This technology is called "sfumato", which comes from the Italian word "smoke". Leonardo described his paintings like this: "There are no lines and boundaries, just like smoke. 」
This painting method makes Mona Lisa "float" from the background and "dissolve" in the air of the whole painting, and this "gradual change" effect also makes the smile on her mouth very intriguing: it looks like a smile that can last for a long time at first, but it seems to change her expression at any time ...
Eternal smile
Because Europe was ruled by feudalism and the church for a long time in the Middle Ages, the characters in the paintings were dull and lacked real human feelings. From the standpoint of humanitarianism, Leonardo da Vinci endowed the characters with real personality and emotion. They look at the world with pleasant eyes and praise the brilliance of human nature with heartfelt smiles.
Leonardo da vinci once said, "A painter should be like a mirror, truly reflecting everything in the world before him. If you want to draw people, you should look like a real person. If you want to draw white clouds, you must float in the real sky like white clouds. Not only that, but also use the eyes of the mind to absorb everything in front of you and find meaning. 」
His portraits are mostly women, with elegant, subtle and gentle smiles on many sides. This feminine beauty has become a registered trademark of Leonardo da Vinci. Is he subconsciously moved by the tenderness (motherhood) of women? Does it reflect his life course of lacking maternal love since childhood? Is it his narcissism about his handsome appearance? What does it have to do with his gossip homosexuality? All this, because of this faint smile, has become an eternal puzzle, which makes art historians continue to relish …
Famous painting link: the works of American watercolor master Steve Hanks
Are you looking at me?
Some people say that no matter which direction you look, you feel that she is smiling at herself. Do you feel the same way?
In fact, her body is facing the left, her face is facing us at a three-quarters angle, and her eyes are projected to the right of the picture, which is slightly naughty. So she can say "everything", which is why everyone thinks "she is looking at me"!
Leonardo da vinci placed her in the center of the picture with a triangular composition, which made her look solemn and confident, and resolved the possible rigidity caused by this composition with a very subtle dynamic. Her faint smile narrowed the distance between her and the audience.
The mysterious heroine
Her identity has always been a mystery. "Mona Lisa" is the title of English-speaking countries, "Mona" is her title, meaning "madam" and "Lisa" is her nickname. According to tradition, she is a wealthy businessman in Florence, Italy, Francisco. Giocondo's wife, Giocondo. But some people say that she is Julian? De? The mistress of the Duke of Medici, named Pacifika? Brandano ().
She was dressed in plain clothes and didn't wear any jewelry. Legend has it that she put on mourning because her youngest daughter died unfortunately. When Leonardo painted her, she invited musicians to play beside her to make her happy.
Leonardo played down her eyebrows, making her forehead and eyebrows as smooth as marble statues. It is said that because of the social fashion at that time, women like to have wide foreheads and thin eyebrows. If we compare Botticelli, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian and other Renaissance masters, we can find that the female eyebrows of Da Vinci and Raphael are the thinnest, which is related to the painter's personal preferences.
Fantastic background
Compared with the foreground figures, the distant mountains and winding rivers behind her seem to omit the "middle scene" in the "foreground, middle scene and foreground", which sets off the "sacred feeling" of the foreground figures, which is a bit surreal. This technique often appears in Leonardo da Vinci's religious paintings, suggesting that the protagonist in the painting is not from this world-or that man is the protagonist between heaven and earth?
Steep rocks and peaks are described by the method of "air distance", which makes the close-up view clearer, while the distant scenery is hidden in the fog, which is extremely far away. Especially the background is high on the right and low on the left. When we look at the left and the right, our views are different. The height of the picture has been in subtle changes, which makes people unpredictable and adds to her mystery …
The spread of famous paintings
Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa around 1503- 1506, and this painting has been accompanied by him from Florence, Milan, Rome ...1517. The French emperor Francis I hired 65-year-old Leonardo da Vinci as the chief painter, and he brought this painting to France, which shows that he painted this painting. 1805, Napoleon gave it to the Louvre.
On August 24th, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre, which shocked all France. Two years later, this famous painting appeared in Florence, Italy, and the pillars on both sides behind the Mona Lisa were cut off. It turned out that it was stolen by an art gallery carpenter. He believes that Leonardo da Vinci is Italian and should return to his original owner and return to his motherland. Before being sent back to France, famous paintings toured Florence, Rome and Milan.
1957 65438+1October 13, a Bolivian threw stones at Mona Lisa, and the glass of the frame was broken and the picture was slightly damaged. The saboteur was penniless and wanted to spend the winter in prison, so he made the best decision. It is said that she is currently placed in a special bulletproof glass window to accept the pilgrimage of audiences from all over the world …