ARTIST: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
PAINTING: Mona Lisa, also called La Giaconda
Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452. He was Leonardo from Vinci – the
city where he was born – or, in Italian, Leonardo da Vinci.
PERSONAL
He received art training in Florence – a famous art city in Italy. For
seventeen years, he worked at the Court of Milan.
Da Vinci was talented in many ways. The King of France once said, “No
man knows more than Da Vinci.” Although primarily a painter, he was also a
scientist, musician, inventor, engineer, mathematician, architect, and writer.
Today, we call a person who has many abilities a “Renaissance man or
woman.” Da Vinci lived during the Renaissance, an age of genius, new ideas,
new ways of thinking, and exploration. With his many talents, he really was a
Renaissance man.
STYLE
Leonardo da Vinci believed that in order to paint objects or people, an
artist had to understand their structure – how they are formed or put together.
He was able to study things and understand them clearly. He figured out and
drew diagrams to explain how birds fly – several centuries before slow motion
cameras showed the same ideas.
Da Vinci believed that an artist could show emotions in portraits. He did
this with a technique called sfumato (sfū-mă-tō, meaning smoke) in which he
painted a color that turned slowly from light to dark tones to give off a kind of
misty glow or smoky mystery. He tried to paint portraits that showed emotions,
not just a blank stare.
IN THIS PAINTING
The Mona Lisa is the most famous portrait in the world. In the Mona Lisa,
Da Vinci painted an elegant woman gazing at you with a strangely calm yet
haunting look. The mysterious quality of the portrait is achieved by the use of the
technique of sfumato (smoke). You can see a 3-D quality that comes from the
soft background that makes the horizon look very far away.
Da Vinci was so interested in perfect form that he painted some other
woman’s hands to go with the face of the Mona Lisa.
Notice the use of portrait and landscape together in the picture. This
combination was one of Da Vinci’s artistic inventions.
The smile of the Mona Lisa seems to glow from within. Is the smile in her
mouth or in her eyes? Cover her mouth. Do you think her eyes are smiling?
Not long ago, some art historians proposed a new theory about the Mona
Lisa. They believe that the Mona Lisa was really based on a self-portrait of Da
Vinci. They looked under the paint with a type of x-ray machine and discovered
lines and drawings under the picture you see. A computer researcher compared
a self-portrait by Da Vinci with the painting and found that the eyes, hair, cheeks,
nose, and famous smile were very similar. These lines and drawings supported
the art historians’ theory. Others insist she is Monna Lisa Gherardini del
Giocando, the wife of an Italian nobleman.
The painting is so popular that officials of the Louvre Museum in Paris say
that people even write letters and send New Year’s greetings to “Madame Mona
Lisa.” About 3 million people visit the museum to see the Mona Lisa every year.
Some say that the Mona Lisa looks at you wherever you are standing.
Test this in class with people who are in different parts of the room. Some
people say, “She’s very plain.” Others say, “She has an interesting face.” What
do you think?
Columbus and other explorers were conducting their adventures around
the world at the same time that Leonardo da Vinci was painting and inventing
things in Italy. Perspective painting was invented which allowed artists to control
their view of the world, much as explorers controlled their travels across oceans.
It was an AGE OF EXPLORATION in life and in art.
TYING THIS PRINT TO SOCIAL STUDIES
During the time Da Vinci painted, Italy was a collection of city-states, not a
unified nation. A city-state was a small, self-contained political area – something
like a big city or small country today. People pledged their allegiances and
worked and paid taxes to the city-state in which they lived. Da Vinci’s name
shows the strong connections between the people and where they lived, as he
was from Vinci.
In Da Vinci’s time, educated people needed to learn how to read Latin and
to understand and appreciate art and literature. Artists and their work became an
important part of everyday life during the Renaissance.
A new class called the “middle class” was developing, in addition to the
nobles and peasants. The middle class began to earn enough money to
purchase art. The increasing amounts of money available for purchasing art
created more opportunities for artists.
Geography: Locate Italy and the cities of Milan and Florence.
Math: DaVinci borrowed and used the shape of the pyramid from his
knowledge of math to give strength to his paintings. Ask the students where they
“see” a pyramid form in the picture (e.g., the shape of the head and shoulders of
Mona Lisa).
TYING THIS PRINT TO OTHER SCHOOL SUBJECTS
Advertising: the Mona Lisa has been used as a trademark for Spanish
olive oil, Italian hair pins, a restaurant in Berlin, Germany called The Smile,
computer companies, and many other businesses.
TYING THIS PRINT TO OTHER PRINTS
Compare with other portraits – for example, Gainsborough’s Blue Boy.
What does Da Vinci do differently from later artists? How do the different
pictures make the viewer feel? Which print conveys deeper emotion? Which
print do you like more and why?
WHERE YOU CAN SEE ORIGINAL WORK BY DA VINCI
The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. has a portrait called
Ginevra de Benci, the only original painting by Da Vinci in a U.S. museum. It
was purchased for 5 million dollars in 1967.
The Mona Lisa is in the Louvre in Paris, but many galleries in the United
States have copies of it.
Check local museums and galleries for original art or reproductions by
Leonardo da Vinci.
Art Experiences
1. Choose one color crayon or pencil and draw a square. Use the crayon to fill
the square with color going very slowly from light to dark. Start at the bottom
of the square with very, very light color and gradually get darker and darker
as you reach the top of the square. Does the color “glow”? This is called
sfumato (sfū-mă-tō, meaning smoke).
Mona Lisa
Leonardo da Vinci
2. Da Vinci liked to sketch almost anything he saw in order to learn from his
drawings. He sketched buildings, animals, hands, trees, rocks, inventions,
and even knots of rope to learn about shape, line, light, and shadow. His
notebooks, filled with sketches, became famous. (Students may be able to
locate the notebooks or books about them in a public library.) Pick a common
object in school, at home, or outside to sketch. Try to sketch the same object
3 or 4 times to see what you learn about its form by drawing it from different
angles.
3. Draw a portrait of yourself or another person that shows emotion.
Writing
Across the Curriculum 1. The Mona Lisa is probably the world’s best-known and most
famous portrait. It may be the most famous painting in the
world. Why do you think people like this painting? What does
the painting “say” to you?
2. You may see the Mona Lisa today. For example, some commercials for
modern products have used the Mona Lisa in their advertisements. Why
would a company do this (e.g., to connect the product with a “masterpiece,” to
connect the product with the world’s definition of “beautiful” or “mysterious”)?
What product would you link with the Mona Lisa and why? Draw your
advertisement to show how you would use the Mona Lisa to sell a product.
3. Write a paragraph that tells how a portrait that is drawn or painted is different
from a photograph.
4. Write a paragraph explaining why you think art is important in your education.
Can someone be “educated” without understanding and having an
appreciation for art?
Bibliography
Epstein, J. L. & Dauber, S. L. (1995). Effects on students of an interdisciplinary program linking social studies, art, and family volunteers in the middle grades. Journal of Early Adolescence, 15(1), 114-144.
http://www.csos.jhu.edu/p2000/tips/download%20pdf/monalisa.pdf
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