# What makes Monalisa's painting so special ?



## BBThumbHealer (May 23, 2008)

Hello Buddies ,

As the thread title suggest , can u ppl suggest wat makes Monalisa's painting so special that even scientists are performing researches on it ? Isn't it an ordinary painting ?  Due my lack of knowledge on the topic , i wud like to hear from all digitians on this issue !


Thnx

BBThumbHealer


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## iMav (May 23, 2008)

*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa

that's all i know


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## koolbluez (May 23, 2008)

the oldest curiosity was whether the lady is smilin or sad or what feeling is she goin thru... the meaning of the smile is enigmatic... sfumato. There is a flickering quality - with smile present  and smile gone - which occurs as people move their eyes around Mona Lisa's face. You'll never be able to catch her smile by looking  at her mouth!

*In 1852, Luc Maspero, a French artist, jumped four floors to his death from a hotel room in Paris. His suicide note explained that he preferred death after years of struggling to understand the mystery behind Mona Lisa's smile.*

 It was said to b due to DaVinci's style of drawing the pic in layers... as suggested by some tests.

Also.. the lady has no eyebrows... enhancing it's curiosity. Talk's that the eyebrow hairlines were so fine that they have either faded away over the centuries, or were possibly washed away during a poor restoration job.

Other than the most prolific assumption that this portrait was of Madam Lisa Gherardini, the third wife of a wealthy Florentine silk merchant named Francesco del Giocondo.

Talk also goes that the Mona Lisa is not a portrait of one woman, but an artful composite of many, Leonardo's idealization of all womanhood. Others suggest it may have been one of Da Vinci's young male models in drag.

Another talk is of the portrait being that of his mother Caterina. Leonardo was an illegitimate child & Leonardo carried this painting with him always not only does the painting remind him of his mother but also reminds him of some of his favorite places shown in the background.

There is also speculation that the portrait is of DaVinci himself; his facial characteristics and those of the _Mona Lisa_ perfectly aligns with one another!
*www.hschamberlain.net/kant/leonardo.jpg *www.latifm.com/artists/image/da-vinci-leonardo-mona-lisa.jpg

Vasari, an Italian painter and architect, famous for his biographies of Italian artists, expressed the opinion that DaVinci's manner of painting would make even "_*the most confident master ... despair and lose heart*_".
And to prove it, no painter has copied the Mona Lisa atleast close to perfection! To make a good counterfeit Mona Lisa, one would have to paint the mouth by looking away from it.


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## iMav (May 23, 2008)

i guess da vinci wanted to see how he would look if he were a girl, or maybe da vinci was trans-sexual


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## Pathik (May 23, 2008)

There is one more thing. From whatever angle you look at it, it always seems that she is looking at you.


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## koolbluez (May 23, 2008)

Pathik said:


> There is one more thing. From whatever angle you look at it, it always seems that she is looking at you.


That happens in many pics... something to do with the perspective of the drawing... artist speciality...


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## Pat (May 23, 2008)

Pathik said:


> There is one more thing. From whatever angle you look at it, it always seems that she is looking at you.



Most of the pics taken from such an angle look like that!


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## Faun (May 23, 2008)

Dragon illusion is teh best
Monalisa was admrired by a bunch of asitocrats, thats the catch

Like wat we see in modern art now a days,


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## BBThumbHealer (May 23, 2008)

Thnx for ur response guys


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## praka123 (May 23, 2008)

look at Jesus Pic - he also feels like looking at us!  infact most god/goddess portraits too!
*img.webring.com/r/c/contemplativecat/logo


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## eggman (May 23, 2008)

Jai Jesus


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## trublu (May 23, 2008)

Pathik said:


> There is one more thing. From whatever angle you look at it, it always seems that she is looking at you.



That's not a special thing abt this painting.Watch the newsreader on tv from different angles.It will always seem that (s)he is looking at you.


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## aditya.shevade (May 23, 2008)

LOL... in a photo, if you look dirctly at the lens, then the photo presents this effect that the person is looking at you from photo. Achieving this effect in handdrawn paintings is great.


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## Hrithan2020 (May 23, 2008)

I guess the most special thing about Monalisa is that Da Vinci considered it his favourite amongst his many masterpieces which gave it an aura of "mystery".


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## iinfi (May 23, 2008)

I v never understood paintings. even simple ones. 
whn i try to draw a lion it looks like a goat.


Pathik said:


> There is one more thing. From whatever angle you look at it, it always seems that she is looking at you.


hmmm  ... i tried to chk it ... 
sry no success mine is a LCD monitor.


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## kumarmohit (May 23, 2008)

^^mine looks like a wolf


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## BBThumbHealer (May 24, 2008)

^


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## sharath_ar89 (May 25, 2008)

lolz 
urs looks some what familier but mine looks  like a marsian


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## knight17 (May 25, 2008)

> LOL as a portrait painter I get this question about once a month. Understand that until you see the painting in real life, it's difficult to understand. The Mona Lisa is only about 18" x 24" and it is amazing to stand next to her (for about a second!) and watch how disappointed people seam to be about her. They have recently discovered exactly who she was, for certain, in one of the libraries of Italy. See here for more details *www.spiegel.de/international/euro...
> Now, art work is not judged strictly on does the person like it or not. If thats the case, then about 85% of the work I see is crap. However there are rules that we study on how to evaluate a piece and to determine how successful that particular artist was with the subject they were painting. These rules (or the basic ones at least) are called the elements and principles of design. See here for a basic website *www.johnlovett.com/test.htm
> After reading that web page, look at the Mona Lisa again and try to determine the worth yourself. Also keep in mind, that the woman in the portrait had also just lost a child, within the previous months. Just getting her to smile alone was a miracle. Also keep in mind that in that day and age, all colors and tools were created by hand and mixed by hand. There were no "art" stores like there are today. Mix this with his extreame attention to detail, and balance it is just a breath taking piece. If you'd like to expound further atomicportraits@live.com
> 
> ...



*answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080315084335AAKcUBX


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