Mona Lisa's Secret

Mona Lisa has always been part of our history. But we all wonder what's behind the smile. Did Da Vinci paint himself as a woman? For all of you guys who think that art is boring, it's actually not. There's a lot of secrets entailed with art, especially the Mona Lisa painting. I found this article that has a lot of unexpected secrets from this painting. Oh how would Da Vinci be proud to see that his work is still appreciated till this day.

The first major scientific analysis of the “Mona Lisa” in 50 years has uncovered some unexpected secrets, including signs that Leonardo da Vinci changed his mind about his composition, French and Canadian researchers said Tuesday.


National Research Council of Canada
A 3-D laser camera has found surprises in the “Mona Lisa.”

Related
National Research Council Canada Study on Mona Lisa's Hidden Secrets (From http://iit-iti.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca)



From "Mona Lisa: Inside the Painting," by Jean-Pierre Mohen, Michel Menu and Bruno Mottin
An Infared photograph suggests that Leonardo originally painted the Mona Lisa with a gauzy overdress for nursing (visible, at right), and a tiny bonnet (vague outline visible about the sitter's head).


From "Mona Lisa: Inside the Painting," by Jean-Pierre Mohen, Michel Menu and Bruno Mottin
A detail of Mona Lisa's hands show that Leonardo had initially painted one of them clenched, as if the woman were about to rise from a chair, which is no longer visible in finished the work.
Photographs taken with invisible infrared light and a special infrared camera suggest that at least one of the details was hiding in plain sight, the scientists and conservators said.

The sitter in the Louvre Museum’s 16th-century masterpiece, believed to be Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant, was originally painted wearing a large transparent overdress made from gauze, they said. Under normal light, part of the garment is visible on the right-hand side of the painting, but appears simply to be part of the background.

“You can see it when you know what you’re looking for,” said Bruno Mottin, a curator in the research department of the Center of Research and Restoration of the Museums of France, known as C2RMF. He spoke at a news conference with researchers from the National Research Council of Canada.

Mr. Mottin said such transparent robes were worn by expecting or nursing mothers in 16th-century Italy. The robe’s reappearance in the “Mona Lisa” would dovetail with scholarly research indicating that the painting might have been commissioned to commemorate the birth of Lisa Gherardini’s third child.

The imaging also shows, although less clearly, that some of the sitter’s hair was rolled into a small bun and tucked under a tiny bonnet with an attached veil. (The images are too cloudy to be reproduced on newsprint.)

“That is not surprising,” Mr. Mottin said. “The bonnet was usually worn by women in the 16th century.”

More generally, the researchers said they realized that centuries of grime had obscured some elements of the painting.

“You’re seeing a lot more fine detail, showing that this remarkable painting is actually more remarkable than we believed,” said John M. Taylor, an imaging scientist and conservator with the National Research Council of Canada.

Mr. Mottin said that two pieces of clothing had faded from view, largely because of the application of now-discolored layers of lacquer over the centuries.

Original Article