Is Monalisa really the face of Da Vinci?

Question

I have heard that the face of Monalisa is that of Da Vinci's. sort of Da Vinci as a woman

Answer 1

What a load of old twaddle. The identity of The Mona Lisa is still not certain. She could be one of several noble women of the period. This theory about Leonardo painting himself as a woman has been blown out of proportion It was called self portrait of the artist because it represents the concept of his painting!!! It could also be called a self portrait in the mirror. The viewer looks at the face which the painter himself look upon. Leonardo himself wrote 'The face which in painting gazed at the master who paints it, is always looking back at all those who gaze at it'.

Also have a look at what the Louvre have to say about the work.

This portrait was doubtless painted in Florence between 1503 and 1506. It is thought to be of Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine cloth merchant named Francesco del Giocondo - hence the alternative title, La Gioconda. However, Leonardo seems to have taken the completed portrait to France rather than giving it to the person who commissioned it. It was eventually returned to Italy by Leonardo's student and heir Salai. It is not known how the painting came to be in François I's collection.



Description


Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco Giocondo

The history of the Mona Lisa is shrouded in mystery. Among the aspects which remain unclear are the exact identity of the sitter, who commissioned the portrait, how long Leonardo worked on the painting, how long he kept it, and how it came to be in the French royal collection.
The portrait may have been painted to mark one of two events - either when Francesco del Giocondo and his wife bought their own house in 1503, or when their second son, Andrea, was born in December 1502 after the death of a daughter in 1499. The delicate dark veil that covers Mona Lisa's hair is sometimes considered a mourning veil. In fact, such veils were commonly worn as a mark of virtue. Her clothing is unremarkable. Neither the yellow sleeves of her gown, nor her pleated gown, nor the scarf delicately draped round her shoulders are signs of aristocratic status.


A new artistic formula


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. The figure is shown in half-length, from the head to the waist, sitting in a chair whose arm is resting on balusters. She is resting her left arm on the arm of the chair, which is placed in front of a loggia, suggested by the parapet behind her and the two fragmentary columns framing the figure and forming a "window" looking out over the landscape. The perfection of this new artistic formula explains its immediate influence on Florentine and Lombard art of the early 16th century. Such aspects of the work as the three-quarter view of a figure against a landscape, the architectural setting, and the hands joined in the foreground were already extant in Flemish portraiture of the second half of the 15th century, particularly in the works of Hans Memling. However, the spacial coherence, the atmospheric illusionism, the monumentality, and the sheer equilibrium of the work were all new. In fact, these aspects were also new to Leonardo's work, as none of his earlier portraits display such controlled majesty.


An emblematic smile

The Mona Lisa's famous smile represents the sitter in the same way that the juniper branches represent Ginevra Benci and the ermine represents Cecilia Gallerani in their portraits, in Washington and Krakow respectively. It is 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 nature of the landscape also plays a role. The middle distance, on the same level as the sitter's chest, is in warm colors. Men live in this space: there is a winding road and a bridge. This space represents the transition between the space of the sitter and the far distance, where the landscape becomes a wild and uninhabited space of rocks and water which stretches to the horizon, which Leonardo has cleverly drawn at the level of the sitter's eyes.

Answer 2

It didn't start out as his face. However, he continued to work on the painting for 30 years (without the original model) and used it as a promotional piece to show potential clients how well he could paint. SO, after 30 years of fussing over it, it started looking more and more like Da Vinci because he was using himself for reference.

John Cichowski M.F.A.
New York Academy of Art

Answer 3

yea we all know that Da vinci code movie is fact. Only Da Vinci could anwser that question.

Answer 4

Read Da Vinci Code and yes his face is a bit like her giving that mysterious smile about knowing something no one else does..............

Answer 5

Noooooo, have you seen a self-portrait of Da Vinci. He had eyebrows!!

Answer 6

You'll never know. Some people say that Mona Lisa's face is DaVinci's face, but others say that she is a rich woman who wanted a portrait. Other people say that DaVinci just made her up. Only DaVinci will know who she really is.

Answer 7

No it's not, she was the wife of an italian (florentine) businessman Francesco del Giocondo. Stop believing everything u read in the Da Vinci code please!

Answer 8

There is a natural tendency to tinge artwork with the face of the artist. This might explain some of the resemblance, although I'm not sure I buy it.

Answer 9

DaVinci is a big mystery. A portrait of Mona Lisa is just one part of a picture. Some people would even say that DaVinci was gay. some scientists say that this portrait is just to perfect.

Answer 10

its not his real face it looks like it but its not