1 What Important Period in Art History Did Leonardo Da Vinci Paint the Mona Lisa

Beth Harris and Sal Khan provide a clarification, historical perspective, and assay of Leonardo da Vinci'sMona Lisa.

Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, c. 1503–05, oil on panel 30-one/iv × 21 inches (Musée du Louvre)

Portraits Were Once Rare

We live in a culture that is and then saturated with images, it may be difficult to imagine a fourth dimension when only the wealthiest people had their likeness captured. The weathy merchents of Renaissance Florence could committee a portrait, but even they would probable just accept a unmarried portrait painted during their lifetime. A portrait was about more than likeness, it spoke to condition and position. In improver, portraits generally took a long time to paint, and the bailiwick would commonly have to sit for hours or days, while the artist captured their likeness.

The Most Recognized Painting in the World

Figure 1. Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa was originally this type of portrait, only over time its meaning has shifted and information technology has become an icon of the Renaissance, the about recognized painting in the earth. The Mona Lisa is a probable a portrait of the wife of a Florentine merchant, and so her gaze would have been meant for her husband. For some reason however, the portrait was never delivered to its patron, and Leonardo kept information technology with him when he went to work for Francis I, the King of French republic.

The Mona Lisa'due southmysterious smile has inspired many writers, singers, and painters. Here's a passage about the Mona Lisa, written past the Victorian-era author Walter Pater:

We all know the confront and hands of the figure, ready in its marble chair, in that circle of fantastic rocks, as in some faint light under sea. Peradventure of all ancient pictures time has chilled it least. The presence that thus rose so strangely beside the waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a m years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the earth are come up," and the eyelids are a footling weary. Information technology is a dazzler wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, piffling prison cell past jail cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Ready it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of artifact, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed!

Effigy 2. Piero della Francesca, Portrait of Battista Sforza (c. 1465–66)

Early Renaissance creative person, Piero della Francesca's Portrait of Battista Sforza (figure 2) is typical of portraits during the Early Renaissance (earlier Leonardo); figures were ofttimes painted in strict profile, and cut off at the bust. Ofttimes the figure was posed in front of a birds-middle view of a landscape.

A New Formula

With Leonardo's portrait, the face is nearly frontal, the shoulders are turned iii-quarters toward the viewer, and the easily are included in the image. Leonardo uses his feature sfumato—a smokey haziness, to soften outlines and create an atmospheric effect around the effigy.

Effigy 3. Hans Memling Portrait of a Young man at Prayer (c. 1485–94)

When a figure is in profile, nosotros have no real sense of who she is, and there is no sense of appointment. With the face turned toward us, however, we get a sense of the personality of the sitter.

Northern Renaissance artists such as Hans Memling (see figure 3) had already created portraits of figures in positions similar to the Mona Lisa. Memling had even located them in believable spaces. Leonardo combined these Northern innovations with Italian painting'due south agreement of the 3 dimensionality of the body and the perspectival treatment of the surrounding space.

A Recent Discovery

An important copy of the Mona Lisa was recently discovered in the collection of the Prado in Madrid. The background had been painted over, but when the painting was cleaned, scientific analysis revealed that the re-create was likely painted by some other creative person who sabbatum abreast Leonardo and copied his piece of work, brush-stroke by castor-stroke. The copy gives u.s.a. an thought of what theMona Lisa might expect like if layers of yellowed varnish were removed.

Figure 4. Comparing the copy to the originalMona Lisa.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/zeliart102/chapter/mona-lisa/

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