Her name was Lisa Gherardini. Why it matters Want to go?

Thursday, June 20, 2013 News 11
Orange County Register
1
ART HISTORY
The Leonardo da Vinci exhibit that opened last week at the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana is
remarkable for a number of reasons. But the highlight is most definitely the part of the exhibit that focuses
on the famous “Mona Lisa.” What you’ll see there will give you a completely new perspective of Leo’s ...
PRETTY LADY
Her name
was Lisa
Gherardini.
MONA LISA
as she looks today
MONA LISA
as she probably looked
when the painting was new
She was the wife of
Francesco del
Giocondo, a wealthy
Italian cloth
merchant. “Mona” is
a contraction that
means “my lady” in
Italian.
Noot how much brighter
Note
Leoo
Leonardo’s
colors are in
thee virtual restoration —
espp
especially
the blue
bac
background.
Leonardo
pai
painted
the background
wit a very expensive
with
pigment made from
lapis lazuli gemstones.
By using a technique
called sfumato — very
thin, multiple applications of paint — Leonardo
painted the veil atop the
background, giving the
veil a transparent effect.
No brush strokes are
apparent anywhere in
the painting.
Leonardo began
painting her in 1503
but continued working on the project
until his death in 1519.
And even then, the
portrait ended up
with the King of
France instead of del
Giocondo — the man
who actually commissioned the work.
Mona Lisa actually does
have eyebrows. Cotte’s
work revealed “one hair”
of an eyebrow, he
announced in 2007. He
said that perhaps an
attempt to clean the
painting collected the
rest.
In 2004, engineer
Pascal Cotte photographed the Mona
Lisa with a camera of
his own invention
that peered at the
painting using 13
wavelengths of light,
including ones you’ve
heard of — ultra-violet
and infrared — and
several you probably
haven’t.
There are two blotches
on her face — at the eye
and chin. Depending on
whom you believe, these
are due to varnish
accidents or water
damage caused when
the king of France had
the painting hanging in
his bathroom.
The result was a
22-gigabyte image of
240 million pixels
that can peer
beneath layers of
paint and even
digitally restore the
painting to the way it
would have looked
when it was new.
In 1956, a vandal threw
acid on the painting,
damaging the bottom
edge. Later that year, a
second vandal threw a
rock, knocking some of
the paint off her elbow.
Shortly after, the Louvre
put the painting behind
glass.
Leonardo painted the
Mona Lisa on a plank of
poplar wood. The panel —
originally 30 inches high
and 21 inches wide — has
shrunk nearly an inch in
width.
Infrared images show Leonardo changed the positions of
the index and middle fingers of her left hand. The reason:
He originally painted Mona Lisa holding a lap blanket.
Although he worked on the painting
for another decade, Leonardo never
finished this finger.
That exhibit is now
at the Discovery
Science Center.
Visitors can begin
their journey
through Cotte’s
analyses by viewing
a number of his
visualizations of the
painting as seen in
various spectrums
of light.
After two years of
analyzing his images
of the Mona Lisa,
Cotte announced his
findings in 2006. The
next year, an exhibition of his results
began working its
way around the
country. Here, he
talks about the
painting at the
opening of the
exhibit in San
Francisco in 2007.
For example: This
flying machine
would never have
gotten off the
ground. But clearly,
Leonardo was
ahead of his time —
in this case, 450 or
so years before the
invention of the
helicopter.
And the Mona Lisa is
just one part of the
Leonardo da Vinci
exhibit. You’ll see
reproductions of
Leo’s sketchbooks —
called codices. A
number of his
sketches have been
turned into life-sized
models.
Want
to go?
When: Through Sept. 8
Hours: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
daily
How much: $15.95
adults, $12.95 seniors
and children 3-14
Call: 714-542-CUBE
Online:
discoverycube.org
Sources: Lumiere Technology, the
Louvre, the Washington Post, CNN
Images: GRANDE EXHIBITIONS,
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Why it
matters
Our understanding
of history, science
and art is enhanced
greatly by examining the work of a
master like Leonardo da Vinci.
Plus, it’s just fun
stuff to know. You’ll
never again see a
photo of the Mona
Lisa without thinking of this exhibit.