Explain to me the beauty of this painting. Is it because it is actually, genuinely beautiful? Or is it because it has so much hype around it that the world has been convinced to think that the painting rocks! Whatever it is, I don't really care. I don't care if she is laughing or smiling, or whether 'she' is a portrait of Da Vinci himself, or how her stare follows you everywhere. I personally don't see anything great in it (believers of the contrary please convince me). But then, I am no art expert.
But what's interesting is the world's obsession with this painting. I came across a TIME article with regards to this, and just read how the world goes bezerk over her:
- Monalisa Smile: "A Dutch emotion-recognition program determined that her non-grin is just 83% happy. She is also 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry." **okay...**
- Speak Up: "A Japanese forsenics expert claims that by analyzing her skeletal structure, he can accurately re-create her voice, which he said was low for a woman." **what? how?**
- Smokin': Italian researchers say Leonardo used a blurring technique called sfumato, employing microscopic dots to create the smoky shadows near her eyes and mouth that make her stare so enigmatic." **what the hell!**
- Mona Mia: "A Harvard symblolgist uncovered an anagram scrawled in invisible ink across the painting's face, which led to the discovery of a secret society..." **yeah, you've read a book about it...**
Can you believe the amount of research done on this chick? Wait, she is not even good-looking! I guess it is the enigma and controversy that surrounds the painting that makes it what it is. Christianity, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Illuminati are all very fascinating aspects. But so much hype? Really? But then again, imagine a world without the Monalisa...
P.S. Any other fascinating facts that have eluded me?
25 comments:
hi anish!
man thats soo true..shes ugly..she has nothin in her..(or rather her face) that is soo fascinating..
its actaully a hype and adding to that is the amount that painting is worth!!
how can anyone determine that she is smilin or cryin or if shes disgusted!!
anyways..well written and a very different topic..cheers!
dolly
Heyy Anish,
Yeah man ur soo rite....1st of all shes dam ugly...and I dont see wat is soo great in her....I really dont care if shes happy or sad or angry or wateva....oh and btw researchers said that she cudve have been pregnant at dat time coz of her clothes!!...i mean cummon...do we really care?....if she was pretty or sumthin yea maybe that wud be one reason that the painting is sooo famous...but otherwise....Ewww....and dont researchers get bored of looking at that *chick* ? Sum time ago people thought Mona Lisa was gay!!!...I mean....wat the hel?....Cant people just leave her alone?...she herself is probably gettin bored of being checked out soo much!! :)....anyway...great topic and well written...:)
Aashini
I totally agree with u...there is also a theory that the famous smile on Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa could be because she is pregnant or had just had a baby.Canadian scientists used laser and infrared scans to produce a 3D image of the painting.This allowed details beneath layers of paint to be seen - including a gauzy dress then associated with pregnant or new mothers.It also showed the 500-year-old picture was in good condition. The scans, using a resolution 10 times finer than a human hair, did reveal some warping to the wooden back of the painting.
The amount of time energy put into the research for her highness mona lisa and her smile....can be used for better purposes...and shes not even pretty..good post anish! keep it up!
anish man,
why dont u take a break, now isnt the time for appreciating or not appreciating art! Im guessing from Bad days your ticked...
All the criticism and and hype?
anish its not about her, even i think she isnt worth oggling over, its about the painting. the sfumato style itself is a technically brilliant and hard form of painting.
take some time off. then look at the painting without any magazines or peoples comments and opinions.
look at it by ureself. lissen to some music.relax. look at the painting not her.
and see if its all that great, and what it is about the beauty of this painting. if u still dont see nething,
read ure post again. dont be so harsh!
art is what you make of it. in my opinion atleast.
i mean wat the hell is all this stuff people are calling 'art' today?! they take a broomstick, attach a fork on one side, and then paint an eye on the stick or some crap like that and call it art. is it? maybe to them.
therefore if people genuinely see something worthwhile in the mona-lisa painting, its fine!
this 'hype' that there is to it, is purely due to the fact that it is a facinating peice of art, maybe not to u and me, but to a frikkin large amount of people who see something more in it than just a woman.
art is art man. if you wanna appreciate it you do, otherwise its meaningless. to those who want to appreciate it, this is one such peice that can be appreciated in maaaany aspects, and thus..well...it is appreciated!
plus, when being appreciated and crytically analysed, there are man facets of the painting that cannot be explained, and hence the 'hype'
to what all extent people want to go to explain the painting is upto them! i mean for the love of art!
im sure you know everything there is to know about arsenal :P
well thats my opinion atleast :P
i have looked at it..stared hard..nothing..sorry..i am not being harsh...at least i dont intend to be..i am just fasincated and bemused...
ali---yeah u are right! art is art!
but i am amused. I mean who the hell does this (look below) for a painting :S -
Monalisa Smile: "A Dutch emotion-recognition program determined that her non-grin is just 83% happy. She is also 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry."
and recreating her voice? whats up with that?
its just my observation - the obsession of the world with this painting. whether its good or bad - i really dont care..
its pure facination man!!! these guys must be art buffs..
mixing 'vocation and avocation'!!!!!
their frikkin jobs are to analyse emotions man!!!!
its art!!
i mean if i go ahead and reverse 'stairway to heaven' and analyse the words and see if it was actual intention or pure coincedence and all that crap....isnt it the same?!!?!
those who care will do that, those who dont will just listen to the song for what it is.
yea i got that part,
but this painting has been around for a longggg time man...its artistic value has been raised ever since then. im just saying that its ok to criticise the freaks out there for cheking how low her voice was...but dont knock the painting...its a good painting simply for the fact that its stylistically very good, and visually also very detailed. not many people can do that it seems. apparently he worked very hard on it.
the research for this painting obviously ten-thousand folded after the da vinci code, the da vinci code must have been written after dan brown got his fake-ish facts about leornado and the facts about the mona lisa's in depth crap.
screw the research.
see the painting. its fine.
yeah good points made...agree with both of you, as in tejas and ali!
Interesting subject. Never really thought much about the Mona Lisa, but since you brought up this topic, I read a bit about it.
As a painting, I can't see much greatness in it. There isn't anything that strikes the naked eye that would set this painting apart from others. Though I guess professionals and art critics are of another opinion. And well, it has been a famous painting since it was finished in four years. It's been through the hands of the likes of Louis the XVI and Napoleon. So I guess there is some historical value. It's also one of the few paintings in the world to be put in a custom made, atmosphere controlled room with bulletproof glass covering it. Oh and it's worth about 600 million dollars- so that should turn a few heads as well!
It's probably crowd mentality that's got everyone hooked onto it. Everyone has to prove that theyre, well, smart enough to connect with the painting. Read about it on Wikipedia. It's quite interesting!
i never was extremely fascinated by the mona lisa. even when i went to the louvre, i could barely even see it, it was so small! i expected to be floored, fascinated, amazded, etc etc, but i felt dissappointed. but there were a hundred odd people stading around me trying to get a glimpse of it, so i cldnt really take in its beauty. as tejas said, it isnt about the lady (lisa whats-her-name), who isnt 'beautiful'. its about the painting itself, now that is beautiful. the precision, the style... its all extremely well done, da vinci was a genius.
another reason why the painting is so intriguing is that in 500 years, she has gone through so much... double theft, xrays, criticism, shifting from one place to another, acid spills, rocks, and still, shes perfect.
but u know, the mona lisa isnt the only painting to have been scrutinized and analysed. most of the 15th and 16th century paintings have had research done on them, not as much as this one, but thats only expected. a painting cant help but being famous after going through such stuff. everything said and done, the mona lisa is certainly a painting worth knowing! =)
"Wait, she is not even good-looking!"
"if she was pretty or sumthin yea maybe that wud be one reason that the painting is sooo famous"
Hmm...We live in a shallow, shallow world. The only thing you need to be famous and gain others respect is good looks, apparently. People appear to like paintings only if 'pretty' people are in it. Why would you want to look at someone who is just average logking right? Doesn't matter if the way its been painted is different, and new, and if the artist's done a good job. We should only look at paintings that have good looking people in them. I'm sorry, a few comments just seemed very superficial, and that's extremely sad, considering everyone's yelling how the media is going wild and ruining lives by emphasizing on looks. Just thought people may perhaps be able to look a little deeper. I'm not talking about Mona Lisa in paticular, but in general, looks shouldn't play such a large role in well... anything, it shouldn't determine whether you like a painting or not, or even a person for that matter. Sometimes, beauty isn't staring you in the face. Maybe its the same with The Mona Lisa. Maybe Leonardo Da Vinci painted her because she was average, because she wasn't breathtakingly beautiful... maybe he painted her because she was... real...
What about marketing and branding? It's a Leonardo Da Vinci work - which would have had huge value even back in the day. And how difficult is it really to get lots of people to be in 'awe' of it? If you get enough of people in authority to say something is good/bad, the masses will eat that up.
I think the Mona Lisa is a great piece of work - just for the simple reason of the buzz around it (I am talking about before the Da Vinci Code). I only came to know that it's really small after I read/watched the Da Vinci Code but I think that just increases the mystry of it right...
Apparently the background is the lunar landscape (if I remember correctly from class - it's been really long but I did remember some useless facts) as Leonardo Da Vince saw/studied it.
Anon - About your point on the superficial approach of people, and well the superficial approach of me, I agree, I was being shallow. It did come out that way.
But my reason for a something like that was to just make the post a little light-headed, to maybe drown the seriousness with a tad bit of humour. I obviously did not pull that off as you got it the wrong way. Anyway your point on superficial-ity (if that's a word) - I totally agree. Yes the world is influenced too much by looks and not what a person really stands for.
Coming back to painting, there are other paintings out there, which are maybe more technically sound and more striking and thought provoking than this one, but they get less attention. Why? Is it the media? Or is it becasue Monalisa has too much of history, too much controversy, too much fascination surrounding it that makes it what it is today. And by doing something like that, aren't we missing the point - isn't it about the painting? Or is it about the circumstances that revolve aroudnd it? I dont think that is superficial, but I definitely think that can be considered shallow.
Anyway thanks for the feedback - any comment is welcome - it just makes this debate/blog more interesting - so thanks again!
Blog on!
Anish,
I've noticed on many occasions that when people offer some sort of rebuttal to your argument (whatever it may be), that your biggest comeback is, "opinion is opinion, sorry", or something like that.
I respect the fact that you have an opinion, but dont be so quick to pass judgement on somethings and stand by it so devoutly.
The mona lisa, I feel, isn't revered so solely based on its artistic value.
It was painted by a man that is hailed by many and the quintessential thinker. An Artist, scientist and philosopher, Leonardo Da Vinci.
Its a symbol for the world of art. Everyone knows this painting. It's a piece of history.
And people are just curious as to who this woman is, why is she famous?
Dude, what im trying to say is, dont be so critical of things. There's no need for a rant of this sort, as Ali said, Art is Art, thats all it is. It is as famous as it is because of it's historical value, the 'controversy' it tends to generate (Da Vinci code style) and because it was painted by such a prolific person.
Chill out.....again, Im going to add to what Ali said, take 'Stairway to Heaven'. Beautiful song, but ripped to pieces by so many people because they dont see why its that great, its just another song, whats the big deal, blah blah shabada.....
Who cares? It's brilliant for me and for lots of other people. Let us be.
Does that make sense?
Guess im done with that.
Good work on the blog man, I read a lot of stuff on the net, and not a lot of it inspires me enough to reply with any sort of conviction.
Im going to go with anonymous (though you know me pretty damn well) because its kind of freaky getting messages from people you cant identify, and I would love to freak the shit out of you....hehe.
Kidding.
later.
ello Anish! I looked it up and in case you were looking for a slightly technical answer that would qualify it for the most popular painting in the world then here they are, Before that bear in mind it has been cale dthe most popular, most analysed(and parodied) AND the most valuable, never the greatest or most beautiful peice of art. Firstly in case no1 noticed she has NO facial hair, even eye brows. This was common to most women of the time because apparently it didnt look good.(men didnt have mirrors!) This perhaps adds to the sort of abstract quality one gets out of seeing the painting. Secondly, yes it WAS sfumato that made it as brilliant as it is. Basically it linked two colours or two tones without and borders and lines. So it goes from green to yellow so subtly, it's as if they're just a huge chunk of one color! Alot of people say though that the rivers in the background fading into her skin so smoothly underline old leo's belief in the conncection between man and nature. Others like Dr. Freud say the smile signifies Leo(like the rest of us) had a sexual thing for his mum. This is why germany lost both wars!
Anyway keep culturing its always good!
Toodles!
hahahahaha dumass
Why are people so fascinated by Mona Lisa? It's a blasted painting of a woman with no eyebrows.
Do something more productive and teach people about Nikola Tesla, or something...
Too many anonymouses (anonymii?) around...
You know what.... Mona lisa reminds me a lot of a special someone. Her eyes, her curly hair,her nose just make me think of her.
Now and then when I see her face
She takes me away to that special place
And if I'd stare too long.
I would probably break down and cry. srry i was just listening to sweet child of mine. But she does!!
That's why i respect leo and love the painting. Sometimes i just daze out looking at her and thinking of 'her'.
Thanks Anish for the post, i could get my message through!!! That special someone would know already!! Hopes she does!!I will wait for her!!She will come to me !!!
aww---My blog, and Romits blog (with the whole 'fine' thing) has become a love-confession arena. We both are really flattered by this. Just hope the sweet child of yours comes to you - but I think balls are needed to to tell someone you like him/her - and anonymous wont help. :P
no offence and good luck! (not for the romit's blog anonymous person though)
anish she's pregnant thats why shes smiling.... recent discovery about a month ago, using a some method of photography ( i forget what its called but aparently it can take picture of what is under the different layers of paint... thats how they discovered his unique brush strokes)
well its tough to appriciate what discussion is going on here..... i am going to reveal few things u will love to know....
1. You are talking about beauty not monalisa right ??
2. You are talking about the colors or the beauty of a lady ??
3. Check once again about your comments you have already started this article about the fact you are not a person who can visualize things....... for your info I think you should see some sex filled dancing dolls of bollywood.... or you should not bother to see the paintings..... you know friend I think for appricating the past you need to live it that is impossible so better we should not say...... past was bad.....whomen were slaves...life was bad blaaah blaah blaah
4. I am not here to say something bad but there should be a limit to put your view front in a wrong way..... dont you think she really follows you from wherever you see it...... the color layers are really there to give it an impact..... and one more thing my dear friend "HAVE YOU SEEN REAL MONALISA ??"
Hello .
dude , the Mona Lisa is a picture by an amazing world famous arist ,
does that mean ANYTHING to yu ?
If you can´t communicate with the unquestionable Summit of Art on this planet, you should first find out what the fuck is wrong with you. Once this is accomplished, get a life. In that order.
PS: Visit The Louvre, Paris, France. It is quite therapeutic for atupidity.
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