"La Gioconda" (Mona Lisa) by Leonardo da Vinci is a brilliant creation of the master. Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

The Mona Lisa has always been an amazing creation by Leonardo da Vinci. Very much interesting stories related to this work. In this article we will tell you several educational facts about the painting Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa painting. Facts that will impress you:

Mona Lisa's eyebrows and eyelashes

In the painting, the Mona Lisa has neither eyelashes nor eyebrows. However, in 2007, a French engineer used a high-resolution camera to discover fine brush strokes in the eyebrows and eyelashes that had disappeared over time, likely as a result of careless restoration or simply faded.

There is another "Mona Lisa"

The Prado Museum in Spain houses a second Mona Lisa, which was probably painted by one of da Vinci's students. If you superimpose two Mona Lisa paintings, a 3-D effect appears, which, in fact, makes this painting the first stereoscopic image in history.

Pablo Picasso was suspected...

When the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911, Pablo Picasso was questioned as a suspect.

Delicate work..

When painting the image of La Gioconda, Leonardo da Vinci created about 30 layers, many of which are thinner than a human hair.

Relaxed atmosphere

When painting the Mona Lisa, the artist made sure that the model was in in a great mood, and so that she doesn't get bored. For this purpose, six musicians were invited to play especially for the Mona Lisa, and a musical fountain, invented by da Vinci himself, was installed.

Various magnificent works and a Persian cat and a greyhound were present, in case the sitter wanted to play with them.

The painting was not painted on canvas

"Mona Lisa" was painted not on canvas, but on three types wood, about an inch and a half thick.

12 long years...

Leonardo da Vinci invented scissors, played the viola, and spent 12 years painting the Mona Lisa's lips.

Mona Lisa and Napoleon

The Mona Lisa painting hung in Napoleon's bedroom.

An attempt at cubism...

A Swedish designer has created a replica of the Mona Lisa from fifty translucent polygons.

Scam of the century...

As you know, in 1911 the painting “Mona Lisa” was stolen from the Louvre. The theft was led by Argentine fraudster Eduardo de Valfierno, all in order to sell six counterfeits to six different collectors around the world. No charges were brought against him, since he was not formally involved in the kidnapping.

I just took it out of the museum...

In 1911, Vincenzo Perugia (an employee of the Louvre and a mirror maker) wished to return the Mona Lisa back to Italy after the painting "was captured by Napoleon." Perugia entered the Louvre, removed the painting from the wall, carried it to the nearest service staircase, took the painting out of the frame, put it under his work coat and left the museum as if nothing had happened.

Insolent...

In 1956, a Bolivian tourist threw a rock at the Mona Lisa and damaged the painting.

What is the price of the Mona Lisa?

The cost of the Mona Lisa painting is estimated at approximately $782 million.

Mona Lisa from toast..

In 1983, Tadahiko Ogawa created a copy of the Mona Lisa consisting entirely of t O stov.

Save from the Nazis

During World War II, the Mona Lisa was moved from the Louvre twice. And all in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Nazis.

Mona Lisa with mustache

“Mona Lisa with a Mustache” is a work owned by surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp. He called the painting “L.H.O.O.Q.” , which means “I have a hot ass” in French.

Painting of Mona Lisa with mustache

You can love forever...

In 1963, the Mona Lisa was exhibited for a month at the National Gallery of Art. The painting was under round-the-clock guard by American Marines and, despite the fact that the gallery's visiting hours were extended, people often stood in line for about two hours just to get a glimpse of the painting.

The tiniest copy of the Mona Lisa

The most microscopic copy of the Mona Lisa is only 30 microns in size.

Self-portrait

There is a version that the portrait of the Mona Lisa is actually a self-portrait of da Vinci in women's clothing.

“From a medical point of view, it is not clear how this woman even lived.”

Her mysterious smile mesmerizing. Some see divine beauty in it, others see it as secret signs, and others see it as a challenge to norms and society. But everyone agrees on one thing - there is something mysterious and attractive about her. We are, of course, talking about the Mona Lisa - the favorite creation of the great Leonardo. A portrait rich in mythology. What is the secret of Mona Lisa? There are countless versions. We have selected the ten most common and intriguing ones.

Today this painting, measuring 77x53 cm, is kept in the Louvre behind thick bulletproof glass. The image, made on a poplar board, is covered with a network of craquelures. It has gone through a number of not very successful restorations and has noticeably darkened over five centuries. However, the older the painting becomes, the more people attracts: the Louvre is visited annually by 8-9 million people.

And Leonardo himself did not want to part with the Mona Lisa, and perhaps this is the first time in history when the author did not give the work to the customer, despite the fact that he took the fee. The first owner of the painting - after the author - King Francis I of France was also delighted with the portrait. He bought it from da Vinci for incredible money at that time - 4,000 gold coins and placed it in Fontainebleau.

Napoleon was also fascinated by Madame Lisa (as he called Gioconda) and took her to his chambers in the Tuileries Palace. And the Italian Vincenzo Perugia stole a masterpiece from the Louvre in 1911, took it home and hid with her for two whole years until he was detained while trying to hand over the painting to the director of the Uffizi Gallery... In a word, at all times the portrait of a Florentine lady attracted, hypnotized, and delighted. ..

What is the secret of her attractiveness?

Version No. 1: classic

We find the first mention of the Mona Lisa in the author of the famous Lives, Giorgio Vasari. From his work we learn that Leonardo undertook to “make for Francesco del Giocondo a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, and, after working on it for four years, left it unfinished.”

The writer admires the artist’s skill, his ability to show “ the smallest details, which only the subtlety of painting can convey,” and most importantly, a smile that “is given so pleasant that it seems as if you are contemplating the divine rather than human" The art historian explains the secret of her charm by saying that “while painting the portrait, he (Leonardo) held people who were playing the lyre or singing, and there were always jesters who kept her cheerful and removed the melancholy that painting usually imparts to the portraits being painted.” There is no doubt: Leonardo is an unsurpassed master, and the crown of his mastery is this divine portrait. In the image of his heroine there is a duality inherent in life itself: the modesty of the pose is combined with a bold smile, which becomes a kind of challenge to society, canons, art...

But is this really the wife of the silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, whose surname became the middle name of this mysterious lady? Is it true that the story about the musicians who created the right mood for our heroine? Skeptics dispute all this, citing the fact that Vasari was an 8-year-old boy when Leonardo died. He could not personally know the artist or his model, so he presented only information given by the anonymous author of the first biography of Leonardo. Meanwhile, the writer also encounters controversial passages in other biographies. Take, for example, the story of Michelangelo's broken nose. Vasari writes that Pietro Torrigiani hit a classmate because of his talent, and Benvenuto Cellini explains the injury with his arrogance and impudence: while copying Masaccio's frescoes, during the lesson he ridiculed every image, for which he received a punch in the nose from Torrigiani. Cellini speaks in favor of the version complex nature Buonarroti, about whom there were legends.

Version No. 2: Chinese mother

It really did exist. Italian archaeologists even claim to have found her tomb in the monastery of St. Ursula in Florence. But is she in the picture? A number of researchers claim that Leonardo painted the portrait from several models, because when he refused to give the painting to the fabric merchant Giocondo, it remained unfinished. The master spent his whole life improving his work, adding features of other models - thereby obtaining a collective portrait ideal woman of his era.

Italian scientist Angelo Paratico went further. He is sure that Mona Lisa is Leonardo's mother, who was actually...Chinese. The researcher spent 20 years in the East studying communications local traditions With Italian era Renaissance, and discovered documents showing that Leonardo's father, the notary Piero, had a wealthy client, and he had a slave whom he brought from China. Her name was Katerina - she became the mother of the Renaissance genius. It is precisely by the fact that eastern blood flowed in Leonardo’s veins that the researcher explains the famous “Leonardo’s handwriting” - the master’s ability to write from right to left (this is how entries were made in his diaries). The researcher saw and oriental features in the face of the model, and in the landscape behind her. Paratico suggests exhuming Leonardo's remains and testing his DNA to confirm his theory.

The official version says that Leonardo was the son of the notary Piero and the “local peasant woman” Katerina. He could not marry a rootless woman, but took as his wife a girl from a noble family with a dowry, but she turned out to be barren. Katerina raised the child for the first few years of his life, and then the father took his son into his home. Almost nothing is known about Leonardo's mother. But, indeed, there is an opinion that the artist, separated from his mother in early childhood, all his life he tried to recreate the image and smile of his mother in his paintings. This assumption was made by Sigmund Freud in his book “Memories of Childhood. Leonardo da Vinci" and it gained many supporters among art historians.

Version No. 3: Mona Lisa is a man

Viewers often note that in the image of Mona Lisa, despite all the tenderness and modesty, there is some kind of masculinity, and the face of the young model, almost devoid of eyebrows and eyelashes, seems boyish. The famous Mona Lisa researcher Silvano Vincenti believes that this is no accident. He is sure that Leonardo posed...the young man in women's dress. And this is none other than Salai - a student of da Vinci, who was painted by him in the paintings “John the Baptist” and “Angel in the Flesh”, where the young man is endowed with the same smile as the Mona Lisa. The art historian, however, made this conclusion not only because external resemblance models, and after studying photographs in high resolution, which made it possible to see Vincenti in the eyes of the model L and S - the first letters of the names of the author of the picture and the young man depicted on it, according to the expert.

"John the Baptist" by Leonardo Da Vinci (Louvre)

This version is supported by special relationship- Vasari also hinted at them - the model and the artist, which may have connected Leonardo and Salai. Da Vinci was not married and had no children. At the same time, there is a denunciation document where an anonymous person accuses the artist of sodomy of a certain 17-year-old boy Jacopo Saltarelli.

Leonardo had several students, with some of whom he was more than close, according to a number of researchers. Freud also talks about Leonardo's homosexuality, and he supports this version with a psychiatric analysis of his biography and the diary of the Renaissance genius. Da Vinci's notes about Salai are also considered as an argument in favor. There is even a version that da Vinci left a portrait of Salai (since the painting is mentioned in the will of the master’s student), and from him the painting came to Francis I.

By the way, the same Silvano Vincenti put forward another assumption: that the painting depicts a certain woman from the retinue of Louis Sforza, at whose court in Milan Leonardo worked as an architect and engineer in 1482-1499. This version appeared after Vincenti saw the numbers 149 on the back of the canvas. This, according to the researcher, is the date the painting was painted, only last digit erased. It is traditionally believed that the master began painting Gioconda in 1503.

However, there are many other candidates for the title of Mona Lisa who compete with Salai: these are Isabella Gualandi, Ginevra Benci, Constanza d'Avalos, the libertine Caterina Sforza, a certain secret lover Lorenzo Medici and even Leonardo's nurse.

Version No. 4: Gioconda is Leonardo

Another unexpected theory, which Freud hinted at, was confirmed in the research of the American Lillian Schwartz. The Mona Lisa is a self-portrait, Lilian is sure. Artist and Graphic Consultant at the School visual arts in New York in the 1980s, she compared the famous “Turin Self-Portrait” by a very middle-aged artist and a portrait of Mona Lisa and discovered that the proportions of faces (head shape, distance between the eyes, forehead height) were the same.

And in 2009, Lilian, together with amateur historian Lynn Picknett, presented the public with another incredible sensation: she claims that the Shroud of Turin is nothing more than an imprint of Leonardo’s face, made using silver sulfate using the camera obscura principle.

However, not many supported Lilian in her research - these theories are not among the most popular, unlike the following assumption.

Version No. 5: a masterpiece with Down syndrome

Gioconda suffered from Down's disease - this was the conclusion that English photographer Leo Vala came to in the 1970s after he came up with a method to “turn” the Mona Lisa in profile.

At the same time, the Danish doctor Finn Becker-Christiansson diagnosed Gioconda with congenital facial paralysis. An asymmetrical smile, in his opinion, speaks of mental deviations up to and including idiocy.

In 1991 French sculptor Alain Roche decided to embody the Mona Lisa in marble, but it didn’t work out. It turned out that from a physiological point of view, everything in the model is wrong: the face, the arms, and the shoulders. Then the sculptor turned to the physiologist, Professor Henri Greppo, and he attracted a specialist in hand microsurgery, Jean-Jacques Conte. Together they came to the conclusion that the right hand mysterious woman does not rest on the left, because it is possibly shorter and could be subject to convulsions. Conclusion: the right half of the model’s body is paralyzed, which means the mysterious smile is also just a spasm.

Gynecologist Julio Cruz y Hermida collected a complete “medical record” of Gioconda in his book “A Look at Gioconda Through the Eyes of a Doctor.” The result was so scary picture that it is not clear how this woman even lived. According to various researchers, she suffered from alopecia (hair loss), high level cholesterol in the blood, exposure of the neck of the teeth, their loosening and loss, and even alcoholism. She had Parkinson's disease, a lipoma (benign fatty tumor on right hand), strabismus, cataracts and heterochromia of the iris (different eye colors) and asthma.

However, who said that Leonardo was anatomically accurate - what if the secret of genius lies precisely in this disproportion?

Version No. 6: a child under the heart

There is another polar “medical” version - pregnancy. American gynecologist Kenneth D. Keel is sure that Mona Lisa crossed her arms on her stomach reflexively trying to protect her unborn baby. The probability is high, because Lisa Gherardini had five children (the first-born, by the way, was named Pierrot). A hint of the legitimacy of this version can be found in the title of the portrait: Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo (Italian) - “Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo.” Monna is short for ma donna - Madonna, Mother of God (although it also means “my mistress”, lady). Art critics often explain the genius of the painting precisely because it depicts an earthly woman in the image of the Mother of God.

Version No. 7: iconographic

However, the theory that the Mona Lisa is an icon where an earthly woman took the place of the Mother of God is popular in its own right. This is the genius of the work and that is why it has become a symbol of the beginning new era in art. Used to be art served the church, government and nobility. Leonardo proves that the artist stands above all this, that the most valuable thing is the creative idea of ​​the master. And the great idea is to show the duality of the world, and the means for this is the image of the Mona Lisa, which combines the divine and earthly beauty.

Version No. 8: Leonardo - creator of 3D

This combination was achieved using a special technique invented by Leonardo - sfumato (from Italian - “disappearing like smoke”). Exactly this one picturesque technique, when paint is applied layer by layer, and allowed Leonardo to create aerial perspective in the picture. The artist applied countless layers of these, and each one was almost transparent. Thanks to this technique, light is reflected and scattered differently across the canvas, depending on the viewing angle and the angle of incidence of the light. That’s why the model’s facial expression is constantly changing.

The researchers come to a conclusion. Another technical breakthrough of a genius who foresaw and tried to implement many inventions that were implemented centuries later ( aircraft, tank, diving suit, etc.). This is evidenced by the version of the portrait stored in Madrid Museum Prado, painted either by da Vinci himself or by his student. It depicts the same model - only the angle is shifted by 69 cm. Thus, experts believe, there was a search for the desired point in the image, which will give the 3D effect.

Version No. 9: secret signs

Secret signs- a favorite topic of Mona Lisa researchers. Leonardo is not just an artist, he is an engineer, inventor, scientist, writer, and probably encrypted some universal secrets in his best painting. The most daring and incredible version was voiced in the book and then in the film “The Da Vinci Code”. Of course, fiction novel. However, researchers are constantly making equally fantastic assumptions based on certain symbols found in the painting.

Many speculations stem from the fact that there is another hidden image of the Mona Lisa. For example, the figure of an angel, or a feather in the hands of a model. There is also an interesting version by Valery Chudinov, who discovered in the Mona Lisa the words Yara Mara - the name of the Russian pagan goddess.

Version No. 10: cropped landscape

Many versions are also related to the landscape against which the Mona Lisa is depicted. Researcher Igor Ladov discovered a cyclical nature in it: it seems worth drawing several lines to connect the edges of the landscape. Just a couple of centimeters are missing for everything to come together. But in the version of the painting from the Prado Museum there are columns, which, apparently, were also in the original. Nobody knows who cropped the picture. If you return them, the image develops into a cyclical landscape, which symbolizes what human life(in a global sense) enchanted just like everything in nature...

It seems that there are as many versions of the solution to the mystery of the Mona Lisa as there are people trying to explore the masterpiece. There was a place for everything: from admiration unearthly beauty- until complete pathology is recognized. Everyone finds something of their own in Mona Lisa and, perhaps, this is where the multidimensionality and semantic multi-layeredness of the canvas is manifested, which gives everyone the opportunity to turn on their imagination. Meanwhile, the secret of Mona Lisa remains the property of this mysterious lady, with a slight smile on her lips...

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“Mona Lisa”, “La Gioconda” or “Portrait of Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo” (Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo) is the most famous picture Leonardo da Vinci and perhaps the most famous painting in the world. For more than five centuries, Mona Lisa has hypnotized the world with her smile, the nature of which many scientists and historians are trying to explain. According to the latest data, the portrait was painted between 1503 and 1519. There are two versions of the painting by Leonardo, the earlier one is in a private collection, and the later one is on display at the Louvre.

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"Mona Lisa", "La Gioconda" or "Portrait of Lady Lisa del Giocondo" (Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo) is the most famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci and perhaps the most famous painting in the world. For more than five centuries, Mona Lisa has hypnotized the world with her smile, the nature of which many scientists and historians are trying to explain. According to the latest data, the portrait was painted between 1503 and 1519.

There are two versions of the painting by Leonardo, the earlier one is in a private collection, and the later one is on display at the Louvre. According to one version, Leonardo’s model was not Lisa Gherardini, but the artist’s student Salai, whose image can be found in many of Leonardo’s paintings, but most historians still agree that this is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini (Lisa del Giocondo), the wife of a Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo.

"Mona Lisa" was one of the selected works, with which the painter himself did not part. Some experts consider La Gioconda the quintessence of not only da Vinci’s work, but also his worldview and philosophy.

Other versions

The mystery of the Mona Lisa

Today, anyone can order a portrait for themselves at an affordable price. However, just a few decades ago, only fairly wealthy people could afford such a luxury.

During the Renaissance, it was considered prestigious when a person could order his portrait from an artist. Such a service was quite expensive, and therefore its presence in the interior emphasized the high social status person, and convincingly testified to his material wealth.

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, also known as La Gioconda, is rightfully considered the most recognizable portrait in the world. Every year thousands of people from different countries come to Paris and visit the Louvre to see this masterpiece for themselves. Leonardo Da Vinci left the world not just a portrait of a woman, but a riddle. The genius did not leave any records about his work, but many art historians unanimously agree that the artist began work on creating the portrait in 1503. There is a hypothesis that the painting was commissioned by a wealthy Florentine merchant who traded in silk fabrics, Francesco del Giocondo and his wife Lisa. However, for unknown reasons, the portrait was not delivered to the customer.

Researchers suggest that the portrait was created in honor of some event. It may have been commissioned by Francesco del Giocondo to decorate new house, which he acquired in 1503. Or maybe the painting was painted in honor of the birth of the second child in the Giocondo family, Andrea, who was born in December 1502, three years after the death of his daughter in 1499.

The history of the creation of the portrait still remains a mystery. There is still no sufficiently reasoned version of what kind of woman is depicted on the canvas and whether she really existed. According to contemporaries, Da Vinci never parted with him and even took him with him to France to the royal court. Only when he was dying, the artist was forced to part with the portrait, giving it to his friend and patron, King Francis I, who subsequently added the canvas to his personal collection.

The mysterious smile of the Mona Lisa has become an inspiration to many creative people. At first glance at the portrait, it seems that its heroine is smiling coquettishly, but if you look closely, you can see that there is not even a shadow of a smile on the woman’s face.

Is the Mona Lisa smiling or not? Partly. This is exactly the answer to this question given by most famous art researchers who have been studying the painting for many years. They suggest that when a viewer looks at a portrait, he first of all pays attention to the eyes of the Mona Lisa, and everything else, including her mouth, is in the area of ​​​​peripheral vision. Seeing with peripheral vision, a person does not clearly distinguish details, but can see black and white colors, as well as shadows and movement. Therefore, because of the shadows on the Mona Lisa’s cheeks and the corners of her mouth, it seems that her lips are raised in a half-smile.

Of course, the perception of certain emotions, as well as beauty, depends on the viewer, so no one can say with certainty whether Mona Lisa is smiling in the picture or, on the contrary, is in melancholy.

Leonardo da Vinci. Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco Giocondo (Mona Lisa or Gioconda). 1503-1519 Louvre, Paris

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci is the most mysterious picture. Because she is very popular. When there is so much attention, an unimaginable number of secrets and speculations appear.

So I couldn’t resist trying to solve one of these mysteries. No, I won't look for encrypted codes. I will not unravel the mystery of her smile.

I'm worried about something else. Why does the description of the Mona Lisa's portrait by Leonardo's contemporaries not coincide with what we see in the portrait from the Louvre? Is there really a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, hanging in the Louvre? And if this is not the Mona Lisa, then where is it stored? real Gioconda?

The authorship of Leonardo is indisputable

Almost no one doubts that he painted the Louvre Mona Lisa himself. It is in this portrait that the master’s sfumato method (very subtle transitions from light to shadow) is revealed to the maximum. A barely perceptible haze, shading the lines, makes the Mona Lisa almost alive. It seems that her lips are about to part. She will sigh. The chest will rise.

Few could compete with Leonardo in creating such realism. Except that . But in applying the method, sfumato was still inferior to him.

Even compared to earlier portraits by Leonardo himself, the Louvre Mona Lisa is obvious progress.

Leonardo da Vinci. Left: Portrait of Ginerva Benci. 1476 National Gallery Washington. Middle: Lady with an ermine. 1490 Czartoryski Museum, Krakow. Right: Mona Lisa. 1503-1519 Louvre, Paris

Leonardo's contemporaries described a completely different Mona Lisa

There is no doubt about Leonardo's authorship. But is it correct to call the lady in the Louvre the Mona Lisa? Anyone may have doubts about this. Just read the description of the portrait, a younger contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci. Here's what he wrote in 1550, 30 years after the master's death:

“Leonardo undertook to make a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, for Francesco del Giocondo, and, having worked on it for four years, left it unfinished... the eyes have that shine and that moisture that is usually visible in a living person... The eyebrows could not be more natural: the hair grow densely in one place and less often in another in accordance with the pores of the skin... The mouth is slightly open with the edges connected by the redness of the lips... Mona Lisa was very beautiful... her smile is so pleasant that it seems as if you are contemplating a divine rather than a human being... ”

Notice how many details from Vasari's description do not match the Mona Lisa from the Louvre.

At the time of painting the portrait, Lisa was no more than 25 years old. The Mona Lisa from the Louvre is clearly older. This is a lady who is over 30-35 years old.

Vasari also talks about eyebrows. Which the Mona Lisa doesn't have. However, this can be attributed to poor restoration. There is a version that they were erased due to unsuccessful cleaning of the painting.
Leonardo da Vinci. Mona Lisa (fragment). 1503-1519

Scarlet lips with a slightly open mouth are completely absent in the Louvre portrait.

One can also argue about the charming smile of the divine being. It doesn't seem that way to everyone. It is sometimes even compared to the smile of a confident predator. But this is a matter of taste. One can also argue about the beauty of the Mona Lisa mentioned by Vasari.

The main thing is that the Louvre Mona Lisa is completely finished. Vasari claims that the portrait was abandoned unfinished. Now this is a serious inconsistency.

Where is the real Mona Lisa?

So if it’s not the Mona Lisa hanging in the Louvre, where is it?

I know of at least three portraits that fit Vasari's description much more closely. In addition, they were all created in the same years as the Louvre portrait.

1. Mona Lisa from the Prado

This Mona Lisa received little attention until 2012. Until one day restaurateurs cleared the black background. And lo and behold! Under the dark paint there was a landscape - exact copy Louvre background.

Pradovskaya Mona Lisa younger than years by 10 of its competitor from the Louvre. Which corresponds to the real age of the real Lisa. She looks nicer. She has eyebrows after all.

However, experts did not claim the title main picture peace. They admitted that the work was done by one of Leonardo's students.

Thanks to this work, we can imagine what the Louvre Mona Lisa looked like 500 years ago. After all, the portrait from the Prado is much better preserved. Due to Leonardo's constant experiments with paints and varnish, the Mona Lisa became very dark. Most likely, she also once wore a red dress, not a golden brown one.

2. Flora from the Hermitage

Flora fits Vasari's description very well. Young, very beautiful, with an unusually pleasant smile of scarlet lips.

In addition, this is exactly how Melzi himself described his teacher Leonardo’s favorite work. In his correspondence he calls her Gioconda. The painting, he said, depicted a girl of incredible beauty with a Columbine flower in her hand.

However, we do not see her “wet” eyes. In addition, it is unlikely that Signor Giocondo would allow his wife to pose with her breasts exposed.

So why does Melzi call her La Gioconda? After all, it is this name that leads some experts to believe that the real Mona Lisa is not in the Louvre, but in.

Perhaps there has been some confusion over the 500 years. From Italian “Gioconda” is translated as “Merry”. Maybe that’s what the students and Leonardo himself called his Flora. But it so happened that this word coincided with the name of the portrait’s customer, Giocondo.

This portrait was revealed to the general public about 100 years ago. An English collector bought it from Italian owners in 1914. They allegedly had no idea what treasure they had.

A version was put forward that this is the same Mona Lisa that Leonardo painted to order for Signor Giocondo. But he didn’t finish it.

It is also assumed that the Mona Lisa that hangs in the Louvre was already painted by Leonardo 10 years later. Already for himself. Taking as a basis the already familiar image of Signora Giocondo. For the sake of my own artistic experiments. So that no one would bother him or demand a painting.

The version looks plausible. In addition, Isleworth's Mona Lisa is unfinished. I wrote about this. Notice how undeveloped the woman's neck and the landscape behind her are. She also looks younger than her Louvre rival. It’s as if they really portrayed the same woman 10-15 years apart.

The version is very interesting. If not for one big BUT. Isleworth's Mona Lisa was painted on canvas. Whereas Leonardo da Vinci wrote only on the board. Including the Louvre Mona Lisa.

Crime of the century. The abduction of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre

Maybe the real Mona Lisa hangs in the Louvre. But Vasari described it too inaccurately. And Leonardo has nothing to do with the three paintings above.

However, in the 20th century, one incident occurred that still casts doubt on whether the real Mona Lisa hangs in the Louvre.

In August 1911, the Mona Lisa disappeared from the museum. They searched for her for 3 years. Until the criminal revealed himself in the most stupid way. Placed an advertisement in the newspaper for the sale of the painting. A collector came to see the painting and realized that the person who submitted the ad was not crazy. Under his mattress was actually the Mona Lisa collecting dust.
Louvre. Crime scene photo (Mona Lisa disappeared). 1911

The culprit turned out to be Italian Vincenzo Perugia. He was a glazier and artist. Worked for several weeks at the Louvre on glass protective boxes for paintings.

According to his version, patriotic feelings awoke in him. He decided to return to Italy the painting stolen by Napoleon. For some reason he was sure that all the paintings Italian masters The Louvre has been stolen by this dictator.

The story is very suspicious. Why did he not let anyone know about himself for 3 years? It is possible that he or his customer needed time to make a copy of the Mona Lisa. As soon as the copy was ready, the thief made an announcement that would obviously lead to his arrest. By the way, he was sentenced to a ridiculous term. Less than a year later, Perugia was already free.

So it may well be that the Louvre received back a very high-quality fake. By that time, they had already learned how to artificially age paintings and pass them off as originals.

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Perhaps no painting in history causes as much heated debate as Leonardo da Vinci’s “La Gioconda.” Scientists, art critics and historians are struggling with the mystery of who is depicted in the painting - some kind of woman or is it a veiled self-portrait of Leonardo? But most of all, her mysterious smile raises questions. The woman seems to be hiding something from the audience and at the same time mocking them.

It got to the point that doctors began to examine the picture and rendered a verdict: the woman depicted in the picture is sick with such and such diseases, which cause facial contractions mistaken for a smile. Tons of books have been written on the topic of La Gioconda, hundreds of documentaries and feature films, thousands of scientific and research articles have been published.

In order to understand the mystery of the painting, first let’s talk a little about Leonardo himself. Nature has never known geniuses like Leonardo either before or since. Two opposing, mutually exclusive views of the world combined in him with some incredible ease. Scientist and painter, naturalist and philosopher, mechanic and astronomer... In a word, physicist and lyricist in one bottle.

The mystery of La Gioconda was solved only in the 20th century, and then only partially. When painting, Leonardo used the sfumato technique, based on the principle of dispersion, the absence of clear boundaries between objects. This technique was one way or another mastered by his contemporaries, but he surpassed everyone. And Mona Lisa's shimmering smile is the result of this technique. Thanks to the soft range of tones that smoothly flow from one to another, the viewer, depending on the focus of the gaze, gets the impression that she is either smiling tenderly or grinning arrogantly.

It turns out that the mystery of the painting has been solved? Not at all! After all, there is another mysterious moment associated with La Gioconda; the painting lives its own life and influences the people around it in an incomprehensible way. And this mystical influence was noticed a very, very long time ago.

First of all, the painter himself suffered. He had never worked on any of his works for such a long time! But this was a regular order. For four long years, spending, according to estimates, at least 10,000 hours, with a magnifying glass in hand, Leonardo created his masterpiece, applying strokes measuring 1/20-1/40 mm. Only Leonardo was capable of this - this is hard labor, the work of an obsessed person. Especially when you consider the dimensions: only 54x79 cm!

While working on La Gioconda, Leonardo suffered severe health problems. Possessing almost incredible vitality, he practically lost it by the time the picture was completed. By the way, this most perfect and mysterious work of his remained unfinished. In principle, da Vinci always gravitated toward incompleteness. In this he saw a manifestation of divine harmony and, perhaps, he was absolutely right. After all, history knows many examples of how the desperate desire to finish what was started became the cause of the most incredible cases.

However, he took this particular work of his with him everywhere and did not part with it for a moment. And she kept sucking and sucking the strength out of him... As a result, within three years after stopping work on the painting, the artist began to grow decrepit very quickly and died.

Misfortunes and misfortunes also haunted those who were in one way or another connected with the painting. According to one version, the painting depicts a real woman, and not a figment of the imagination: Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant. She posed for the artist for four years, and then died very quickly - at the age of twenty-eight. Her husband did not live very long after the wedding; lover Giuliano de' Medici soon died of consumption; his illegitimate son was poisoned by the Mona Lisa.

John the Baptist in another painting by Leonardo is very feminine and his facial features resemble those of Mona Lisa