Mona Lisa: Decoded

Poker Face. If you can look beyond the painting, then that's the time you can decode it.

If I can just take a journey back five hundred years ago and meet the Italian artist Leonardo Da Vinci, may be I could be the luckiest modern-day artist in the world. Imagine I could see him paint the most famous portrait of all time, the Mona Lisa right before my very eyes. But who is Mona Lisa? What are the mysteries behind her smile? The Mona Lisa portrait is probably the best known, most visited, most written about, most sung about, and the most parodied work of art in the world. Mona is an Italian word for Ma’am or Madam during the High Renaissance period and Lisa Gherardini was her name, but was later on called Mona Lisa. The painting was made in roughly three years, from 1503-1506. There had been a hundreds of parodies of the artwork that made it really popular. It has been seen in a lot of movies and also mentioned in some modern songs.

 My curiosity about Mona Lisa was brought by Mandy Moore’s song rendition of Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters which, in the song, Mona Lisa is portrayed as a rich businessmen living in New York. In my perspective, the Mona Lisa is a timeless work of art since it brings a lot of interpretation and enigmatic mystery. I have watched several films that featured Mona Lisa like Da Vinci Code and Looney Tunes: Back In Action. Maybe it’s the reason why it keeps being famous. Having watching some films featuring Mona Lisa kept asking me in myself who is she and why is she so famous. Probably, in my opinion, she is a rich woman living in Italy at the time where rebirth of art has emerged. Possibly, because art was an expensive thing way back then. I don’t really know her real identity but her portrait somehow tells her story. Her facial expression so much resembles to 9Gags’ “Poker Face” meme. It seems she doesn’t show happiness or loneliness.

The Mona Lisa painting became a center of mystery as technologies emerged. One mystery is here eyebrows. According to historians, eyebrows were shaved during the early times in Italy. Later on, the mystery was unfold. According to scientists who studied the painting using the technology is that her eyebrows seem to be painted by Leonardo but was eroded as time goes by. Another mystery is her smile which has been a topic for films and songs. Mona Lisa's smile has repeatedly been a subject of many—greatly varying—interpretations. Some have described the smile as both innocent and inviting. Many researchers have tried to explain why the smile is seen so differently by people. The explanations range from scientific theories about human vision to curious supposition about Mona Lisa's identity and feelings. As of today, it remains a mystery in what is the meaning of her smile.

*Premise: Who is Mona Lisa?