Mona Lisa is a painting made by an Italian artist Leonard da Vinci. This painting is of a real Italian woman, Lisa Gherardini, a Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Gioconda. Mona is an English word that means Madonna, madam, ma’am, or my lady. Francesco del Gioconda asked Leonardo da Vinci to portrait his wife Lisa del Gioconda or Mona Lisa for their new house. This painting is one of the most viewed, the most valuable, and the most praised paintings.
There is no substantial evidence about when Leonardo started making this masterpiece. But it is estimated that he started making the Mona Lisa painting in 1503, and he worked on it till 1517. Leonardo painted it with oil on a poplar panel, and there are many layers of paint in it. He spent 12 years making the great smile on Mona Lisa’s lips. After Leonardo’s death, he sold the painting to King Francis 1. Napoleon also admired the image, and it walled in his bedroom for a long time. I placed the picture in the Louvre museum in France, where 6 million people visit every year. Because of an excessive crowd, they are allowed to visit the painting only for 15 seconds.
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Mona Lisa’s eyebrows and eyelashes:
The eyebrows and eyelashes of the Mona Lisa have been a topic of discussion for a long time. A Parisian engineer Pascal Cotte analyzed the painting with a high-resolution camera, and he claims that the woman in the picture had both the eyelashes and eyebrows, but over time and with the continuous upgrading of the painting, its eyelashes and eyebrows disappeared.
Mona Lisa is Leonardo’s Self Portrait:
Some people say that Mona Lisa is Leonardo’s self. They say that Leonardo made his painting in the form of a lady.
The Incident that Made the Painting Famous:
On Aug. 21, 1911, an Italian guard Vincenzo Peruggia at the Louvre museum stole the painting. They found the following day that stole the image. When people came to know that the picture is gone, they gathered before the museum. The Louvre museum had to be closed for one week after the stealing of the painting. Pablo Picasso w charged with the appropriation of photographs, but he has found innocent after a rigorous investigation. For two years, the picture remained stolen. In December 1913, Vincenzo arrested while selling the painting to an Italian museum. Vincenzo believed that the image belonged to Italy as an Italian painter painted it. He has sentenced him to prison for six months. The painting exhibit in Italian museums for weeks.
Attacks on the Painting:
The painting has been a butt of attacks many times. In 1956, a Bolivian tourist threw a stone at the notion that made a scratch on the lady’s left elbow. A few days earlier, this attack threw acid towards the painting, which fell on the lower part of the painting.
After these attacks, he kept the picture under bulletproof glass.
A Charmed Masterpiece:
Painting of the Mona Lisa creates a charm on people. People start loving the woman in the photograph. There is something mysterious in her smile.1910, a crazy fan of Mona Lisa tried to shoot himself in front of the painting but save him. According to him, he wanted to die while facing the eyes of the Mona Lisa. On Jun. 23, 1852, an artist Luke Maspero committed suicide by jumping down from his hotel’s room window. Found a suicidal note in his room in which he wrote that he loved the Mona Lisa and that he couldn’t get the mystery behind the Mona Lisa’s smile.
Mysterious Smile of Mona Lisa:
The most notable effect in the painting is Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile. So the study shows that the lady whom Leonardo painted has some hidden secrecy in her that’s why her smile is creepy. The woman seems smiling as we see her from one angle, and this smile disappears as we change the angle. In 2001, a neuroscientist from Harward University presented the theory that the Mona Lisa’s smile does not change; instead, it is the quality of the human mind how it sees the portrait.
Message in Painting of Mona Lisa:
An Italian researcher Silvano claims that there is the letter “S” in Mona Lisa’s right eye, and the letter “L” is in her left eye. He further says that there is a number “72” under the arched bridge in the background of the painting. Furthermore, the website Paranormal Crucible claims to have the image of an alien in the picture as we mirror the left side of the painting. Another theory is an Italian sentence written as “La Risposta Si Trova Qui” on the left side of the image, which means “The Answer is Here.” But it is still not proven whether this theory is right or wrong.
Although there is much more to say about the Mona Lisa painting, this painting is a mystery for its beholders.
