week 1: Mona Lisa who are you?

Mona Lisa? Who's this woman behind the smile?who really she is? when you say Mona Lisa it's very controversial because is she real or what. It's very interesting about the portrait of Mona Lisa by the Italian artist Leonardo Da Vinci. Mona Lisa is a half portrait of a woman. According to the Wikipedia the description of Giorgio Vasari is "Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife...."In Italian, ma donna means my lady. This became madonna, and its contraction mona. Mona was thus a polite form of address, similar to Ma’am, Madam, or my lady in English. Though traditionally spelled "Mona" (as used by Vasari), in modern Italian, this short form of madonna is now usually spelled Monna. The title is therefore sometimes given as Monna Lisa, but this is rare in English. "Monna Lisa" is the normal spelling in modern Italian. He began to pait the Mona Lisa 1503 1504 in Florence, Italy. Leonardo Da Vinci used the pyramid design so the woman in painting looks calm and simply in the space of the painting.Her folded hands form the front corner of the pyramid. Her breast, neck and face glow in the same light that models her hands. The light gives the variety of living surfaces an underlying geometry of spheres and circles.He referred to a seemingly simple formula for seated female figure: the images of seated Madonna, which were widespread at the time. He effectively modified this formula in order to create the visual impression of distance between the sitter and the observer. The armrest of the chair functions as a dividing element between Mona Lisa and the viewer.

                                                    

  

Is there a secrets that untold behind the portrait of a woman named Mona Lisa? according to what I've read in the internet. Some experts believe that Lisa del Giocondo actually was the subject of another painting, leaving the identity of the woman in Mona Lisa in question. One popular theory suggests that she is the Duchess of Milan, Isabella of Aragon. Da Vinci was the family painter for the Duke of Milan for 11 years and could very well have painted the Duchess as the Mona Lisa.Other researchers have stated that the painting could depict a mistress of Giuliano de' Medici, who reigned in Florence from 1512 to 1516, or various other women. A more recent thought is that it is the feminine version of Da Vinci himself. Digital analysis has revealed that Da Vinci's facial characteristics and those of the woman in the painting are almost perfectly aligned with one another. This is behind the notion that pregnancy or childbirth were the reasons for Mona Lisa's cryptic smile.Other theories hold that the painting is actually a self-portrait of Leonardo or one of his male lovers in disguise. Proponents of that theory note that the painter never actually gave up the work but instead kept the Mona Lisa with him until his death in Amboise, France in 1519.

What are the techniques that he used to paint the portrait? The Mona Lisa is an oil painting, with a cottonwood panel as the surface. It is unusual in that most paintings are commissioned as oil on canvas, but the cottonwood panel is part of what has attributed to the fame of the painting. the Mona Lisa has survived for six centuries without ever having been restored–a trait very unusual when considering the time period of the piece because of the medium used for the image.While most of the artwork of the Renaissance period depicts biblical scenes, it was the style and technique of the paintings of this period which make them distinguished from other eras of artwork. Anatomically correct features are one of the identifiable marks of this period of history in art, and the Mona Lisa stands out amongst the great paintings for the detail in her hands, eyes, and lips.Leonardo Da Vinci used a shadowing technique at the corners of her lips as well as the corners of her eyes which give her an extremely lifelike appearance and look of amusement. Her portrait is such that to an observer, they are standing right before Lisa Del Giocondo, with the arms of her chair as the barrier between the observer and the subject of the painting.Leonardo Da Vinci also created a background with aerial views and a beautiful landscape, but muted from the vibrant lightness of the subject’s face and hands. The technique Leonardo Da Vinci used in executing the painting left behind no visible brush marks, something that was said to make any master painter lose heart.Thats all will never know what's behind the smile of this lady.