Is she cold-hearted? Soulless?
Seductive? "Hundreds of poets and men of letters have written on this
woman. And none of them has solved the enigma of her smile, none has read
her thoughts", to quote an essay written by Angelo Conti. Attempts at
interpretation are legion, yet none is satisfying. Some see "the
embodiment of all the love experienced in the history of civilisation",
others "the narcissistic traits of Leonardo himself ". Even the father of
psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, felt compelled to comment on the Mona
Lisa: "If one thinks of Leonardo's pictures, the recollection of
the beguiling and enigmatic smile that he has magically conjured on to the
lips of his female figures comes to mind. An unchanging smile on long,
curving lips: it has become the distinctive feature of his work and is
usually called 'Leonardesque'. The exotic, beautiful face of the Mona Lisa
is most captivating to the spectator and confounds his wits." Even Freud
was forced to admit defeat: "Let us leave the enigma of the Mona Lisa's
countenance unresolved."
We do know something about the artist's model. She was
known as Mona, or Monna, which means "Madam", Lisa del Giocondo.
Born in 1479, she married the respectable cloth merchant
Francesco del Giocondo and lived in Florence. There she was noticed, at
the age of twenty-four, by
Leonardo da Vinci,
who was twice her age. An extraordinarily gifted painter, sculptor,
draughtsman, architect, natural scientist and engineer, he was arguably
the greatest genius of his age. Giorgio Vasari, who founded the discipline
of art history, understated the unparalleled powers of this polymath and
universal genius when he referred to him as "most admirable and divinely
gifted". He is said to have worked on the Mono Lisa for
three years, using the most sophisticated techniques to distract his model
so that he might capture that enigmatic smile.
