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2025-01-19 Update From: SLTechnology News&Howtos shulou NAV: SLTechnology News&Howtos > IT Information >
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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: back to Park (ID:fanpu2019), author: Zhang Yi
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is famous, but who knows who the woman in the painting is? Why did Leonardo da Vinci paint her portrait? Why are we seeing a version without eyebrows and eyelashes? Are there any other versions?
A pleasant smile seems to be more divine than inhumane. If really truthfully show the smile from the origin of life.
Joel Giovasari (Note: the author translated from Vasari's Biography on Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. )
1. The name of "Mona Lisa Lisa" and its origin "Mona Lisa" (figure 1) comes from transliteration. Mona comes from Italian Madonna, abbreviated as Monna or Mona, usually before a female name. Mona Lisa actually means "Lady Lisa". Another name for the painting is "Qiao Kangda", from the Italian Gioconda, which is the feminine spelling of the surname Giocondo. In Italian, gioconda also has the meaning of "happy, happy", so Gioconda can also be translated as "happy woman". Because of the unique smile of the woman in the painting, the name has a double meaning. "Mona Lisa" or "Qiao Kangda" is the common name of this painting. We will use the name "Mona Lisa" in this article.
Figure 1. Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, wooden oil painting, 1503-1517, 77 cm high and 53 cm wide, is now on display in the Louvre Museum. Photo Source: Wikipedia 2, who is the Mona Lisa in the painting? According to Vasari, Leonardo da Vinci once painted a portrait of Mona Lisa, the wife of Francesco del Jocondo (Francesco del Giocondo), which he spent four years on but did not finish; when Vasari wrote his biography, the painting was collected by King Francois I of France in the palace of Fontainebleau. Most art historians believe that the Mona Lisa now on display in the Louvre is the portrait of Joe Condo's wife mentioned by Vasari in his biography.
But there are always people who like to challenge authority, and the study of art history is no exception. Some scholars have pointed out that the paintings collected at the Fontainebleau Palace are not necessarily what Vasari called the "Mona Lisa." These people think that the characters in the Louvre may be some other Italian women of Leonardo da Vinci's contemporaries, and they may be
Isabella de Esther (Isabella d'Este, 1474-1539)
Isabella of Aragon (Isabella of Aragon, 1470-1524)
Cecilia Galerani (Cecilia Gallerani, 1473-1536)
Katarina Sforza (Caterina Sforza, 1463-1509)
It may even be Leonardo da Vinci's assistant Salai (1480-1524) or Leonardo da Vinci himself. Of course, these scholars who put forward different candidates have their own theories and can tell all kinds of interesting stories.
In 2005, the discovery of Dr. Dr Armin Schlecter, the librarian of the University of Heidelberg, put an end to almost all of these conjectures and arguments. While sorting out his books, he found a collection of letters to friends (Epistulae ad familiare) by Cicero published by Bologna in 1477, in which there was a blank space with a note written by Agostino Vespucci (Agostino Matteo Vespucci,1462-1515) in October 1503, who compared Leonardo da Vinci to the ancient Greek painter Apelles (active in the 4th century BC). And pointed out that Leonardo da Vinci was painting a portrait of Lisa Del Jocondo (Lisa del Giocondo) (figure 2).
Figure 2. A page in the Cicero Letters Collection of the Heidelberg University Library, with notes from Agostino Vespucci in 1503, points out that Leonardo da Vinci is painting a portrait of Lisa Del Giorcondo. Agostino Vespucci, who wrote this note, was not only an official of the Florentine government, but also an aide to second Secretary of State Machiavelli (1469-1527), a friend of Leonardo da Vinci; at that time, Agostino Vespucci wrote historical documents for Leonardo da Vinci's upcoming Battle of Angiari to help painters understand it. In view of this, the vast majority of historians and art historians believe that the Mona Lisa in the painting should be what Vasari called Lisa Del Jocondo. Although Vincent Delieuvin, a museum librarian at the Louvre, was skeptical of the confirmation on a televised talk show at the time, on the grounds that Shlecter's findings did not fully prove that the character depicted in the Louvre painting was Lisa Del Joconda in Vespucci's notes.
The woman Leonardo da Vinci painted in the Mona Lisa was originally named Lisa di Antonmaria Gherardini (June 15, 1479-July 15, 1542). She was an aristocratic woman born in Florence and belonged to the Gherardini Family family that dates back to ancient Rome and remained aristocratic after the unification of Italy. When she was born, her family did not have much political influence in Florence and was far less prominent economically than the Medici, Stroch, Rucele and other families, although they had certain connections with these top dignitaries.
On March 5, 1495, she married Francesco del Giocondo (Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo, 1465-1538), a wealthy Florentine merchant engaged in the clothing and silk industry, who was economically powerful, not only as the leader of the Florentine silk guild, but also in the Florentine government. It should be said that this is a marriage between the traditional aristocratic family and the emerging bourgeois rich businessmen. After marriage, her name was changed to Lisa del Giocondo, also known as Lisa Del Giorcondo (Lisa di Gherardini del Giocondo) in order to let people know her aristocratic family background. Her husband, Francesco del Jocondo, is also an art collector, and the couple probably had contact with Vasari when they were alive.
Although with the discovery in the library of the University of Heidelberg in 2005, most art historians believe that the Mona Lisa in the painting is the Florentine woman Lisa del Joconda, but there are still very few people who insist that the woman in the painting should be Isabella de Esther, the Marquis of Mantua (figure 3), an outstanding Italian Renaissance politician and an important patron of art. Perhaps they think that the legendary paintings handed down by Leonardo da Vinci must depict great figures of that era?
Figure 3. The portrait of Leonardo da Vinci and Isabella de Esther, sketched, about 1500 years old, 61 cm high and 46.5 cm wide, is now in the Louvre Museum. Photo Source: Wikipedia from the historical documents handed down, it should be between 1499 and 1500, Leonardo da Vinci came to Mantua to escape the unrest caused by the French invasion of Milan. He was entertained by the Marquise Isabella de Esther, the ruler of the city, and agreed to paint her portrait. In preparation for the portrait, Leonardo da Vinci sketched the Marquise (figure 3), but it is quite possible that Leonardo da Vinci did not finish the portrait, because we can still read the two letters she personally wrote to Leonardo da Vinci on May 14 and October 31, 1504, both of which mentioned the unfinished portrait that Leonardo promised to paint her. In addition, Mantua's ambassador to Florence wrote a report to the Marquis that he would try his best to urge Leonardo da Vinci to complete the portrait, but the latter also said that he could not guarantee that Leonardo da Vinci would finish the painting. So we can be sure that Leonardo da Vinci had not finished the portrait by the end of 1504.
3. Why did Leonardo da Vinci paint Lisa Del Joconda? From the end of the 15th century to the beginning of the 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci's artistic reputation was at its peak in Italy, and many princes, nobles and senior Vatican officials wanted to ask him to paint portraits of himself. But Lisa Del Joconda and her husband's status and financial resources are obviously not the top, why Leonardo da Vinci agreed to paint his portrait?
First of all, we can know from the literature left by Florence that Lisa and her husband once lived on a street near the Holy Cross Cathedral (Santa Croce) in Florence. Their house is very close to Leonardo da Vinci's father's house. As a lawyer and notary, Leonardo da Vinci's father should also have provided professional services to Lisa's husband. Probably because of the connection between the two families, Francesco del Giokang was able to order a portrait of his wife from Leonardo da Vinci in 1503.
In addition, Leonardo da Vinci wants to paint the Mona Lisa, an aristocratic woman who is not really powerful, perhaps because she does not want to be disturbed by the object she paints. Titian, for example, painted the aforementioned Marquise Isabella de Esther, but the latter, dissatisfied with the age of the great painter's portrait, forced Titian to repaint a portrait that made her look younger and more beautiful. If you compare similar works of the same period, it is easy to observe that Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of the Mona Lisa does not have all kinds of jewelry carefully painted in the typical portraits of aristocratic women at that time. Here, the painter completely focused the audience's attention on the woman in the painting, especially on her face. Leonardo da Vinci combined his own knowledge and experience of anatomy and optics with all kinds of artistic knowledge and experience gained in the past. draw the ideal image of a beautiful woman.
4. How to understand Vasari's description of the Mona Lisa in order to better understand the Mona Lisa, we can first read Vasari's description of it in Leonardo da Vinci's biography:
"anyone can understand the extent to which art can imitate nature from this portrait, because Leonardo da Vinci here reproduces all the details as subtly as he can. The bright and moist eyes that can only be seen on the human face in real life, coupled with the eyelashes around the eyes and their reddish tones, cannot be shown except for the most subtle strokes. Eyebrows couldn't be more realistic because they show the state of hair growing on the skin-dense in some places and sparse in others, depending on the distribution of pores on the skin. The lifelike tip of the nose is pink, while the nostrils are extremely delicate. The mouth is slightly thin, and the red on the lips naturally transitions to the pink flesh on the cheeks, which looks so lifelike that it makes people feel that this is not a picture. " (note: the author translated according to the original text)
If you read only this passage, one might think that it is a portrait of a woman painted by a French Rococo painter in the 18th century (figure 4). Why is Vasari's description of Leonardo da Vinci so different from what we have seen? A simple explanation is that the cleaning and restoration of the picture over the past few hundred years, coupled with the damage and dust caused by the years, have changed its color and appearance to a certain extent.
Figure 4. Buchet, "Madame Pombardo" (partial), canvas oil painting, 1756, 212 cm high and 164 cm wide, is now on display at the Old painting Gallery in Munich, Germany. The picture is from Wikipedia. The Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, displays a painting of the Mona Lisa from Leonardo da Vinci's studio, which should be drawn simultaneously by an assistant in his studio under the guidance of Leonardo da Vinci. The Prado Museum recently cleaned it, and the finished painting should remind readers of what Leonardo da Vinci's painting should look like (figure 5). In order to understand the changes in the appearance of the picture brought about by the cleaning work, we also show the pre-cleaning photos to the readers (figure 5a), which you can compare by yourself.
Figure 5. Leonardo da Vinci Studio, Mona Lisa, plank painting, circa 1503-1516, 76.3 cm high and 57 cm wide, is now on display at the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain. Photo source: Wikipedia
Fig. 5a. The Prado version of the Mona Lisa before cleaning: Wikipedia compares the Mona Lisa in the Louvre with Vasari's description of it, and the first thing we notice is that the woman's eyebrows and eyelashes have completely disappeared. This may be because of the cleaning done to it in the past. But the Prado prints after cleaning may give us some hints (figure 6 and figure 6a) so that we can imagine what the woman's eyebrows and eyelashes look like.
Figure 6. Part of the Louvre version of the Mona Lisa without eyebrows and eyelashes. Photo Source: Wikipedia
Fig. 6a. The Mona Lisa's eyebrows and eyelashes, part of the Prado version of the Mona Lisa. Photo Source: Wikipedia 5, the Louvre version of the Mona Lisa A brief analysis of the Louvre version of the Mona Lisa, we will see that the woman in the painting seems to be smiling at us, but then it seems to be not so sure, her expression seems to have some sarcasm and mockery. Leonardo da Vinci used a mixture of two special techniques in painting the Mona Lisa's face: Sfumato and Chiarosuro. The former is recognized as Leonardo da Vinci's invention, while the latter's invention right is controversial, but in any case, Leonardo da Vinci's light-shading contrast method has its own characteristics. The use of these two painting methods makes the outline of the characters in the painting not so clear, and it is this slightly blurred outline and soft color that forms a natural transition between the shape of the organs and the skin on the face. it avoids the slightly stiff feeling of the characters painted by Leonardo da Vinci's predecessors and peers in the Renaissance, and leaves room for the viewer to imagine. Readers can compare the Mona Lisa with earlier works by Gilandayo, Botticelli, and Raphael (figures 7, 8 and 9).
Figure 7. Botticelli, "Simone da Vaspucci dressed as a fairy", wooden egg painting, 1480, 81.8cm high and 54cm wide, is now on display at St ä del in Frankfurt, Germany. Photo: Wikipedia
Figure 8. Dominic Gilandayo, "portrait of Giovanna Tonaponi"; wooden egg color and oil color, circa 1489-1490, 75.5cm high and 49.5cm wide, is now on display at the Collection Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, Spain. Photo Source: Wikipedia
Figure 9. Raphael, "the Young woman holding the Unicorn", oil painting, circa 1505-1506, 65 cm high and 51 cm wide, is now on display at the Borguese Museum (Galleria Borghese) in Rome. Photo Source: Wikipedia is particularly noteworthy that the Mona Lisa's smiling lips basically bend up slightly, but slightly downward at the end of the lips. It adds a sense of mystery, sarcasm and even a touch of sadness to the woman's smile in the painting (figure 10). It should be said that the Mona Lisa's smile is charming precisely because its expression makes the viewer feel a little unpredictable. Leonardo da Vinci studied this movement of the lips carefully, and we can find traces in his notes (figure 10a). From other sketches of this period, we can also see that Leonardo da Vinci has been studying the mystery of the face caused by the movement of the lips (figure 10b).
Figure 10. The lips of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre version. Photo: Wikipedia
Figure 10a. Leonardo da Vinci, lip study (partial), Sketch, circa 1508, British Royal Collection.
Figure 10b. Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa head study, Sketch, 1505-1508, 20 cm high and 16.2 cm wide, British royal collection. If you have seen the Mona Lisa many times, you will notice that the woman in the painting always seems to have some changes. every time you see her, you will feel different from the last time you saw her, and from a different angle, even from the same angle but at different times. The women in the painting all look different. This is because when Leonardo da Vinci painted this work, he brought together his knowledge of the relationship between lips and facial muscles, as well as the light and shadow effects of the face under light (figure 11 and figure 11a). At the same time, through extremely delicate brush strokes, layer by layer of translucent paint mixed in oil, resulting in a special effect. Because in the process of painting, the strokes of the brushes in different coatings are not in the same direction, coupled with the different degrees of color thickness, coupled with the ingenious application of fading method and light-dark contrast method, the woman in the painting not only looks like a living character, but also makes people feel that she is a real character. Every time a careful person sees her, he will vaguely feel that there seems to be a new change in where she is.
Figure 11. Leonardo da Vinci, facial muscle and arm Research, Sketch, 1510-1511, 28.8 cm high and 20 cm wide, British royal collection.
Figure 11a. Leonardo da Vinci, single-point light source on the face of the study, Sketch, 1488, 20.3 cm high, 14.3 cm wide, British royal collection. 5.1 the transparent scarf in the painting did not have photographic technology in ancient times. at that time, only a very rich few people could ask painters to paint their portraits, and even those with great wealth and wealth could only leave a few portraits of themselves. so women at that time usually wore the most expensive jewelry in the family or their favorite jewelry. I hope to show my image and identity to my contemporaries through portraits and pass them on to later generations (see figures 7, 8 and 9).
When studying the painting with modern technology at the Louvre recently, it was found that Leonardo da Vinci had painted the jewelry on the woman's head on the painting's oil-covered manuscript, but eventually removed all the jewelry from her body. The intention is that the audience can focus on the face of the person in the painting. But in order to have a natural transition between the character and the background, he retained the thin, delicate and transparent scarf on the Mona Lisa's head, which was a very fashionable Spanish style dress in Italy at that time, expensive and luxurious. it also reveals the social status and occupation of his family.
From an artistic point of view, the transparent scarf forms a gradual color transition effect between the hair of the characters in the painting and the skin of the face, and between the hair of the characters and the scenery behind, although we can see the edge of the scarf. Through the gauze, we can see the luster of the skin on the Mona Lisa's forehead, while the part outside the hair obscures the sky and the distant view, and the gauze gives people a more obvious texture because it is darkened. Leonardo da Vinci undoubtedly demonstrated his incredible insight and imagination here.
5.2 unlike portraits in the early Renaissance or contemporaries that place characters in realistic landscapes or indoors, most of the scenery in the Mona Lisa comes from Leonardo da Vinci's imagination, giving a surreal sense. the rugged and winding paths and bridges over the river not only show the changes brought about by human activities to nature, but also add vitality to the picture itself.
But the bridge in the painting should originate from the Ponte alla Carraia Bridge over the Arno River in Florence (figure 12), which dates back to at least the early 13th century. In the era when Leonardo da Vinci lived, it should be the most beautiful bridge in Florence. Since the flood in 1333 destroyed the previous bridge, the bridge Leonardo da Vinci saw should have been designed by the artist Giotto; what we see today is that it was rebuilt in 1948 after it was bombed by the Germans during World War II.
Figure 12. The Karaya Bridge at dusk in summer. Photo Source: Wikipedia takes a closer look at the scenery behind the character, and we will find that the horizontal line on the left side of her face is slightly lower than the horizon on the right side of her face, while the woman's shoulders remain horizontal. Leonardo da Vinci uses visual deception here because when we look at the painting, we feel that the Mona Lisa on the left is slightly taller than the one on the right, so we try to correct this by visually adjusting our brains. Therefore, when people look at different parts of the painting, the still characters in the painting seem to give the illusion that they are constantly moving.
Figure 13. A schematic map of the landscape horizon on both sides of the Mona Lisa. 6. The influence of Neo-Platonist philosophy before the emergence of the Mona Lisa, the expressions of almost all the characters in the portraits were quite serious (figure 7, figure 8). Because it was a portrait, painters at that time usually had to create real people, and because it was difficult to keep people smiling all the time, it was difficult for painters to draw smiling characters in the portrait. But the following passage in Vasari's Biography reveals the techniques Leonardo da Vinci used to draw the Mona Lisa.
"the Mona Lisa was already so beautiful that when he painted her portrait, Leonardo used the following technique: he specially invited musicians to play or sing for her, and then let the clown perform, so as to keep her happy all the time. And dispel her inner sadness, which is often inadvertently brought into the portrait when painting. In this portrait painted by Leonardo, the pleasant smile seems to be more divine than inhumane, but it is such a magical creation that truly shows the smile from the origin of life. " (note: translated by the author himself)
Leonardo da Vinci, who grew up in Florence under the rule of the magnificent Lorenzo de Medici, was obviously deeply influenced by Neo-Platonist philosophy, but he took another step forward here. In on creation (De Inventione), Cicero tells the story of the ancient painter Zeuxis (who lived in the 5th century BC) who created Helen of Troy. When painting, Zexis asked the people of Crotone to provide him with many beautiful girls as models, because he thought that no matter how beautiful a beautiful woman's body was, nature itself could not make all parts of her body grow perfectly. As a painter, it is impossible for him to find all the elements necessary for extreme beauty in any beautiful woman.
Da Vinci applied the same idea in creating the Mona Lisa, but because it is a portrait, the author should not draw beauty from the faces of other models and integrate them into the painting, so Leonardo da Vinci chose to create an ideal environment for the model as much as possible. so that they have the opportunity to ingest the most beautiful and attractive parts of the painted objects at different times, and eventually integrate them into the painting.
When Leonardo da Vinci left Florence for Milan in 1506, the Mona Lisa was not finished. Perhaps that is why Francesco del Giorcondo did not accept the portrait. Leonardo da Vinci always took it with him, revised and continued to paint from time to time, and did not finish it until he arrived in France in 1517. More importantly, after leaving Florence, the painter should no longer depict Lisa Del Giocondo completely, but a more perfect representative of human beings in his mind. therefore, it will naturally integrate into this painter's understanding and feelings of human nature, which will undoubtedly make this painting more in-depth.
It is because of the deep influence of Neo-Platonism and the efforts to show the best image of the Mona Lisa in the painting that this work is a perfect combination of depicting the solemn and sacred beauty of human women and the image of real women in the secular society of Florence.
7. Raphael's Rapid reaction to the Mona Lisa Leonardo da Vinci painted the portrait of the Mona Lisa when the young Raphael was studying in Florence. The painter, who is extremely sensitive to art and is good at learning, immediately made a record in the form of a sketch (figure 14). The Young woman with a Unicorn and the Portrait of Madeleine Doni, which he painted around 1506, were all influenced by the Mona Lisa (figures 9 and 15).
Figure 14. Raphael, female portrait work, sketch, 1505-1506, 22 cm high and 15.8 cm wide, now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Photo Source: Wikipedia
Figure 15. Raphael, "portrait of Maddalena Doni", oil painting, circa 1506, 65 cm high and 45.8 cm wide, is now on display at the Uffizi Museum in Florence. Photo source: Wikipedia Meso Raphael's sketch (figure 14), we will notice that there are columns on both sides of the woman in the painting. If we take a closer look at the Louvre version of the Mona Lisa, we notice that there are traces of the bottom of the columns on both sides of the woman's arms, but there are no columns; in the Mona Lisa of the Prado Museum, we can clearly see the columns on both sides of the painting (figure 5). This makes us ask: was the Louvre version of the Mona Lisa cut later, and is the painting we see today all of the paintings of that year?
8. Simple conclusion Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is an important painting that connects the past and the future in the history of Renaissance art. it not only embodies the achievements of many predecessors and masters, but also shows many new techniques invented by Leonardo da Vinci. This portrait influenced western portraits for a long time until the end of the 19th century. However, with the passage of time and all kinds of advertising, the problem that the world likes winner-takes-all is also reflected in the introduction and summary of this painting. Many oversimplified introductions to Renaissance art and the Mona Lisa put previous technological inventions on Leonardo da Vinci's head. The most common thing we read or hear is that no matter what angle we look at before the painting, the Mona Lisa's eyes will look at the reader. This is true, but it is not Leonardo da Vinci's invention. We can see the same phenomenon in some portraits before the Mona Lisa. Here we introduce two portraits painted by painters from different parts of Italy (figures 16 and 17).
Figure 16. Perujino, "Portrait of Francesco de Opel (Francesco delle Opere)", wooden painting, 1494, 52 cm high and 44 cm wide, is now on display in the Uffizi Museum. Photo Source: Wikipedia
Figure 17. Francesco Francio, "portrait of Battoromeo Biancini (Bartolomeo Bianchini)", plank painting, 1493-1495, 56.6cm high and 40.6cm wide, now on display on the London National gallery. Photo source: Wikipedia from Umbria, Pietro Perugino (circa 1448-1523) is Leonardo da Vinci's classmate, he was once a great painter on a par with Leonardo da Vinci. Francesco Francha (Francesco Francia, 1450-1517) was a Bologna painter. If readers have a chance to stand in front of the above two portraits they painted at the end of the 15th century, they will notice that no matter where they stand in front of the painting, the eyes of the characters will always look at you. In addition, it is worth noting that readers can easily see the difference between the realistic scenery in these two portraits and the dreamy surrealist scenery in the Mona Lisa.
Finally, the author would like to point out that in the hundreds of years after the completion of the Mona Lisa, it is not as famous as it is today. Since the beginning of the 16th century, it has been collected in the Fontainebleau Palace in France, and few people have seen it except for a few kings, aristocrats and elites. The Mona Lisa was really appreciated and gradually understood by the world after it was placed in the Louvre Museum in the early 19th century, and the more important reason why it is so famous today, it has a complex relationship with international geopolitics, Italian domestic politics and changes in the world's artistic taste.
A brief introduction to the author
Zhang Yi, researcher of art history, consultant of clock and Ancient Music Department of Russian Winter Palace Museum, consultant of French Pendulum Gallery, consultant of Guangdong Provincial clock Collection Research Committee, and mathematician and logician.
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