Renaissance Arts & Artists: Mona Lisa 2

The most famous painting worldwide

by Konstantinos Koufakis (Β2) 

 

Mona Lisa bears the title of the best-known painting of all time and no refined person would wonder why. The painting's characteristics which make it intriguing are unique, and, while there is an official explanation about the person it depicts, the painting's peculiarity leaves space for numerous theories about its nature.

Mona Lisa or La Gioconda is an oil painting on a poplar wood panel depicting a woman in a half-body portrait with a distant landscape as a background. The portrait was painted by the Renaissance artist and scientist Leonardo Da Vinci during the period 1503-1519 and it is considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance. Looking at Leonardo's painting, it is clear that the artist has used a wide range of pale colours for the creation of the portrait, which is now exhibited at the Louvre Museum in Paris. The depicted woman is said to be Lisa Gherardini, a Florentine merchant's wife, but, as it has already been mentioned, the depicted person's identity remains uncertain to this day.        

Summing up, Mona Lisa is one of the world's most intriguing paintings and many art critics also consider it to be the most famous one. The sitter's mysterious smile, as well as her unproven identity, have made the painting a source of ongoing investigation and fascination for more than five centuries.