Leonardo da Vinci the painter of Mona Lisa

The Artistic Merits of Mona Lisa and the genius of Leonardo da Vinci

            Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was renowned as primarily painter. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. Among his works, Mona Lisa is the most famous parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings have survived the small number because of his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination. Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists rivalled only by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

Apparently, Leonardo carried the Mona Lisa painting with him for the remainder of his life and he travelled extensively after the painting’s completion. So, either this painting was of value to the artist, or the woman in the painting was someone very special in the artist’s life. Or, the conspiracy theories have some merit and there was a hidden message in the painting. The Mona Lisa is a monumental work – not in its physical size, but rather in the grandeur of the female figure that dominates the space of the painting. It is actually a very small painting, listed at the Louvre Museum as being 77 cm (height) by 53 cm (width) – that’s about a little over two feet high and less than 2 feet wide. The painting is significant, not just in the life and work of da Vinci, but in the history of Renaissance painting in Italy in the early sixteenth-century. According to Scailliérez at the Louvre Museum, the Mona Lisa “is the earliest Italian portrait to focus so closely on the sitter in a half-length portrait. The painting is generous enough in its dimensions to include the arms and hands without them touching the frame. The portrait is painted to a realistic scale in the highly structured space where it has the fullness of volume of a sculpture in the round.” Pater’s typical nineteenth-century romantic dialogue certainly served to heighten the romance and the mystery behind the woman in the painting.

There is a science behind Leonardo’s depiction of the woman’s smile. He was a mathematician and a scientist as well as an artist, so it stands to reason that his creative endeavours would incorporate some of his mathematical and scientific knowledge. Her smile is so emblematic, ambiguous, and even coy. It is almost a half-smile, one corner of the mouth lifted slightly higher than the other. It is,” as Scailliérez points out, “a visual representation of the idea of happiness suggested by the word ‘Gioconda’ in Italian. Leonardo made this notion of happiness the central motif of the portrait: it is this notion which makes the work such an ideal.” The smile is not the only thing that attracts the observer. The casual pose of the woman in itself is intriguing. The positioning of the hands is particularly casual, not a usual pose for a portrait in the early sixteenth-century. In this painting, Leonardo challenges both himself and the observer to question their vision of the ideal woman.