The Mona Lisa

This is the Mona Lisa. The most famous work of art in the world. Who she is, when she was painted, and even how she was painted are mysteries. You might wonder why? Why are there mysteries about a painting from someone who literally wrote down everything. In all of Da Vinci's hundreds of thousands of pages of journals, he mentions nothing about this painting. Instead his journals are written to teach someone how to truly see her. Once you can do that, then all of the mysteries turn from coincidences to clues.

 

Without giving too much away, (you gotta get the book for the details) Here is a summary of what I've discovered and some excerpts from the Chapter(s) on the fantastic Mona Lisa.

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Who is the girl in this painting? The wife of a wealthy silk merchant? -Lisa Gherardini? Or how about a self portrait of Da Vinci as a woman? A figment of his imagination? Or could it be something more than anyone else could imagine? It is, after all, the most famous work of art in existence –but  why?. Mona Lisa has been a mystery for over 500 hundred years. The time has come to reveal her mysteries, one layer at a time.

So I know what you’re probably thinking “what the hell is he talking about?” or maybe you just want a simple answer to one of the biggest mysteries of our time. WHO IS THE MONA LISA??? If I was asked to answer that with a single sentence it would pretty difficult. It’s taken almost a year of my life and starting, and having to stop and re-write this book several times. Every time I would get close to finishing I would end up unraveling more of the mystery and have to start over. So put in the most simple, yet cryptic way; the Mona Lisa is Love’s Prison. She’s a daughter, a mother, and a father – all at the same time. She’s the future and the past, and a single moment in time. She’s not just a painting, she’s alive and she has plenty to say.

SO, What is the Mona Lisa?

 A painting! The most famous painting. The greatest Painting painted by the Greatest Painter. Probably the most famous face in the world. The most revered, the most copied, the most intriguing smile.. It’s a phenomenon, a cult classic, the epitome of genius design and execution. In a world where things hardly ever live up to their reputation, I assure you the Mona Lisa surpasses all.

 

  

 This is what is commonly accepted about the Mona Lisa;

 

• It’s 30 × 21 inches

• It’s painted on Poplar wood.

• It’s said to be painted between 1503-1507

• There are 3 other paintings underneath the top coat – (she was x-rayed)

• It’s owned by the French government and housed in the Louvre

• It’s a painting of “Lisa Giocondo.” Sometimes titled; La Giaconda (Italian) or La Jaconde (in French)

 

The Mona Lisa once held Guinness’s world record for the most expensive painting of all time. It was valued for insurance reasons at 100 million dollars- but that was over 20 years ago. If you were to calculate inflation and the revived attention Da Vinci and the Mona Lisa have been getting it would probably be worth close to a billion dollars! It’s not just the painting but Da Vinci too. At an auction for some of Da Vinci’s journals, Bill Gates paid over 30 million dollars for a collection of Notebooks - for some pieces of paper! (I would have too) That should make you realize how significant Da Vinci and his work are even after 500 years.

 

The Mona Lisa has been copied, defaced, and even mocked. Cartoons have been made of her. Britney Spears and Guster even have a song titled; Mona Lisa! She’s also starred in movies like Mona Lisa Smile. Recently The Da Vinci Code has made over 600 million dollars world wide and as the name suggests, Da Vinci had a lot to do with it. But is there really a code? Secret societies and cover ups?

 

The Mysteries:

 Now that you know what’s “known” about the painting I should also go over what’s not known.

 

• Who the woman in the painting really was?
• Why Da Vinci’s Self portrait matches up with the face of Mona Lisa?
• Why there are three other paintings underneath and what are they of?
• Why the perspective in the background is “off” or unexpectedly rises behind Lisa?

 

 

It “should” be like this:

 

 

 

• Why she wasn’t given to Lisa, since it’s said she was commissioned? (someone paid Da Vinci to paint it)
• Why it’s said he painted her for 4 years and left her unfinished, but she is finished?
• Why Da Vinci didn’t name the painting or write down who she was? (he wrote thousands of pages of information but nothing about a painting he spent years on?)
• Why someone cut off the edges of the painting when Da Vinci died? (When Da Vinci Died someone cut off the sides – there used to be pillars there)
• Why there are layers of paint, invisible to the naked eye? (why would he paint something that couldn’t be seen?)
• Why so many people disagree on the facial expression?
• How he painted it?
• And HOW can I answer all of these when no one else can?

 

 

As in most great questions it’s WHY…

 

• Why did he paint her?

• Why don’t we know who she is?

• Why can’t we figure out how he painted it?

• Why can’t we agree on her expression?

• Why are there even mysteries to begin with?

• Why did Da Vinci intentionally create these mysteries??

 

One question answered:

 

Why the perspective unexpectedly rises behind the sitter.

No one has ever been explain to explain this seemingly obvious mistake.  If you take a copy of the Mona Lisa and roll it up so that it's outer edges touch, you'll notice they align. In the two copies above you can see what i mean. You'll see that they match up. When rolled up, it becomes even more obvious.

 

 This painting also used to have pillars on it's side that were removed when Da Vinci died in 1519. I believe this to be a clue to help someone figure this out. It's suppose to make you ask: "why would someone cut off the sides of the Mona Lisa?" and it's in asking that question that leads you to many more. The demonstration above wouldn't be possible with the pillars intact.

 

 

 

The next and biggest mystery about the Mona Lisa is who she actually was. Most experts and art historians say that it's Lisa Giacondo, or Lisa Gherardini. This might be true in a different version of the painting, but not the painting we're talking about. It's very possible Da Vinci painted a portrait of Lisa Gherardini but that doesn't mean that this painting is her. Da Vinci's own self portrait matches up with the face of the Mona Lisa.

 

This is just one reason why the woman in the painting isn't Lisa Gherardini. In my book I give plenty more. I compare the other names the painting has gone by:

 

"A Certain Florentine Lady"

"A courtesan in gauze veil"

"La Joconde"

"Mona Lisa"

"La Giaconda"

 

 

I will explain the significance to all of this later but for now just contemplate the coincidences. Leonardo paints a portrait of a woman starting in 1503. At this time her identity is unknown since the first to say who it was didn’t assert anything until 30 years after Da Vinci’s death. There is a list of his paintings with the title “La Joconde”  that describes a portrait of a woman that matches the painting. This is why Mona Lisa sometimes titled: La Joconde. Before Vasari said it was “Mona Lisa” the painting went by the names:;

• A certain Florentine lady”
• “A courtesan in  a gauze veil.”
• La Giaconda  

Then after Da Vinci’s death and 30 years later Vasari wrote:“Leonardo undertook to execute, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife; and after toiling over it for four years, he left it unfinished; and the work is now in the collection of King Fraces of France, at Fontainebleau.” – Vasari

 After this the painting goes by the title “Mona Lisa"

• The alternative title “La Joconde” means “light hearted” in French. Jocund means “light hearted” in English.
• Francesco del Giocondo’s last name: Giocondo in the feminine form- La Giocanda also means “light hearted Woman"

SO. La Jaconde -> La Gioconda -> Madam Lisa Giocondo = Mona Lisa  The coincidence is that all these titles are related but from different sources.  There is a little French/ Italian word play going on. This means that coincidentally the name on a piece of paper, the last name of the supposed sitter, and her expression-  all happen to be related in a strange, complicated, coincidental way..  Mon Salai - "My Salai" in also in French. Da Vinci died while living with the King of France so it's more than possible for this to be intentional. He obviously knew french.. By the end of my book I should be able to prove within a shadow of a doubt that Lisa Giocondo is not the woman in the painting and that she was used for her name and not her face. I’m not saying that she didn’t exist! I’m sure she did.  She was actually probably dead before Vasari said it was her anyways. Besides, back then they didn’t have photographs or anything to show that the woman in the painting was really Lisa Gioconda. So no one would have known or been able to tell if the girl in the painting was really the real Lisa G or not.   I wasn't the first to notice that Da Vinc's own self portrait aligned with the Mona LIsa but I am the first to realize that they combine. The image below is Da Vinci's self portrait and the Mona Lisa combined.This is the Mona Lisa and Da Vinci's Self portrait combined.

You'll notice that not only do they align perfectly, the red in Da Vinci's self portrait acts like a mask over Mona's face and alters it. Interestingly it ages the woman but in a way that actually looks like it was intended. It was. Da Vinci's self portrait was designed to do this. The History of the Mona Lisa   Mona Lisa has a past that’s even more intriguing and controversial than her smile. There seems to be almost too much vagueness and things that don’t make sense for something created by someone who left behind thousands of notes and journals. Why there’s even conflicting information makes me wonder; what’s really going on?   History is full of misconceptions but the story behind Mona Lisa is more than just a difference of opinion but more like a pre meditated advertising scheme.

Why didn’t Da Vinci just leave a date and title or anything about the painting? It seems like that should be the real mystery! What reason could he have behind not labeling this painting or even mentioning her anywhere?  Everything we “know’ about the Mona Lisa including the title is from Vasari. He wrote the first biography of Leonardo around 1550. He said that Da Vinci worked on the Mona Lisa for four years but didn’t part with her until around 1517 when he went to France to work for King François I. The king either bought the painting around that same time or inherited it when Leonardo died on May 2, 1519. (like I said there is conflicting information) Either way Leonardo had access the painting until his death. She stayed in France, where she still remains. (Leonardo is Italian though!)  

A Time Line of Mona Lisa  

• 1503- Started painting her after being commissioned by Lisa Giocondo’s Husband. – According to Vasari
• 1506- Stopped after “toiling over her for 4 years.”
• 1506-1519 - Carried it with him everywhere before giving it to The King of France when he died. (or the king bought it)
• 1911 – August 21: Stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia for 2 years but was finally returned after he was caught trying to sell it.
• 1956 - Someone threw acid on it and then someone else in the same year threw a rock!
• 1962 -1963: was displayed in New York and Washington D.C.
• 1974: Exhibited in Tokyo and Moscow

  Something to consider about the Mona Lisa is why she became so popular but also when she did.  Before the advent of the Photograph the only people who could have seen her would have been people who could see her in person. Since the painting is so complicated it’s very difficult to make a believable fake. The painting’s real popularity grew after she was stolen. Before that she was mostly known by art aficionados and those interested in art enough to go visit her. It’s very difficult to become popular without being able to be seen. Especially for a painting!  

What others have to say about the Mona Lisa:          

    “She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times and learned the secrets of the grave.” Walter Pater - Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873)

 “The smile of La Gioconda (another title for Mona Lisa) was for too long, perhaps, the Sun of Art. The adoration of her is like a decadent Christianity - peculiarly depressing, utterly demoralizing. One might say to paraphrase, Arthur Rimbaud, that La Gioconda, the eternal Gioconda has been a thief of the energies.” André Salmon, La jeune peinture francaise (1912).  

“Her hesitating smile which held my youth in a little tether has come to seem to me but a grimace and the pale mountains no more mysterious that a globe or map seen at a distance, a sort of riddle, an acrostic, a poetical decoction, a ballade, a rondel, a villanelle or ballade with double burden, a sestina or chant royal. The Mona Lisa (is) literature in intention rather than painting” - George Moore, Wale, (1914)

  “Mona Lisa is the only beauty who went through history and retained her reputation” – Will Rogers  

  “How could we possibly appreciate the Mona Lisa if Leonardo had written at the bottom of the canvas: 'The lady is smiling because she is hiding a secret from her lover.' This would shackle the viewer to reality, and I don't want this to happen to 2001.” - ?   “You cannot paint the "Mona Lisa" by assigning one dab each to a thousand painters.” William F. Buckley

  “Could Hamlet have been written by a committee, or the Mona Lisa painted by a club? Could the New Testament have been composed as a conference report? Creative ideas do not spring from groups. They spring from individuals. The divine spark leaps from the finger of God to the finger of Adam.” Alfred Whitney Griswold   by Livingston and Evans Recorded January 7, 1958

Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you
You’re so like the lady with the mystic smile
Is it only ‘cause you’re lonely they have blamed you
For that Mona Lisa strangeness in your smile Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa
Or is this your way to hide a broken heart
Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep
They just lie there, and they die there
Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa
Or just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art