In chapter 20 about 16th century
art in Italy, we could find the most famous artist who is Leonardo da Vinci and
his ‘Mona Lisa’ is one of famous works. Leonardo is one of greatest artist
through the history of the art and he made lots of gorgeous masterpieces. Everyone
in the world definitely knows about this portrait and curious about her smile. Personally,
this ‘Mona Lisa’ is what I want to see in real. It is about 0.77 meter height
and 0.53 meter wide, and it is in Louvre museum in France. Even though it is
one of famous portrait painting, nobody exactly knows about when it was made,
who is the model. Because Leonardo did not put his signature and there is no
record for this painting. Therefore, some art historians estimated that according
to the ‘Le Vite de Piu Eccelenti Pittori. Scultori et Architeili Italiani’ which
is earliest described about Mona Lisa by Giorgio Vasari, the woman’s identity
in the painting. In this book, Vasari recorded that the model of this portrait
is the wife of a wealthy merchant Francesco del Giocondo in Firenze. Based on
that record, this portrait called Mona Lisa which means Modonna Lisa. However,
the history of process of possess the Mona Lisa is shrouded in mystery. This
portrait did not go to the person, who ordered, and Leonardo has been kept it
and then it goes to France family’s collection in mystery. The Mona Lisa’s mystique is heightening by her
smile. For depicted her smile, Leonardo used ‘Sfumato’ technique. In Italian, ‘Sfumato’
means dim, faint, and cloudy, also this technique makes intentionally cloudy outline
of figure and remove the boundary. Especially, her border of lip and eyes are
described by Sfumato technique. So her smile looks ambiguous but also looks
soft and gentle. This kind of ambiguous and mystique are shown in background as
well. Leonardo described the background with aerial perspective that means of
indicating relative distance in terms of a gradation of clarity, tone, and color,
especially blue, also it is different with linear perspective. In this
painting, Leonardo depicted relatively accurate the closer landscape with
reddish tone, and distant landscape described with blue tone and blurry border
so it made an effect that space looks step back in the painting. The woman’s upper body, which is gathered
both hands in the front and gaze off screen, makes stable triangle composition.
However, her body is slightly twisted to right side, so it gives different
feeling depending on viewer’s location. This kind of feeling reinforced with
background landscape, because it was drawn the both side of horizon looks differently.
Leonardo expressed the river flows to waterway as if figure’s right side of
horizon looks higher, so it gives different feeling from left and right side. This landscape is not an idealized abstract
nature, but it reflected real geographical features. Leonardo combined
landscape and figure through arranged with element which is depicted the figure
such as element of landscape, and line of hair and clothes.
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