Title: The Mona Lisa
Artist: Leonardo da Vinci, Italian
Date: 1503
My first impressions:
This is a painting of a woman in front of a landscape. It looks familiar to me and makes me think of the movie, The DaVinci Code.
The woman is looking at the viewer and she is right in the middle of the picture. She is sitting up straight with her arms folded. She has long hair and is wearing a brown dress. I can't tell if she's smiling or not but I do think her expression is unusual. It seems like she's leaning on the arm of a chair so I think she might be sitting in front of a window.
The landscape in the background looks like it's very far away. I see mountains, a body of water, and a road. The light dull colors make me think that the weather is not so nice on this day.
What I've learned:
This paintig is believed to be the most famous painting in the world. It is located in The Louvre Museum in Paris. It took DaVinci four years to make this painting and some art historians believe that it was cut down. They think orginally it had columns on either side of the woman.
There is a lot of debate about who The Mona Lisa is. Some historians think it's DaVinci's mother, or a self-portrait but most agree that it is the wide of a wealthy merchant from Florence.
DaVinci organized the picture like a pyramid. It is one of the first portraits to use an imaginary landscape.
SOURCES:
www.metmuseum.org
www.louvre.fr
