Biggest Artistic Disappointment!

While sketching my France page, I remembered my most monumental artistic disappointments (apart from my own that is!) and here she is! The Mona Lisa (rumour has it that it’s actually Monna, the abbreviation for Madonna)! 

On a second trip to Paris in 1992 or 93, I had enough time to peruse the fabulous collection of the Louvre and walk past a little brown blob on the wall twice. The only reason I popped back was because a group suddenly huddled around it and there she was, the simpering, smirking ''Gioconda'', who could fail to be impressed ….. actually me. 

And here she is Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece! This version shows her paler and cleaner than I remember but that smug smirk, yuck. 

No questioning da Vinci’s masterful use of ‘‘Sfumato'', that soft smoky technique that leaves no real hard edges and gives everything nearly an airbrushed feel, the man was a genius but that face? She has the look of someone who has finished her Spring cleaning in February and can’t wait to tell you about it. 

Who was the sitter is probably one of the first mysteries surrounding this work, after lots of speculation about this being a self-portrait, or a painting of da Vinci’s assistant (and lover) Gian Giacomo Capritti, it is assumed that it is the likeness of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, wife of a Florentine silk merchant, hence ''La Gioconda''. This naturally throws up the question of whether this was a commission and why Giocondo didn’t purchase the finished work. I personally think he couldn’t live with that self-satisfied smirk but that is purely conjecture. 

Leonardo worked on this painting for 4 years and took it with him wherever he went, he didn’t sign it or date it; it was finally sold to da Vinci’s last patron King François I of France and disappeared into the vast royal collection. Napoleon fell in love with the work in 1799 and it was first displayed in 1844. 

Of course there is lots of speculation about mystic symbolism in this work and many of da Vinci’s other works (Dan Brown successfully helped to fuel interest in the Da Vinci Code) and in this painting there are a few oddities which lead to speculation. What I found wonderful were the findings of a group of symbolism experts in 2015, they concluded that there are indeed a bunch of significant symbols hiding in plain sight in the painting but neglected to go into further detail!

So let’s take a peek, the first thing that strikes me as a landscape artist is the odd horizon behind the figure, because the horizon is lower on the left the figure appears ''taller'' on the left side as on the right. Visually, that horizon is a disaster, as it is it makes no sense and is just bad style, the clumpy hill on the right shoulder is again off. So here we are mysticism or I wonder if whether especially with the left horizon if in the past da Vinci had a soft grey/blue bunch of hills disappearing and with time and restoration they're a goner, similarly her eyebrows. One expert finally found evidence of eyebrows and eyelashes which I think would help with her weird alien look. 

The simpering smirk could be assigned to a pregnancy or recent birth, her hair is covered by a gauzy veil associated with motherhood, this veil ended speculation about the sitter being a prostitute (along with the discovery of the eyebrows, prostitutes removed all bodily hair at that time according to conjecture).

Speaking of which, I always wondered if it was a representation of Mary Magdalene, what with the reddish hair and the odd bottle shape right. Taking a closer look today, I realise she is standing in front of a balustrade and leaning on a post/book? So that’s my theory gone for a burton. 

There is also an intelligent explanation for her ''smile'', it looks more like a smile when you look at the eyes because the mouth is then in peripheral vision, look at her mouth and it really isn’t a selfie smile.

Isn’t it amazing though how even people like me who don’t like the work get drawn in by it, 77cm x 53cm and still the subject of conjecture and speculation after all this time, maybe that’s what makes the Monna Lisa so special!