When talking about a masterpiece, you need to include the painting of Mona Lisa, the most famous painting in the world that created by Leonardo da Vinci in 1503. This painting is a masterpiece because it is a superb piece of a design due to being realistic, it maintains communication with immediate past because it was created during the Renaissance, and it is a profound assertion of human value because it is about a virtuous woman sitting on a balcony. By just looking at it, you can see that Mona Lisa is clearly a work of art that represents what a masterpiece looks like.
The painting of Mona Lisa is a superb piece o design because it is realistic. One example that makes it look realistic is the usage of perspective. According to the painting of Mona Lisa, “the background gives the impression of fading away in the distance. The road behind Mona Lisa seems to get smaller as it winds its way from the mountains” (Saschina). Perspective makes things look according to scale. As described, things in the distance get smaller than things in the foreground. Perspective pulls the audience in, letting them experience what may have only previously existed in your imagination. Leonardo used perspective to make Mona Lisa more realistic and believable. Another method that makes Mona Lisa look realistic is the usage of shadow. In the painting, “the shadows near Mona Lisa’s eyes give her face some visibility by bringing a glimmer in her eyes. The folds in her sleeves, and the draping of her dress, have a balance of dark and light shadows to portray the look and feeling fabric” (Saschina). From this, one can say that shadows bring Mona’s face to life. Shadows works with perspective to make a portrait more realistic. Leonardo used lights and shadows to depict Mona Lisa more realistically. The way Mona Lisa painting relates to everyday life and looks realistic is very spectacular. The painting looks realistic with the help of shadows and perspective.
Mona Lisa painting shows that a masterpiece is a profound piece of assertion of humane value because it is about a virtuous woman sitting on the balcony. The UK Website states that, “it was common for women of good descent to be depicted as virtuous and beautiful. The positioning of Mona’s hands is a symbol of a virtuous and morally upright lifestyle” (UK Essay). Back in the days of renaissance, women were perceived as virtuous. The dark yellow sleeves of Mona Lisa’s dress make the positioning of her hands look even more virtuous. Her right hand is resting on the left hand. This gesture depicts that Mona Lisa was a faithful wife and very virtuous. The smile is another example that shows Mona Lisa as a virtuous woman. According to International Business Times, Sinha states that, “the beauty of a contented modest female smile was also a reflection of that woman’s beauty and hence, also of her virtue” (Sinah). From this, one can say that beauty was taken as an expression of virtue. The way Mona Lisa is smiling makes her look like a religious woman. The smile also depicts that Mona Lisa is a virtuous woman sitting on a balcony. What a better way to depict a person as virtuous and beautiful.
The painting of Mona Lisa maintains communication with immediate past specifically the Renaissance. According to Our Worldview, “the background landscape on Mona Lisa is a typical use of perspective and sfumato (a technique of allowing colors to shade gradually into one another. Portrait and landscape are the most typical examples of the Renaissance” (Our Worldview 67). Using the technique of sfumato, the landscape behind Mona Lisa becomes idealized. During the Renaissance, the technique of sfumato was used in the artworks to create illusion of the background. Artists used this technique during the Renaissance to add additional perspective and dimension to paintings. It was a way of blurring the lines between subjects. When you look at most of the Renaissance arts you will see that they landscapes behind the background to bring the paintings back to life. Renaissance painters presented landscape as a backdrop to religious scenes and portraits. Another thing that Mona Lisa shows about Renaissance is the usage of oil painting and anatomy. When you take a close look you see that “the painting of Mona Lisa has triangle composition, usage (knowledge of anatomy dealing with the inner life of the painted person. The painting is also an oil painting on canvas” (read works 12). During the Renaissance the triangle composition, was used to give an artwork a strong balance. The necessity of anatomy during the Renaissance was to purify a more lifelike human figure. Artists used oil to allow light to pass through and make the artworks have greater variety of colors because oil can be applied lightly.
Her face is everywhere, from backpacks to refrigerator magnets. She occasionally sports a mustache and glasses, and her head has even been replaced by Bart Simpson’s! But make no mistake, thousands of people a year crowd around the real thing hanging in the Louvre in Paris. So, what is it all about, exactly? What makes the Mona Lisa such an enduring image, recognizable by millions of people around the world? The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci between 1503 and 1507. The painting itself, oil on panel, is quite small: 30 x 21 inches. It is has been stolen and returned, appears to have had part of it cut away, and depicts a Florentine noblewoman against an enigmatic background. It is likely a portrait of a Florentine woman named Lisa Gherardini. Spend some time looking at the painting, at Lisa’s cool expression as she stares out of the frame with her arms delicately crossed. What is she thinking? Is she pleased? Sure of herself? Shy? A small smile appears to be creeping up one side of her mouth and her eyes seem to shift to the right. Is Lisa playing coy? Leonardo da Vinci used a technique called sfumato, which means “smoky” in Italian, and he applied sfumato techniques to the corners of the Mona Lisa’s eyes and her mouth, creating the famous ambiguity of personality. Because of this, Lisa’s mood seems to change upon every viewing, and sometimes it feels like she’s in on the joke. Sfumato also helps add to the realism of the portrait, making Mona Lisa appear to live and breathe. When we look at the Mona Lisa, we are as close as we can get to the genius of Leonardo da Vinci. At some point in history, he sat in a room with this woman, mere feet apart, and painted her from life. The painting is a virtuoso work, an example of da Vinci’s immense skill, and an enduring masterpiece.
Leonardo da Vinci’s greatest triumph of combining art, science, optics, and illusion was the smile of the Mona Lisa, which he started working on in 1503 and continued laboring over nearly until his death 16 years later. He dissected human faces, delineating the muscles that move the lips, and combined that knowledge with the science of how the retina processes perceptions. The result was a masterpiece that invites and responds to human interactions, making Leonardo a pioneer of virtual reality.
The magic of the Mona Lisa’s smile is that it seems to react to our gaze. What is she thinking? She smiles back mysteriously. Look again. Her smile seems to flicker. We glance away, and the enigmatic smile lingers in our minds, as it does in the collective mind of humanity. In no other painting are motion and emotion, the paired touchstones of Leonardo’s art, so intertwined.
The artist Giorgio Vasari, a near-contemporary, told of how Leonardo kept Lisa del Giocondo, the young wife of a Florentine silk merchant, smiling during her portrait sessions. “While painting her portrait, he employed people to play and sing for her, and jesters to keep her merry, to put an end to the melancholy that painters often succeed in giving to their portraits.” The result, Vasari said, was “a smile so pleasing that it was more divine than human,” and he proclaimed that it was a product of superhuman skills that came directly from God.
That’s a typical Vasari cliché, and it’s misleading. The Mona Lisa’s smile came not from some divine intervention. Instead, it was the product of years of painstaking and studied human effort involving applied science as well as artistic skill. Using his technical and anatomical knowledge, Leonardo generated the optical impressions that made possible this brilliant display of virtuosity. In doing so, he showed how the most-profound examples of creativity come from embracing both the arts and the sciences.
In conclusion, Mona Lisa has become one of the most talked about masterpiece in the world. The painting is clearly a masterpiece because it is a superb piece of design, it is a profound assertion of human value, and it maintains communication with immediate past. The painting looks realistic because of the usage of different techniques. This painting that was created by Leonardo has everything you need to know about a masterpiece. It is a painting that relates to everyday life and it is a beautiful piece of a masterpiece that represents affects achieved during the Renaissance.
