What Makes the "Mona Lisa" Special, and Why It's More Than a Simple Portrait
Last week, news emerged that the Louvre is considering moving Leonardo da Vinci's most famous painting to the basement in response to "public disappointment" and massive crowds.
When I was twenty years old, I saw the Mona Lisa in person.
It was a dreary day in early October, and tourist season in Paris was coming to a close. I was studying abroad in Vienna, and conveniently, one of my closest friends was studying in Paris. With a free place to stay in an otherwise expensive city, I had eagerly accepted Allie’s invitation to visit.
The Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay were essential stops. While I had always loved and appreciated art, I was still learning about the techniques and methodologies that went into creating brilliant works. That, dear reader, is why my moment to finally see the Mona Lisa left me feeling… underwhelmed.
I still vividly recall being jostled into the room where Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous portrait is housed. To catch a glimpse, Allie and I craned our necks past hordes of visitors, with their selfie sticks and cell phones hovering in the air. At the time, the Mona Lisa hung against a tan backdrop, safely behind a wall of bullet-proof glass. The scene was reminiscent of a celebrity being hounded by paparazzi—the Mona Lisa was a starlet who once seemed larger-than-life in my imagination, yet in person, she was impossibly small.
Is that it? I wondered.
Registering the disappointment in my eyes, Allie said, “It’s okay if you want to keep going.”
So, we moved on, and we left the throng of photographers to fight for a fleeting moment with Leonardo’s lady. If I had known what I know now, I would have worked patiently to reach the front of the crowd.
As I would discover later in my art history classes, the Mona Lisa isn’t just a simple portrait, and while its infamous theft in 1911 did bolster the painting’s international reputation, that is not the reason it is so renowned—despite what some may claim. Today, we will be exploring why this painting is a groundbreaking masterpiece that has influenced artists for centuries, whether they are aware of it or not.
I’ve chosen this topic because as the Crossroads patrons know, it was announced last week that the Louvre may be moving the Mona Lisa to a dedicated room in the basement. The reasons offered for this change include managing “public disappointment,” as well as addressing chaotic crowds. (The Louvre now allows a maximum of 30,000 visitors per day.)
As Vincent Delieuvin (Chief Curator of 16th-century Italian painting) told the French newspaper Le Figaro, “We’ve been thinking about it for a long time, but this time everyone is in agreement. It’s a large room, and the Mona Lisa is at the back, behind its security glass, so at first glance it looks like a postage stamp.”
A postage stamp? Not quite—though at roughly 30 by 20 inches (77 x 53 cm), she may not have the immediate impact of Leonardo’s Madonna of the Rocks or The Last Supper. But to Leonardo’s contemporaries, it was a deeply innovative work.
For modern viewers, there’s a familiarity to the Mona Lisa that goes beyond her fame. With a soft, enigmatic smile and crossed arms, she sits comfortably in her seat.
She is relaxed and at ease with herself. She is also staring right at us.
We take this three-quarter pose for granted, but it was unusual in Italian portraiture at the time. When Leonardo began working on the Mona Lisa in 1503, subjects in portraits were generally painted in profile. In particular, female subjects didn’t usually gaze directly at the viewer. The Mona Lisa is uniquely alive to us because she isn’t an object—she knows that we are looking at her, and she is staring back.
This aliveness is furthered by Leonardo’s invention of sfumato, in which a painter uses fine layers to create imperceptible, hazy transitions between light and shadow, rather than outlining a figure. This subtle blending helps to create the Mona Lisa’s famous half-smile, as there are no hard boundaries between her lips and the rest of her face. As Giorgio Vasari wrote in his 1550 series of artist biographies (Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, sometimes translated as Lives of the Most Eminent Painters), “As art may imitate nature, [the Mona Lisa] does not appear to be painted, but truly of flesh and blood. On looking closely at the pit of her throat, one could swear that the pulses were beating.”
Another aspect of this painting that modern viewers may take for granted is the use of aerial perspective. Leonardo da Vinci was a pioneer of the technique—in fact, he coined the term “aerial perspective” in A Treatise on Painting, a collection of his writings which were compiled in his notebooks under the heading On Painting. (It was published posthumously in 1651.)
In it, Leonardo wrote, “There is another kind of perspective called aerial, because by the difference of the air it is easy to determine the distance of different objects, though seen on the same line.” He goes on to explain the technique, in which an artist can make objects appear further away, despite being “all of the same size, and upon the same line.”
Take a look again at the Mona Lisa, but this time, examine the scenery. Over her right shoulder is a bridge, over her left is a road, and the rocky, mountainous landscape fades as it stretches further away. This is how our eyes view the world, and Leonardo da Vinci knew this well. He wasn’t only an artist—he was an inventor, a scientist, a mathematician, and more. He knew how to play with the way in which our brains process visual information. Notice how the horizon doesn’t line up perfectly behind the woman’s head?* This creates the illusion of her shoulders turning towards us, despite the fact that they are level with each other.
And who exactly is this mysterious woman? A rather agreeable client, it seems, who allowed Leonardo to experiment in this way…
For that, you’ll have to stay tuned until next week, when we explore the role of the patron in Renaissance art, with some examination of the identity behind the most famous face in art history.
But I’d like to leave you all with a few words on the Mona Lisa’s notoriety. As some of you may know, the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911 by Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian man who felt that Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece belonged in the artist’s homeland of Italy. Frankly, Peruggia didn’t have a case. When Leonardo died, he left the painting to his assistant, who sold it to the King of France—fair and square.
The theft of the Mona Lisa was global news, and it did raise the painting’s international profile. However, I find that popular media exaggerates the degree to which this put the Mona Lisa on the map, with some going as far as to say that the painting wasn’t well known before 1911. The Mona Lisa had already been extensively evaluated by art historians, especially during the 1800s. Mass-produced engravings, prints, and photographs of the painting began circulating during the Victorian period. As the Louvre grew in prominence throughout the 1800s, so did the Mona Lisa. By the time it was stolen in 1911, the Mona Lisa had already gained a large enough reputation such that people actually cared that she was gone.
Some have tried to estimate the Mona Lisa’s value, but the painting is truly priceless. More than any monetary figure, it is a symbol of innovation in Renaissance art and a work that rewrote the rules of portraiture. I understand the need for an improved viewing experience, while providing appropriate security for the world’s most famous painting. I do hope that the Louvre is able to find a better solution.
And if I am lucky enough to see the Mona Lisa in person again, I will know that despite all of her fame and glory, she is still underestimated, and she has much to teach us.
*Interested in exploring the inner-workings of Leonardo da Vinci’s mind? I would recommend Leonardo da Vinci: The Graphic Work by Johannes Nathan and Frank Zöllner (Taschen).
I definitely thought she would be bigger (about the size of the Mona Lisa in the Wizards of Waverly Place art museum episode where she’s essentially life size and the frame us a window hehe) but I would still love to go see it at some point. There’s something so special and heartwarming about how often humans all around the world wanting to see something someone else created.
Such interesting observations you have made. I was lucky enough to see it about twenty years ago. The size of the portrait took me by surprise too. I was able to be about four rows back. The thing I was focused on were her eyes. As you stated she appears to be looking straight back at the viewer. At the time I didn’t notice the background or the symmetry. I have going back to Paris on my bucket list.