Perhaps the most famous piece of artwork is the Mona Lisa because of the great mysteries it holds. The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci, a Florentine painter and sculptor who was supported by the Medici family. In the early Fall of 1516, Da Vinci headed across the Alps to France with an invitation from the king. While in France, he was visited by Cardinal Luigi of Aragona and he showed him three paintings. These paintings were St. John the Baptist, Virgin and Child with St. Anne, and a “portrait of a certain Florentine lady,” also known as the Mona Lisa. According to art historian Giorgio Vasari, Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa for Francesco del Giocondo and that it depicted his wife, Lisa Gheradini. The reason why is unknown, but commissions were usually made to commemorate personal events. However, what is strange about this is how Da Vinci kept the painting for another decade instead of giving it to him. Today, the Mona Lisa sits in the Louvre, where it was stolen in 1911 and was not returned until 1914.
What makes the Mona Lisa so intriguing and famous is its mystery. The portrait of Mona Lisa shows a woman seated on a chair, slightly to the left, with a landscape background. A thin veil covers her hair, which is parted in the middle. Her arms are crossed on her lap on top of a dark dress. The woman shown in the Mona Lisa has a very intriguing smirk that is not clearly positive or negative.
One theory suggests that the Mona Lisa represents both happiness and grief after losing a child and having another one. Since art was usually commissioned for personal life events, having a painting to commemorate pregnancy would be plausible. It is also noted that the veil that the woman is wearing marks pregnancy. Her smile is very bittersweet and difficult to interpret, which is why some think that it is meant to represent the multiple feelings of losing a child, then having another one. Harvard neurologist Margaret Livingstone actually did a lot of research on how the Mona Lisa’s smile looks depending on what someone focuses on. Because of this, we wonder, did Leonardo Da Vinci purposely add this ambiguous smile?
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