The Renaissance masterpiece The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci is arguably the nearly famous painting in the world. With her iconic smiling communicable viewers' attention, she has lived in the castles of French kings, from Francis I and Louis Fourteen to Napoleon and today she remains a huge part of French republic'south cultural heritage despite her Italian provenance. In this commodity, Singulart takes a closer look into Leonardo Da Vinci's life and career and examines the intrigue behind The Mona Lisa and her smiling, from the sixteenth century to the nowadays solar day.

Characteristic Paradigm: Leonardo da Vinci (self-portrait), c. 1478/79. (Courtesy of Peter Ackermann)

Leonardo Da Vinci: Dramatic Origins

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was an Italian polymath and the archetypal "Renaissance Man". Although he is nearly renowned today for his skills every bit a painter, his interests and skills ranged from drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and history to engineering, invention, anatomy, geology, astronomy and cartography.

Leonardo da Vinci was the illegitimate son of Piero Da Vinci, a notary, and a peasant woman named Caterina, and was built-in in Vinci, Florence. Ruled past the Medici family, Florence was considered the cradle of the Renaissance during Da Vinci's lifetime. He was educated in the Florentine studio of the painter Andrea del Verrocchio in the mid 1460's, where he received a thorough theoretical training. By 1472, he had qualified as a master in the Guild of Saint Luke, the order of artists and doctors, and although his father helped him set upwards his ain workshop, he continued to interact with Verrocchio.

Map of Venice, 1493, courtesy of ItalianRenaissance.org
Map of Venice, 1493, courtesy of ItalianRenaissance.org

Da Vinci'due south earliest surviving piece of work is a pen and ink drawing of the Arno Valley from 1473. Soon after he established his own workshop, he was commissioned to paint an altarpiece for the Chapel of Saint Bernard in the Palazzo Vecchio and another for the monks of San Donato in Scopeto. However, Da Vinci completed neither of these projects as he abandoned them to work for Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan from 1482 to 1499. During this time he painted, the Virgin of the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception and The Final Supper for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie.

Da Vinci Escapes Political Turmoil in Milan

Ludovico Sforza was overthrown at the commencement of the 2nd Italian War and thus Leonardo, along with his assistant Salai and his friend, the renowned mathematician Luca Pacioli, fled to Venice. Here he worked equally a military architect and engineer, designing defence plans to protect the city from naval attack. He returned to Florence in 1500 and lived as a guest of the monks of the Santissima Annunziata monastery, where he painted The Virgin and Kid with St Anne and St John the Baptist, which according to the art historian Vasari, was hugely popular.

Leonardo Da Vinci, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, circa 1503
The Virgin and Kid with Saint Anne, circa 1503

Da Vinci and so went on to work for Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, equally a military architect, engineer and cartographer until he returned to Florence and the Guild of Saint Luke in 1503. It was at this time that he began to work on his most famous painting, a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, now known as The Mona Lisa. It is speculated that he worked on this until his last years.

In 1515, Male monarch Francis I of French republic captured Milan and the following twelvemonth Leonardo entered his service where he drew upwardly architectural plans for a castle boondocks and other inventions. Da Vinci died in French republic in 1519, in the firm given to him by Francis I.

Leonardo Da Vinci'southward Masterpiece, The Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa is a half length portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo. It is painted in oil on Lombardy poplar panel, and is thought to accept been commissioned to celebrate the nascence of their 2nd son. The Mona Lisa is named afterwards Lisa Gherardini, with Mona beingness an Italian abbreviation for "ma donna", meaning "ma lady". The French and Italian titles for this masterpiece are: La Gioconda or La Joconde, meaning happy or jovial whilst besides beingness a pun on the sitter's marital surname.

The Mona Lisa or La Gioconda (1503–1505/07)
The Mona Lisa or La Gioconda (1503–1505/07)

The Mona Lisa sits upright in a "pozzetto" chair, with her artillery crossed in her lap, in a demure pose reminiscent of many depictions of the Virgin Mary, symbolising an ideal of womanhood. She gazes out, seemingly directly at the viewer, with an elusive smile on her face. The art historian Vasari described this now iconic expression, stating: "the grin was so pleasing that it seemed divine rather than man". This mysterious, divine quality is enhanced by Da Vinci's use of "sfumato", a technique that creates the shadowy quality of the painting. He as well created a very smooth surface, where the brushstrokes are almost imperceptible, by using oil paints like tempera. The elementary apparel, the subdued colors and the contrast betwixt the dramatic, brooding mural in the groundwork, all push button the focus of the limerick to the woman's radiant hands and face up. With this composition, Da Vinci was one of the showtime painters to employ aerial perspective.

The most famous painting in the world?

The Mona Lisa is today considered one of the most famous paintings in the earth, all the same before 1911, this was not the case. On the 21st of Baronial 1911, the painting was stolen from the Louvre, where information technology had been on permanent display since 1797. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested also as Pablo Picasso, all the same both were exonerated. Information technology turned out to take been stolen past a Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia, who believed that Da Vinci's masterpiece belonged in an Italian museum. The theft provided an enormous amount of publicity for The Mona Lisa, transforming her reputation as a Renaissance masterpiece to i of the most famous paintings in the world.

Since so several attacks and protests have been made on The Mona Lisa, with a stone being thrown at it, shattering the glass and dislodging a piece of the pigment in 1956. In 1974, it'due south drinking glass case was also sprayed with red paint at the Tokyo National Museum by a woman protesting about the lack of disabled access at the museum and again in 2009 a Russian adult female threw a teacup at the painting in protestation that her application for French citizenship had been denied. In 1962, The Mona Lisa was estimated to be worth $100 million, which today translates to well-nigh $830 million.

The Mona Lisa has likewise been the subject of many subsequent works in the history of art and appropriated and copied in popular culture from Marcel Duchamp'south mustache on a postcard of The Mona Lisa to popular stars like Beyoncé sitting in the mode of The Mona Lisa.

Swoop deep into Da Vinci's legacy with the official Singulart Inspired by Da Vinci Drove!