Smile Of The Mona Lisa: A Mystery Yet Unravelled

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If someone wishes to blame the renowned author Dan Brown for renewing vested interest in the secrets of the Mona Lisa through his book “The Da Vinci Code” and movie of the same title, he would not be be wrong.

The novel takes us on an imaginative journey of various keys hidden in the art work that can be used for unlocking various mysteries spanning different ages. However, while Brown has come up with his fictional tale only recently, this painting, considered to be the most famous in the world, has been under intense scrutiny for over half a millennium as scholars try and find an answer to the numerous questions it raises.

9 Conspiracy Theories About Mona Lisa

The latest story involves a team of archaeologists trying to exhume the remains of one Lisa Gherardini from a Florence convent. She is believed to be the model for the Mona Lisa painting although a number of other theories exists surrounding the identity of the individual.

The identity of the subject for the portrait, however, is not the only mystery surrounding Leonardo’s Mona Lisa. Her smile, so famous for its intriguing nature, continues to be an enigmatic aspect of this historic portrait.

So why is it that the Mona Lisa is actually thought to smile? While numerous facts about Mona Lisa smile exist, one cheeky theory suggests that the lady is laughing at all the garbage that gets reported about her day-in and day-out, a practice that has been coming down for many years now!

Da Vinci is believed to have used his self-taught “sfumato” technique while blending the paint pigments especially around the corners of the mouth and eyes of the subject, and this has given rise to numerous interesting facts Mona Lisa smile.

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It is believed that this technique is responsible for creating the illusion of Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile that disappears depending on the vantage point of the viewer. The eye takes a nanosecond to shift from the portrait’s eyes to her mouth but this split second is enough for the smile to vanish, as far as the viewer is concerned.

In a bid to assess the emotions of Mona Lisa on a more scientific level and establish a concrete theory surrounding facts about Mona Lisa smile, a research was carried out by the University of Amsterdam back in 2005. Dutch researchers from the Institute made use of emotion recognition software for determining the mood of the subject.

An analysis carried out in collaboration with the University of Illinois revealed that her capricious smile was 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful, 2% angry, neutral by less than 1%, and totally lacked an element of surprise.

The Louvre Museum in Paris, France- rightful owners of the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci- conducted a research on an x-ray image to establish further facts about Mona Lisa smile. They claim that when the portrait was initially painted in 1503, the lady was not found to be smiling.

In fact, the most interesting fact Mona Lisa smile is that it is believed to have appeared as da Vinci made subtle changes to the portrait over many years. Her enigmatic smile is thus a symbol of Leonardo’s creative genius whose meaning cannot be established by some skeletal remains hidden in some underground vault.