The Rebellious Curator

100 Days of Mona Lisa

Day 1 - The Original 

The original portrait by Leonardo da Vinci was painted somewhere between 1503-1506 on a Poplar wood panel. It only measures 30x20 inches and is hanging in its own dedicated room at The Louvre in Paris, France. When I visited The Louvre in 1978, the portrait was kept inside a clear box on a large plinth. 

Also known as La Gioconda, the sitter is the wife of Francesco Gioconda and was painted in the sfumato technique da Vinci is famous for. The painting was one of the first portraits painted with a background of an imaginary landscape using aerial perspective. Layers of thin colour(glazing) give the painting an ethereal glow, and brushstrokes were applied in an intentionally irregular way to make her skin more lifelike. Blurred outlines in Mona Lisa's hair and clothing are echoed in the valleys and rivers behind her, creating harmony and balance. Her subtle smile reflects the idea of a link connecting humanity and nature, and the mystery of human emotions which began during the Renaissance. The question everyone still asks, is she smiling or isn't she?