Task 4

Monalisa, a painting of the great Leonardo da Vinci is an portrait of seated woman set against an
imaginary landscape. A very creative and extraordinary painting that marks the history and the world of
arts. This piece was known as one of the most recognizable and skillfully rendered works of art. This
portrait was made by painting on a poplar wood panel and was painted sometime between 1503 and
1519 when Leonardo was living in Florence and it now hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris where it
remained on object of pilgrimage in the 21 st century. Through her captivating gaze and mysterious
smile, the Monalisa has been enchanting the public since it was first painted in the early 16 th century.
Behind her is a hazy and seemingly isolated landscape imagined by the artist and painted using sfumato,
a technique resulting in forms “without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus
plane”. Da Vinci was an Italian painter in that period called “High Renaissance” one aspect of the
Monalisa is that this was a portrait of some areas wife rather than the kind of religious painting that was
very common in the Early Renaissance. This is sometimes referred to as secular, in contrast to religious.
This painterly technique involves the smooth, almost imperceptible transition from one colour to
another by means of ultra-subtle tonal gradations. The history of the Monalisa is shrouded in mystery.
Among the aspects which remain unclear are the exact identity of the sitter, who commissioned the
portrait, how long Leonardo worked on the painting, how long he kept it and how it came to be in the
French royal collection. The emblematic smile is a visual presentation of the idea of happiness suggested
by the word “gioconda” in Italian. In addition to its mysterious appearance, hex expression has
resonated most strongly with art historians for its possible symbolism as many believe it to be a clever.

(Kelly Richman Abdou June 15, 2019, The History and Legacy of Leonardo Da Vinci mysterious Monalisa)