Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1503) is considered to be the most famous painting of all time. It sits behind bulletproof glass at the Louvre in France and gets more than six million visitors each year, but why exactly is this painting so famous? Unfortunately, I would not say that it’s because of Da Vinci’s technique (even though it is pretty masterful). There has been much speculation about many aspects of this painting for hundreds of years. I’m going to talk about some of this speculation and what art historians and analysts actually know about this painting today.

Smile:
Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile has been the source of immense debate among historians because different people see the smile in different ways based on the angle at which the painting is looked at. A professor at Harvard argued that the smile is best seen with one’s peripheral vision, which is why when looking at her eyes, her face and smile seem so striking. There is also a claim that based on how you’re looking at the painting, particularly what distance, her smile changes into a blank expression. A painting technique called sfumato, which means “soft” in Italian, may have been used in order to achieve this hallucinatory effect. It is still unknown, however, whether this effect was intentional or not. There’s also a lot of other scientific explanations for why different people view the smile differently.

Different Versions:
Leonardo Da Vinci had several students in his lifetime who may have painted other versions of the Mona Lisa from the original painting, or while he was actually painting it. This has resulted in dozens of copies of the painting, all with subtle differences that make the original painting even more mysterious. The Isleworth Mona Lisa was hidden in a swiss bank for forty years before being unveiled in 2012. Experts say that the technique is very similar to Da Vinci’s, and the painting dates back to his lifetime, but they are still unsure as to whether he actually painted it. The Prado Museum in Madrid also discovered a copy of the painting that was likely painted by one of Da Vinci’s favorite students. This one is the most similar to the original. The Oslo Mona Lisa is similar to a preliminary painting that Da Vinci did. The signature of a student of his is false, so this led to speculation that it was a fake painting that was not created during Da Vinci’s lifetime.

There are also several versions of the painting where the subject resembles the subject in Mona Lisa, but is nude, most of which created by a student nicknamed Salaí. This has led to speculation that these paintings were copied from a lost Mona Lisa copy painted by Da Vinci that depicted the subject nude.

Identity of the Subject:
Probably the most interesting debate about this painting is who its subject is. It is generally accepted that this was a painting of a woman named Lisa del Giocondo commissioned by her husband. However, there isn’t enough evidence to confirm this theory, as there have been no records found of there being a commission, no Giocondo crest or seal, and Da Vinci had kept the painting with him until he died. Mona Lisa’s masculine cranial and upper-body shape has suggested to some historians that the painting is a self-portrait. This is supported with a digital overlay of the painting with a famous portrait of Da Vinci’s, titled Portrait of a Man in Red Chalk. That drawing was never proven to be a self-portrait, though.

There are numerous other viable theories. Sigmund Freud believed the painting represented a memory of Da Vinci’s mother. Others believed the women was Isabella of Aragon, the Duchess of Milan. This was because he had worked as a painter for that family for eleven years. Some even claimed the painting was a depiction of Salaí, his favorite student. He was thought to be very close to Da Vinci, so close that they may have even been lovers. The nickname “Salaí” was given to him by Da Vinci and means “little devil” in Italian, so it’s very possible that the painting could have represented him. The last theory is that the woman was simply a figment of Da Vinci’s imagination.

I think it’s really cool that there’s so much mystery surrounding one painting from five hundred years ago. You don’t really hear about modern paintings having secret messages hidden under the paint or subjects whose eyes follow you around everywhere. This I think is one of the beauties of old Renaissance era art. Despite the fact that the painting may just be a portrait of a woman with a landscape in the background, it’s still an enigma today, which is so cool.