by Kanishka Chandramoha

Is everyone ready to time travel? Let’s travel back to the 15th century to unravel the mystery behind the world’s most famous painting, the “Mona Lisa”, was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci,and is considered the world’s most beautiful and famous painting to date. Even after centuries, no one could create a masterpiece like the Mona Lisa. It is one of Da Vinci’s smaller-sized works, standing at 77 cm. tall and 53 cm. wide.

The Mona Lisa,  was painted somewhere between 1503 and 1519 when Leonardo was living in Florence, Italy, and now it hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, where it remains an object of pilgrimage in the 21st century.

One fun fact about the Mona Lisa is that it is one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest known painting insurance valuation in history, at  $100 million in 1962, equivalent to $1 billion as of 2023. Da Vinci was a slow painter,  usually  taking 2–3 years to complete a piece. . However, for the completion of the Mona Lisa,  he took 15 years, starting in the year 1503.

Despite its fame for beauty, it is also known for its mysteries. There are several mysteries surrounding it. There are so many unanswered questions. It is said that Leonardo da Vinci has a distinct connection with the painting. Why was Da Vinci so connected to the painting? Are all the speculations about the painting true? What is the mystery behind the painting? Is he trying to communicate something to  us?

Aside from having a special connection to the painting, he also pursued many other interests. He was an explorer and a scientist who studied paleontology, astronomy, anatomy, zoology, botany, geology, optics, aerodynamics, and hydrodynamics. He researched each and every field in depth and generated a wealth of data. Despite his vast array of talents, the pinnacle of his career was  the Mona Lisa’.

To unravel its mysteries, we have to first know about the creator. Leonardo Da Vinci was an artist, an engineer, an inventor, and a scientist. He had an acute mind for creativity and knowledge.  His signature mark was his mysterious persona.. Every one of his paintings had a deeper meaning—a mystery behind it, a code. For instance, he used to write his journal from right to left when everyone else wrote  from left to right. It is believed that it was written in such a format to make sure no one understood. Later, it was found that to read his journal, we needed to use a mirror.

Additionally, there is  a lot of speculation about who the woman in the painting is. Some theories say that the woman in the painting belonged to a royal family or was the wife of a prominent figure. Some even believe that it could be Leonardo’s mother or that it could be Mary Magdalene, the woman in ‘The Last Supper’ who he concealed in the painting.

Others say this is Leonardo’s imagination of how he would have looked as a woman. This theory was provided with a detailed explanation by an artist named Lillian Schwartz. She combined the faces of Da Vinci and Mona Lisa into a pictograph, showing the similarities between their features.

Who is the woman in the painting? In 1550, Giorgio Vasarii wrote the life stories of many artists who lived during the Renaissance. He is the person who wrote about Leonardo Da Vinci’s life history, and he also provided information about the Mona Lisa painting. It states that Leonardo DaVinci made an agreement to paint Francis Del Gioconda’s wife,  Lisa. The identity of the woman, Lisa Giaconda, was the actual Mona Lisa in the painting, but it was not accepted by everyone. The comment made by Vasari was confirmed by Visipi Polanti’s 25 years of research on the Mona Lisa painting.

Visipi Polanti spent more than 25 years researching the old records of the Mona Lisa in Italy. From his perspective, he discovered information in a handwritten book from 1503. The data was written by Agostino Vespucci, who was close to Leonardo Da Vinci. He worked as a clerk, and in 1503, he wrote a book, and there was a clear mention of Leonardo Da Vinci’s work on the painting of Francesco Del Giocondo’s wife, Mona Lisa. This confirmed Vasari’s comment that Leonardo DaVinci had chosen Madame Lisa, also known as Mona Lisa, as a subject.

As we all know, Da Vinci used a poplar wood panel and painted it in lead white. Lead white is used as an element to reflect light. In addition to the lead white layer, Leonardo also applied another layer of ink primer. These were all common practices of the Renaissance period, but Da Vinci portrayed his uniqueness from other artists during this period through his layering technique. Using modern technology, they found detailed information about his painting. He applied nearly 30–40 layers, but the layered sediments of the paint were approximately 40mm. He used thin layers to paint this.

Leonardo used an artistic technique called sfumato. This technique was first used by Da Vinci, which was translated literally from Italian, meaning “vanished or evaporated.” Creating imperceptible transitions between light and shade and sometimes between colors, he blended everything “without borders.”

Leonardo made a revolution using this painting. In earlier periods, any painting of a royal member or an ordinary person would only portray their side profile with eyes looking downward or upward, whereas in the Mona Lisa, he drew a complete face looking directly at the viewer. The Mona Lisa has also become famous for its smile. It has a peculiar smile. Mona Lisa appears to be smiling, but suddenly the smile fades away when focused on the lips. This is one of his tricks.

The one field in which he conducted most research was anatomy, where he researched and recorded information about the human body. To learn in detail about these dissections, he obtained special permissions. During his in-depth research on the human body, he learned in detail about how the lips and eyes function, including the nerves and muscles that control them. Leonardo da Vinci was the first person to learn in detail about the nerves and muscles responsible for our facial expressions. He conducted detailed research on how a human smile is expressed in a painting, which is truly remarkable.

In the beginning, he started to draw this painting in a conventional manner; later, he realized that he could explore his research through this painting and developed a close connection with it. Leonardo DaVinci created two Monalisa paintings, the second one known as the ‘Isle Worth Mona Lisa’. After conducting detailed research on the Isle Worth Mona Lisa, it was discovered that not only Leonardo da Vinci but many other painters also created their own versions of the painting.

The fame of the Mona Lisa painting is at its peak because of a theft. In 1911, Vincenzo Perugia, an Italian working at the Louvre Museum, believed that the painting should be in his homeland rather than France. Out of his deep affection for his homeland, he stole the Mona Lisa painting and kept it for 2 years. Peruggia didn’t know what to do with the Mona Lisa, and when he attempted to sell it, he was apprehended. This news made headlines. The news of the Mona Lisa had spread upon people seeing the photograph of the painting through the news during the theft.

The Mona Lisa was the only beauty that went through history and retained its reputation. The Mona Lisa is a very realistic portrait. The subject’s softly sculptural face shows Leonardo’s skillful handling of sfumato and his understanding of the skull beneath the skin. These were some of the interesting facts and mysteries surrounding the Mona Lisa. Mystery is in every corner of the world. There are still so many mysteries buried in the Mona Lisa, and to understand the mystery, we need to observe and learn more about the painting.