Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa, oil painting on a poplar wood panel by the Italian painter, draftsman,

sculptor, architect, and engineer Leonardo da Vinci, probably the world’s most-famous painting. It was painted sometime between 1503 and 1519, when Leonardo was living in Florence, and it now hangs in the Louvre, in Paris, where it remains an object of pilgrimage in the 21st century. The poplar panel shows evidence of warping and was stabilized in 1951 with the addition of an oak frame and in 1970 with four vertical braces. Dovetails also were added, to prevent the widening of a small crack visible near the centre of the upper edge of the painting. The sitter’s mysterious smile and her unproven identity have made the painting a source of ongoing investigation and fascination.

Mona Lisa Off The Wall

References in the visual arts have been complemented by musical examinations. La Giaconda’s personality and quirks were examined in a 1915 opera by Max von Schillings. Leonardo’s portrait is also the inspiration for the classic song “Mona Lisa” by American lyricist Ray Evans and songwriter Jay Harold Livingston:

It was famously recorded in 1950 by the jazz pianist and vocalist Nat King Cole and later by his daughter Natalie, as well as many others.

There have been films, notably Mona Lisa (1986), and several novels, including William Gibson’s cyberpunk Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988) and Canadian novelist Rachel Wyatt’s Mona Lisa Smiled a Little (1999), linked to the painting. The Argentine writer Martín Caparrós’s novel Valfierno (2004) brings to life the man who masterminded the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre.

Both fine art and kitsch continue to refer to Leonardo’s portrait. Bath towels, tapestries, umbrellas, and many other household items bear her image, and that image is reproduced using everything from train tickets to rice plants. Five centuries after its creation, the Mona Lisa remains a touchstone for people around the world.