Custom essays on The Mona Lisa by Leonardo DaVinci

Composition of the painting. Portrait of Mona Lisa is one of the best specimens of the portrait genre of Italian High Renaissance.
A careful analysis of the composition leads to the conclusion that Leonardo did not try to create an individual portrait. “Mona Lisa” was the implementation of the ideas of the artist, made in his treatise on painting. Leonardo’s approach to his work has always had a scientific nature. Therefore, “Mona Lisa”, the creation of which too many years, has become beautiful, but at the same time inaccessible and insensitive image. She seems voluptuous and cold at the same time. Despite the fact that the view of Joconde is directed at us, there is a visual barrier between us and her (handle of the chair, acting as a partition). This concept eliminates the possibility of an intimate dialogue, as for example in the portrait of Balthasar Castiglione (exhibited in the Louvre, Paris), written by Raphael about ten years later. Nevertheless, our view always returns to her illuminated face, surrounded by a frame of dark, hidden under a transparent veil, hair and shadows on the neck and dark, smoky landscape on the background. Against the backdrop of distant mountains the figure gives an impression of a monumental, despite the small format of the painting (77h53 cm). Leonardo chose the position of the model that is very similar to the positions of the Virgin in Italian paintings of the fifteenth century. The additional distance is created by sfumato-effect (non-clear shape in favor of creating the impression of air). For mankind Mona Lisa will forever remain a masterpiece.
Technique that was used in the painting. At the time of creation of “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo, the mastery has entered a phase of such a maturity, when all the problems of compositional formal and otherwise were posed and solved, and Leonardo began to think that only the last and most difficult task of artistic techniques deserved his attention. And when he found a model that met his requirements, he tried to solve some of the highest challenges of painting technique that were not solved yet. He tried using the already developed techniques, especially sfumato, to do more than what he had done before: create an alive face of an alive person, and so to reproduce the features and expression of the person, in order totally to discover the inner world of a person.
That spirituality was reached thanks to the main tool, the wonderful Leonardo`s sfumato. Leonardo liked to say that “the modeling is the soul of painting”( Kalz 2003). Sfumato is what creates the moist view of Mona Lisa, light smile, softness of the hands. Sfumato is a barely perceptible haze enveloping the face and figure, offing the contours and shadows.
Detective Story with “Mona Lisa”. Mona Lisa could not to become known for a long time if not its exclusive story, which made the painting famous worldwide.
Since the beginning of the sixteenth century, the painting that was bought by Francis I after the death of Leonardo remained in the royal collection. From 1793 it has been placed in the Central Museum of Art in the Louvre. Mona Lisa has always remained in the Louvre as one of the treasures of the national collection. On the 21st of August 1911 the painting was stolen by an employee of the Louvre, the Italian master of the mirrors Vincenzo Perugia. The purpose of that theft is not clear. Perhaps Perugia wanted to return the “Gioconda” to the historic homeland. The picture was found only after two years in Italy. So, on the 1st of January 1914, the painting was returned to France.
In the twentieth century the painting has almost never left the Louvre. It was in the USA in 1963 and in Japan in 1974. The trips have just consolidated the success and glory of the masterpiece.
Current condition of the painting. Macro photography allows seeing a large number of craquelure (cracks) on the surface of the painting.
The painting “Mona Lisa” has darkened, which is considered to be the result of the inherent gravity of its author to the experiments to paints. The contemporaries of the artists, however, managed to express their admiration as to the composition, drawing and play of light and shade, the color of the work.
Current condition of the picture is rather bad, that is why the officials of Louvre announced that they would not exhibit it any more.
References

Barolsky, Vasari Paul. Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales. 1987. p. 80. Print.
Depriest, Don L. To Write a Mona Lisa. 2008. pp. 14-15. Print.
De’ Firenze, Rina. Mystery of the Mona Lisa. 2002. p. 245. Print.
Kalz, Jill. The Mona Lisa. 2003. pp. 14-15. Print.
Mohen, Jean-Pierre., Leonardo (da Vinci)., Menu, Michel. Mona Lisa: inside the painting. 2006. pp. 78-79. Print.
Sassoon, Donald. Mona Lisa: the history of the world’s most famous painting. 2002. pp. 301-302. Print.