Mona Lisa Erupts…

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By Soumitra Bose/Mukesh Kumar Sinha

 

Insidious Enigma Prominently in Government Offices’ alls Defying All Logics, Statements, Reasons…Mona Lisa on all walls of Government Offices including — otherwise wry, dry, soporific, somnolent, drudgery-ful, always-lethargic, irritated, misogynist-symbolising — Indian Council of Agricultural Sciences (ICAR), Fertiliser Corporation of India, IFFCO, MTNL, ISI, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), RML, Safdarjang Hospital, BHEL, ITDC, ITI, ISI, FCI, and all others.

From gigantic walls of these Government-owned offices, Mona Lisa enigma starts enticing visitors the moment they enter rooms.  Thereafter, they sort of forget the reasons of their visit there as is the latest all-pervasive phenomena amid the visitors in the Government offices. Concerned officers of course are full of Colgate-Smiles+Cheese-mouth welcoming the vistors. The latter get tongue-tied, shell-shocked, dazed, dazzled, flummoxed, zapped. Mona Lisa mesmerizes them. She entices them. She allures them. She alludes them. She lures them. She sttracts them. She casts spell on them…She does different things to different people at different times. To define Mona Lisa :

Mona Lisa : Work of art. “The Mona Lisa” is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, which has been acclaimed as “the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world”. LocationThe Louvre (since 1797),SubjectLisa del Giocondo, Created1503–1517,Dimensions77 cm x 53 cm, PeriodThe Renaissance.

 

Now over to Mona Lisa : Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you; You’re so like the lady with the mystic smile Is it only ’cause you’re lonely they have blamed you?
For that Mona Lisa strangeness in your smile?
Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa?
Or is this your way to hide a broken heart?
Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep
They just lie there and they die there
Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa?
Or just a cold and lonely lovely work of art?
Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa?
Or is this your way to hide a broken heart?
Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep
They just lie there and they die there
Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa?
Or just a cold and lonely lovely work of art?
Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa

Also, For the First Time in JUST IN PRINT, 25 Secrets of Mona Lisa Revealed : New images uncover 25 secrets about the Mona Lisa, including proof that Leonardo da Vinci gave her eyebrows, solving a long-held mystery.

The images are part of an exhibition, “Mona Lisa Secrets Revealed,” which features new research by French engineer Pascal Cotte and debuts in the United States at the Metreon Center in San Francisco, where it will remain through the end of this year. The Mona Lisa showcase is part of a larger exhibition called “Da Vinci: An Exhibition of Genius.”

Cotte, founder of Lumiere Technology, scanned the painting with a 240-megapixel Multi-spectral Imaging Camera he invented, which uses 13 wavelengths from ultraviolet light to infrared. The resulting images peel away centuries of varnish and other alterations, shedding light on how the artist brought the painted figure to life and how she appeared to da Vinci and his contemporaries.

“The face of Mona Lisa appears slightly wider and the smile is different and the eyes are different,” Cotte said. “The smile is more accentuated I would say.” [Why Does Mona Lisa’s Smile Change?]

Mona Lisa mysteries

A zoomed-in image of Mona Lisa’s left eye revealed a single brush stroke in the eyebrow region, Cotte said.

“I am an engineer and scientist, so for me all has to be logical. It was not logical that Mona Lisa does not have any eyebrows or eyelashes,” Cotte told LiveScience. “I discovered one hair of the eyebrow.”

Another conundrum had been the position of the subject’s right arm, which lies across her stomach. This was the first time, Cotte said, that a painter had rendered a subject’s arm and wrist in such a position. While other artists had never understood da Vinci’s reasoning, they copied it nonetheless. [Photos: Anatomy Meets Art in Da Vinci’s Drawings]

Cotte discovered the pigment just behind the right wrist matched up perfectly with that of the painted cover that drapes across Mona Lisa’s knee. So it did make sense: The forearm and wrist held up one side of a blanket.

“The wrist of the right hand is up high on the stomach. But if you look deeply in the infrared you understand that she holds a cover with her wrist,” Cotte said.

Behind a painting

The infrared images also revealed da Vinci’s preparatory drawings that lie behind layers of varnish and paint, showing that the Renaissance man was also human.

“If you look at the left hand you see the first position of the finger, and he changed his mind for another position,” Cotte said. “Even Leonardo da Vinci had hesitation.”

Other revelations include:

  • Lace on Mona Lisa’s dress
  • The transparency of the veil shows da Vinci first painted a landscape and then used transparency techniques to paint the veil atop it.
  • A change in the position of the left index and middle finger.
  • The elbow was repaired from damage due to a rock thrown at the painting in 1956.
  • The blanket covering Mona Lisa’s knees also covers her stomach.
  • The left finger was not completely finished.
  • A blotch mark on the corner of the eye and chin are varnish accidents, countering claims that Mona Lisa was sick.
  • And the Mona Lisa was painted on uncut poplar board, contrary to speculations.

In the larger picture, Cotte said when he stands back and looks up at the enlarged infrared image of Mona Lisa, her beauty and mystique are apparent.

“If you are in front of this huge enlargement of Mona Lisa, you understand instantly why Mona Lisa is so famous,” Cotte said. He added, it’s something you have to see with your own eyes.

 

 

Scientists have discovered how the artist managed to achieve his trademark smoky effect, known as sfumato, on the painting; by applying up to 40 layers of extremely thin glaze thought to have been smeared on with his fingers.

The glaze, mixed with subtly different pigments, creates the slight blurring and shadows around the mouth that give the Mona Lisa her barely noticeable smile that seems to disappear when looked at directly.

Using X-rays to study the painting, the researchers were able to see how the layers of glaze and paint had been built up to varying levels on different areas of the face.

With the drying times for the glaze taking months, such effects would have taken years to achieve.

The scientists also suspect that he used his fingers to apply the glaze to his paintings as there are no brush marks or contours visible on the paintings.

 

 

Leonardo da Vinci is known to have employed the sfumato effect to seamlessly blend shading together and to blur outlines. But the exact techniques used to achieve this have long fascinated and intrigued art experts.

The new discoveries have been made by scientists at Laboratoire du Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musees de France and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility.

Writing in the scientific journal Angewandle Chemie, Dr Philippe Walter, who led the study, said: “The perfection of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting technique has always been fascinating.

“The gradation of tones or colours from light to dark is barely perceptible. Above all, the way the flesh is rendered gives rise to many comments because of its crucial role in the fascination exerted by Leonardo’s portraits.

“The thinness of the glaze layers must be underlined: it confirms the dexterity of the painter to apply such thin layers. Moreover, the measured slow and regular evolution of the thickness of the glaze layers implies that numerous layers… have to be applied to obtain the darkest shadows.

“Even today, Leonardo’s realisation of such thin layers still remains an amazing feat.”

The scientists used a technique known as x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to study the painting as it allowed them to examine the layers of glaze and paint in detail without having to take samples that would damage the masterpiece.

A beam of high energy X-rays were focused on the painting which allowed the researchers to determine how the layers of glaze and paint had been built up while also giving them information about their composition.

As well as the Mona Lisa, the team also studied skin tones in six other of Leonardo’s most famous paintings, including Virgin of the Rocks, Madonna of the Carnation, Saint John the Baptist and the Virgin and the Child

They found that each layer of glaze was around just two micrometers, around 50 times thinner than a human hair. In the lightest areas of the skin, the glaze was found to be very thin but in the darkest areas it had been built up layer upon layer to be up to 55 micrometers thick.

Grains of black and red pigment were also found in the glaze, but were so small that they would be impossible to detect using conventional analysis techniques.

Dr Walter and his team believe that Leonardo experimented by creating different types of glaze and with different pigments to perfect the sfumatoeffect.

Professor Francis Ames-Lewis, a distinguished art historian and vice-president of the Leonardo da Vinci Society, an organisation devoted to the scholarly study of the Italian painter’s work, said: “Leonardo da Vinci was concerned with producing smooth tonal gradients from light to dark without any perceptible change like we see in real life and sfumato was essential to this.

“What is extraordinary is the meticulous way he carried this out and the precision of his technique. In the Mona Lisa, he captures a complex and ambiguous personality and conveys it with the help of sfumato.”

 

 

 

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-Soumitra Bose/Mukesh Kumar Sinha

The Vitruvian Man

Da Vinci modeled his perfect human form after the proportions laid out by Vitruvius, an ancient Roman architect. The angry-looking man drawn by Da Vinci has reason to smile – he’s now considered one of the most recognizable figures on earth…To be Soon In Official Offices…Watch Out

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