.

The painting gained real popularity among the general public in connection with its mysterious abduction in 1911. The newspaper hype surrounding this story gained enormous popularity for the film. She was only found in 1914, where she was all this time remains a mystery. Her kidnapper was Vincezo Perugio, an employee of the Louvre, an Italian by nationality. The exact motives for the theft are unknown; he probably wanted to take the painting to Leonardo’s historical homeland, Italy.

Mona Lisa today

“Mona Lisa” still “lives” in the Louvre; as the main artistic figure, she is given a separate room in the museum. She suffered from vandalism several times, after which in 1956 she was placed in bulletproof glass. Because of this, it glares a lot, so seeing it can sometimes be problematic. Nevertheless, it is she who attracts the majority of visitors to the Louvre with her smile and fleeting glance.

He spent considerable time on it and, leaving Italy in mature age, took with him to France among some other selected paintings. Da Vinci had a special affection for this portrait, and also thought 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, one can find many indications that undoubtedly relate to “La Gioconda” ".

Vasari's message

"Leonardo da Vinci's Studio" in an 1845 engraving: Gioconda is entertained by jesters and musicians

This drawing from the Hyde Collection in New York may be by Leonardo da Vinci and is a preliminary sketch for a portrait of the Mona Lisa. In this case, it is curious that at first he intended to place a magnificent branch in her hands.

Most likely, Vasari simply added a story about jesters to entertain readers. Vasari's text also contains an accurate description of the eyebrows missing from the painting. This inaccuracy could only arise if the author described the picture from memory or from the stories of others. Alexey 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 had started painting the portrait before leaving for Caesar, Vasari would probably , I would say that he wrote it for five years." The scientist also writes about the erroneous indication of the unfinished nature of the portrait - “the portrait undoubtedly took a long time to paint and was completed, no matter what Vasari said, who in his biography of Leonardo stylized him as an artist who, in principle, could not finish any major work. And not only was it finished, but it is one of Leonardo’s most carefully finished works.”

An interesting fact is that in his description Vasari admires Leonardo's talent for conveying physical phenomena, and not the similarity between the model and the painting. It seems that it was this “physical” feature of the masterpiece that left a deep impression on visitors to 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 he acquired it and why Leonardo did not return it to the customer.

Other

Perhaps the artist really did not finish the painting in Florence, but took it with him when leaving in 1516 and applied the final stroke in the absence of witnesses who could tell Vasari about it. If so, he completed it shortly before his death in 1519. (In France, he lived in Clos Luce, not far from the royal castle of Amboise).

Although Vasari provides information about the woman’s identity, there was still uncertainty about her for a long time and many versions were expressed:

A note in the margin proved the correct identification of the model of the Mona Lisa.

According to one of the put forward versions, “Mona Lisa” is a self-portrait of the artist

However, the version about the correspondence of the generally accepted name of the picture to the personality of the model in 2005 is believed to have found final confirmation. Scientists from the University of Heidelberg studied the notes in the margins of the tome, the owner of which was a Florentine official, a personal acquaintance of the artist Agostino Vespucci. In notes in the margins of the book, he compares Leonardo with the famous ancient Greek painter Apelles and notes that “da Vinci is now working on three paintings, one of which is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini”. Thus, the Mona Lisa really turned out to be the wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo - Lisa Gherardini. The painting, as scholars prove in this case, was commissioned by Leonardo for the new home of the young family and to commemorate the birth of their second son, named Andrea.

Painting

Description

The copy of the Mona Lisa from the Wallace Collection (Baltimore) was made before the edges of the original were trimmed, and allows the lost columns to be seen

The rectangular painting depicts a woman in dark clothes, turning half-turned. She sits in a chair with her hands clasped together, one hand resting on its armrest and the other on top, turning in the chair almost to face the viewer. Parted, smoothly and flatly lying hair, visible through a transparent veil draped over it (according to some assumptions - an attribute of widowhood), falls on the shoulders in two thin, slightly wavy strands. A green dress in thin gathers, with yellow pleated sleeves, cut on a white low chest. The head is slightly turned.

Fragment of the Mona Lisa with the remains of the column base

The lower edge of the painting cuts off the second half of her body, so the portrait is almost half-length. The chair in which the model sits stands on a balcony or loggia, the parapet line of which is visible behind her elbows. It is believed that earlier picture could have been wider and accommodated two side columns of the loggia, from which this moment two column bases remain, fragments of which are visible along the edges of the parapet.

The loggia overlooks a desolate wilderness with meandering streams and a lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains that extends to a high skyline behind the figure. “Mona Lisa is represented sitting in a chair against the backdrop of a landscape, and the very juxtaposition of her figure, very close to the viewer, with the landscape visible from afar, like a huge mountain, imparts extraordinary grandeur to the image. The same impression is promoted by the contrast of the heightened plastic tactility of the figure and its smooth, generalized silhouette with a vision-like landscape stretching into the foggy distance with bizarre rocks and water channels winding among them.”

Composition

The portrait of Gioconda is one of the best examples of the portrait genre of the Italian High Renaissance.

Boris Vipper writes that, despite traces of the Quattrocento, “with her clothes with a small cutout on the chest and with sleeves in loose folds, just like her straight pose, slight turn of the body and soft gesture of the hands, Mona Lisa belongs entirely to the era classic style". Mikhail Alpatov points out that “Gioconda is perfectly inscribed in a strictly proportional rectangle, her half-figure forms something whole, her folded hands give her image completeness. Now, of course, there could be no question of the fanciful curls of the early “Annunciation.” However, no matter how softened all the contours are, the wavy strand of Mona Lisa’s hair is in tune with the transparent veil, and the hanging fabric thrown over her shoulder finds an echo in the smooth windings of the distant road. In all this, Leonardo demonstrates his ability to create according to the laws of rhythm and harmony.”

Current state

“Mona Lisa” became very dark, which is considered to be the result of its author’s inherent tendency to experiment with paints, because of which the “Last Supper” fresco practically died. The artist's contemporaries, however, managed to express their admiration not only for the composition, design 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 originally been red - as can be seen from the copy of the painting from the Prado.

The current condition of the painting is quite poor, which is why the Louvre staff announced that they would no longer give it to exhibitions: “Cracks have formed in the painting, and one of them stops a few millimeters above the head of the Mona Lisa.”

Analysis

Technique

As Dzhivelegov notes, by the time of the creation of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo’s mastery “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 think that only the last, most difficult tasks artistic technique deserve to be addressed. And when he found a model in the person of the Mona Lisa that satisfied his needs, he tried to solve some of the highest and difficult tasks painting technique, which have not yet been resolved by them. He wanted, with the help of techniques that he had already developed and tried before, especially with the help of his famous sfumato, which had previously given extraordinary effects, to do more than he did before: to create a living face of a living person and reproduce the features and expression of this face in such a way that they would fully reveal the inner world of a person.”

Landscape behind the Mona Lisa

Boris Vipper asks the question “by what means was this spirituality achieved, this undying spark of consciousness in the image of the Mona Lisa, then two main means should be named. One is Leonard's wonderful sfumato. No wonder Leonardo liked to say that “modeling is the soul of painting.” It is sfumato that creates Gioconda’s moist gaze, her smile as light as the wind, and the incomparable caressing softness of the touch of her hands.” Sfumato is a subtle haze that envelops the face and figure, softening contours and shadows. For this purpose, Leonardo recommended placing, as he puts it, “a kind of fog” between the light source and the bodies.

Rothenberg writes that “Leonardo managed to introduce into his creation that degree of generalization that allows him to be considered as an image of the Renaissance man as a whole. This high degree of generalization is reflected in all elements of the pictorial language of the painting, in its individual motifs - in the way the light, transparent veil, covering the head and shoulders of Mona Lisa, unites the carefully drawn strands of hair and small folds of the dress into an overall smooth outline; it is palpable in the incomparable softness of the modeling of the face (from which, according to the fashion of that time, eyebrows were removed) and beautiful, sleek hands.”

Alpatov adds that “in the softly melting haze enveloping the face and figure, Leonardo managed to make one feel the limitless variability of human facial expressions. Although Gioconda's eyes look attentively and calmly at the viewer, thanks to the shading of her eye sockets, one might think that they are frowning slightly; her lips are compressed, but near their corners there are subtle shadows that make you believe that every minute they will open, smile, and speak. The very contrast between her gaze and the half-smile on her lips gives an idea of ​​the inconsistency of her experiences. (...) Leonardo worked on it for several years, ensuring that not a single sharp stroke, not a single angular contour remained in the picture; and although the edges of objects in it are clearly perceptible, they all dissolve in the subtlest transitions from half-shadows to half-lights.”

Scenery

Art critics emphasize the organic nature with which the artist combined portrait characteristic personality with a landscape full of special mood, and how much this increased the dignity of the portrait.

An early copy of the Mona Lisa from the Prado shows how much a portrait image loses when placed against a dark, neutral background

In 2012, a copy of the “Mona Lisa” from the Prado was cleared, and under the later recordings there was a landscape background - the feeling of the canvas immediately changes.

Whipper considers landscape to be the second medium that creates the spirituality of a painting: “The second medium is the relationship between figure and background. The fantastic, rocky landscape, as if seen through sea water, in the portrait of Mona Lisa has some other reality than her figure itself. The Mona Lisa has the reality of life, the landscape has the 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 dreams.”

Renaissance art researcher Viktor Grashchenkov writes that Leonardo, also thanks 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 of the unknown Florentine Mona Lisa, the third wife of Francesco del Giocondo. Appearance and the mental structure of a particular person are conveyed by him with unprecedented syntheticity. This impersonal psychologism corresponds to the cosmic abstraction of the landscape, almost completely devoid of any signs of human presence. In smoky chiaroscuro, not only all the outlines of the figure and landscape and all the color tones are softened. In the subtle transitions from light to shadow, almost imperceptible to the eye, in the vibration of Leonard’s “sfumato”, any definiteness of individuality and its psychological state. (…) “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 abstractly from its individual concrete form. But behind the barely noticeable movement, which, like light ripples, runs across the motionless surface of this harmonious world, one can discern all the richness of the possibilities of physical and spiritual existence.”

“Mona Lisa” is designed in golden brown and reddish tones in the foreground and emerald green tones in the background. “Transparent, like glass, colors form an alloy, as if created not by a human hand, but by that inner strength matter, which from a solution gives birth to crystals of perfect shape." Like many of Leonardo's works, this work has darkened over time, and its color relationships have changed somewhat, but even now one can clearly perceive the thoughtful juxtapositions in the tones of carnation and clothing and their general contrast with the bluish-green, "underwater" tone of the landscape .

The place of the painting in the development of the portrait genre

"Mona Lisa" is considered one of the best works in the genre of portraiture that influenced the works of High Renaissance and indirectly through them - on all subsequent development of the genre, which “must always return to La Gioconda as an unattainable, but obligatory example.”

Art historians note that the portrait of Mona Lisa was a decisive step in 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 the achievements in the main painting genres - in compositions on religious and mythological themes. The inequality of the portrait genre was already reflected in the very “iconography” of portrait images. The actual portrait works of the 15th century, for all their undeniable physiognomic similarity and the feeling of inner strength they radiated, were also distinguished by external and internal constraint. All that wealth human feelings and experiences that characterize the biblical and mythological images of 15th-century painters were usually not the property of their portrait works. Echoes of this can be seen in more early portraits 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 portrait image in its significance became on a par with the most striking images of other pictorial genres.”

“Donna Nuda” (that is, “Naked Donna”). Unknown artist, late 16th century, Hermitage

In his innovative work Leonardo transferred the main center of gravity to the face of the portrait. At the same time he used his hands as a powerful tool psychological characteristics. By making the portrait generational in format, the artist was able to demonstrate a wider range of artistic techniques. And the most important thing in the figurative structure of a portrait is the subordination of all details to the guiding idea. “The head and hands are the undoubted center of the picture, to which the rest of its elements are sacrificed. The fabulous landscape seems to shine through sea ​​waters, it seems so distant and intangible. His the main objective- do not distract the viewer’s attention from the face. And the same role is intended to be performed by the garment, which falls into the smallest folds. Leonardo deliberately avoids heavy draperies, which could obscure the expressiveness of his hands and face. Thus, he forces the latter to perform with special force, the greater the more modest and neutral the landscape and attire, likened to a quiet, barely noticeable accompaniment.”

Leonardo's students and followers created numerous replicas of the Mona Lisa. Some of them (from the Vernon collection, USA; from the Walter collection, 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 considered a copy. There is also the “nude Mona Lisa” iconography, presented in several versions (“Beautiful Gabrielle”, “Monna Vanna”, the Hermitage “Donna Nuda”), apparently made by the artist’s own students. A large number of them gave rise to an unprovable version that there was a version of the nude Mona Lisa, painted by the master himself.

Reputation of the painting

"Mona Lisa" behind bulletproof glass in the Louvre and museum visitors crowding nearby

Despite the fact that the Mona Lisa was highly appreciated by the artist’s contemporaries, its fame later faded. The picture was not particularly remembered until mid-19th century century, when artists close to the Symbolist movement began to praise her, associating her with their ideas regarding female mystique. Critic Walter Pater expressed his opinion in his 1867 essay on da Vinci, describing the figure in the painting as a kind of mythical embodiment of the eternal feminine, who is "older than the rocks between which she sits" and who has "died many times and learned the secrets of the afterlife." .

The further rise of the painting’s fame is associated with its mysterious disappearance at the beginning of the 20th century and a happy return to the museum several years later (see below, section Theft), thanks to which she did not leave the pages of newspapers.

A contemporary of her adventure, critic Abram Efros wrote: “... the museum guard, who now does not leave a single step from the painting, since its return to the Louvre after the abduction in 1911, is guarding not a portrait of Francesca del Giocondo’s wife, but an image of some half-human, half-snake a creature, either smiling or gloomy, dominating the cold, bare, rocky space spread out behind him.”

"Mona Lisa" today is one of the most famous paintings Western European art. Its resounding reputation is associated not only with its high artistic merits, but also with the atmosphere of mystery surrounding this work.

Everyone knows what an unsolvable riddle the Mona Lisa has been asking for fans who crowd in front of her image for almost four hundred years now. Never before has an artist expressed the essence of femininity (I quote lines written by a sophisticated writer hiding behind the pseudonym of Pierre Corlet): “Tenderness and bestiality, modesty and hidden voluptuousness, the great secret of the heart that curbs itself, the reasoning mind, a personality closed in itself, abandoning others can only contemplate its brilliance.” (Eugene Muntz).

One of the mysteries is related to the deep affection that the author felt for this work. Various explanations were offered, for example, a romantic one: Leonardo fell in love with Mona Lisa and deliberately delayed work in order to stay longer with her, and she teased him with her mysterious smile and brought him to the greatest creative ecstasies. This version is considered simply speculation. Dzhivelegov believes that this attachment is due to the fact that he found in her the point of application for many of his creative quests(see Technique section).

Smile of Gioconda

The Mona Lisa's smile is one of the most famous mysteries of the painting. This slight wandering smile is found in many works by both the master himself and the Leonardesques, but it was in the Mona Lisa that it reached its perfection.

The viewer is especially fascinated by the demonic charm of this smile. Hundreds of poets and writers have written about this woman, who seems to be either smiling seductively or frozen, looking coldly and soullessly into space, and no one unraveled her smile, no one interpreted her thoughts. Everything, even the landscape, is mysterious, like a dream, tremulous, like a pre-storm haze of sensuality (Muter).

Grashchenkov writes: “The endless variety of human feelings and desires, opposing passions and thoughts, smoothed out and fused together, resonates in the harmoniously dispassionate appearance of Gioconda only with the uncertainty of her smile, barely emerging and disappearing. This meaningless fleeting movement of the corners of her mouth, like a distant echo merged into one sound, brings to us from the boundless distance the colorful polyphony of a person’s spiritual life.”

Art critic Rotenberg believes that “there are few portraits in all of world art that are equal to the Mona Lisa in terms of the power of expression of the human personality, embodied in the unity of character and intellect. It is precisely the extraordinary intellectual charge of Leonardo’s portrait that distinguishes it from portrait images Quattrocento. This feature of his is perceived all the more acutely because it relates to portrait of a woman, in which the character of the model was previously revealed in a completely different, predominantly lyrical, figurative tonality. The feeling of strength emanating from the “Mona Lisa” is an organic combination of internal composure and a sense of personal freedom, the 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 above-mentioned lack of eyebrows and shaved forehead perhaps involuntarily enhances the strange mystery in her facial expression. He further writes about the power of the painting: “If we ask ourselves what is the great attractive power of the Mona Lisa, its truly incomparable hypnotic effect, then there can only be one answer - in its spirituality. The most ingenious and the most opposite interpretations were put into the smile of “La Gioconda”. They wanted to read pride and tenderness, sensuality and coquetry, cruelty and modesty in it. The mistake was, firstly, in the fact that they were looking for individual, subjective spiritual properties at all costs in the image of the Mona Lisa, while there is no doubt that Leonardo was striving for typical spirituality. Secondly, and this is perhaps even more important, they tried to attribute emotional content to the spirituality of Mona Lisa, whereas in fact it has intellectual roots. The miracle of the Mona Lisa lies precisely in the fact that she thinks; that, standing in front of a yellowed, cracked board, we irresistibly feel the presence of a being endowed with intelligence, a being with whom we can talk and from whom we can expect an answer.”

Lazarev analyzed it like an art scientist: “This smile is not so much individual trait The Mona Lisa is a typical formula for psychological revitalization, 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 a traditional stamp. Like the proportions of Leonardo's figures, it is built on the finest mathematical measurements, on strict consideration of expressive values individual parts faces. And for all that, this smile is absolutely natural, and this is precisely the power of its charm. It takes away everything hard, tense, and frozen from the face; it turns it into a mirror of vague, indefinite emotional experiences; in its elusive lightness it can only be compared to a ripple running through water.”

Her analysis attracted the attention of not only art historians, but also psychologists. Sigmund Freud writes: “Whoever imagines Leonardo’s paintings is reminded of a strange, captivating and mysterious smile hidden on his lips female images. The smile frozen on his elongated, tremulous lips became characteristic of him and is most often called “Leonardian.” In the peculiarly beautiful appearance of the Florentine Mona Lisa del Gioconda, she most captivates and plunges the viewer into confusion. This smile required one interpretation, but found a variety of interpretations, none of which satisfied. (...) The guess that two different elements were combined in Mona Lisa’s smile was born among many critics. Therefore, in the expression on the face of the beautiful Florentine, they saw the most perfect image of the antagonism that governs love life women, restraint and seduction, sacrificial tenderness and recklessly demanding sensuality, absorbing a man as something extraneous. (...) Leonardo, in the person of Mona Lisa, managed to reproduce the double meaning of her smile, the promise of boundless tenderness and ominous threat.”

16th century copy located in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg

The viewer is especially fascinated by the demonic charm of this smile. Hundreds of poets and writers have written about this woman, who seems to be either smiling seductively or frozen, looking coldly and soullessly into space, and no one unraveled her smile, no one interpreted her thoughts. Everything, even the landscape, is mysterious, like a dream, tremulous, like a pre-storm haze of sensuality (Muter).

History of the painting in modern times

At the time of his death in 1525, Leonardo's assistant (and possibly lover) named Salai was in possession, according to references in his personal papers, of 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 trimmed the edges of the painting with columns, which, according to most researchers, based on comparison with other portraits, existed in original version. Unlike another cropped work by Leonardo - "Portrait of Ginevra Benci", the lower part of which was cropped because it was damaged by water or fire, in in this case The reasons were most likely of a compositional nature. There is a version that Leonardo da Vinci himself did this.

Crowd in the Louvre near the painting, our days

King Francis I is believed to have bought the painting from Salai's heirs (for 4,000 ecus) and kept it in his castle of Fontainebleau, where it remained until the time of Louis XIV. The latter transported her to the Palace of Versailles, and after the French Revolution she ended up in the Louvre. Napoleon hung the portrait in his bedroom at the Tuileries Palace, then it returned to the museum.

During World War II, for safety reasons, the painting was transported from the Louvre to the Castle of Amboise (the place of Leonardo's death and burial), then to Loc-Dieu Abbey, and finally to the Ingres Museum in Montauban, from where it was safely returned to its place after the victory.

Vandalism

In 1956, the lower part of the painting was damaged when a visitor threw acid on it. On December 30 of the same year, a young Bolivian, Hugo Ungaza Villegas, threw a stone at her and damaged the paint layer at her elbow (the loss was later recorded). After this, the Mona Lisa was protected with bulletproof glass, which protected it from further serious attacks. Still, in April 1974, a woman, upset by the museum’s policy towards the disabled, tried to spray red paint from a can while the painting was on display in Tokyo, and on April 2, 2009, a Russian woman, who had not received French citizenship, threw a clay cup at the glass. Both of these cases did not harm the picture.

In art

Kazimir Malevich. "Composition with the Mona Lisa."

painting:

• Kazimir Malevich made “Composition with the Mona Lisa” in 1914.
• In 1919, Dadaist Marcel Duchamp created the work “L.H.O.O.Q.”, a landmark for subsequent works by artists. , which was a reproduction of the famous canvas with a mustache drawn on.
• Fernand Léger painted "Mona Lisa with Keys" in 1930.
• Rene Magritte in 1960 created the painting “La Gioconda”, where there is no Mona Lisa, but there is a window.
• Andy Warhol in 1963 and 1978 made the composition “Four Mona Lisas” and “Thirty Are Better Than One Andy Warhol” (1963), “Mona Lisa (Two Times)” ().
• Salvador Dali painted Self-Portrait as the Mona Lisa in 1964.
• 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,