Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa (or Portrait of Mona Lisa) is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, made between 1503 and 1506. It is the portrait of a woman who then called Mona Lisa del Jocondo.
It is exposed at the Louvre in Paris. The Mona Lisa is one of the few paintings attributed with certainty to Leonardo da Vinci.
Model: Maria Lisa Gherardini
Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 in Vinci, near Florence and died in 1519 at Amboise in France. In 1500, shortly after the fall of the Sforza family in Milan, Leonardo da Vinci left the city of his patron Ludovico Sforza, and returns to Florence. There he realizes, between 1503 and 1506, a portrait of a woman known as the Mona Lisa. There is no indication whatsoever on the order of the portrait of the Mona Lisa, its development and payment. According to the accepted assumption since Giorgio Vasari, the model was originally named Lisa Del Giocondo, Lisa Maria Gherardini was born in May 1479 to Florence (Tuscany). Born into a poor family, she married at age 16 the son of a silk merchant, Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo. Already widowed twice, Giocondo was 19 years older than Lisa. She bore him three children, Piero Francesco - born in 1496 - a first name unknown daughter who died in 1499 and Andrea - born in 1502. The birth of their third child in December 1502 and the acquisition of a home is ideal circumstances for the control of the portrait, which would control the fact of Francesco del Giocondo. The mysterious smile of the Mona Lisa would be that of a woman who is pregnant or just had a child *.
* Research undertaken in 2006 by the Canadiens unveiled by means of a sophisticated laser scanning system, in color and in three dimensions, that Mona Lisa was wrapped in a "gauze" thin and transparent normally worn at the time by pregnant or giving birth. Masked by the veneer, this detail has never been observed so far. The mysterious smile of the Mona Lisa would be that of a woman who is pregnant or just had a child.
Giorgio Vasari, painter and author of Lives of finest painters, sculptors and architects in fact a description
legendary "Leonardo undertook to Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, and having struggled on for four years, left unfinished, this work is now in the King Francis of France Fontainebleau. In this face, who wanted to see how art can imitate nature could easily understand; What were counterfeit because the smallest details that can paint with subtlety: it had eyes that sparkle and this moisture that are constantly in life and around them, all these shades of red or pale flesh and eyelashes, you can not do without extreme subtlety, the establishment lashes (and brows), thick in places, and rarer others, could be more natural; nose with his nostrils and delicate roses, seemed alive, the mouth, with its slot and the passage of molten crimson lips to Face it, seemed really flesh and not of color; who looked at the hollow of the throat saw the beating of the veins and in truth we can say it was painted in a way to shake and fear any great artist, whatever. "
Self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci made between 1512 and 1515. Royal Library of Turin
The name of the table would gave of Ma (My lady, in French), abstract in Mona and Lisa, first name of the model. This hypothesis seems confirmed by a recent discovery. In an edition of Cicero's work, found in Heidelberg, Germany, dating from 1503, its owner Agustin Vespucci, a friend of Leonardo da Vinci was an annotated page of the book, indicating that Da Vinci had three paintings during that year, including a portrait of Mona Lisa del Giocondo.
The note written by Agostino Vespucci in October 1503 on the sidelines of a book of Cicero found in the library of the University of Heidelberg.
Francesco del Giocondo family had a chapel in the church of the Santissima Annunziata, where he was later buried. This church was run by the Servants of Mary, who hosted in 1501 Leonard, son of Piero da Vinci, notary of their order. It is likely that Leonardo and Francesco were aware at that time. In 1503, Francesco del Giocondo moved into a larger home, via della Stufa, and seeking a painter to paint the portrait of his wife. He turns to Leonardo da Vinci. Lisa Gherardini was aged 24 and Leonard 51 years when he began his painting. Francesco del Giocondo
never got his picture. It was unfinished when the artist left Florence for Milan. This thesis is discussed on the pretext that no trace of a payment has been recovered. The close links between Leonardo and the family del Giocondo was established in 2004 by Giuseppe Pallanti (2007). He said the archives of a church in the historic center of Florence refer to a death of "the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, died July 15, 1542 and buried at the convent Sant'Orsola. According to Daniel
Arasse, art historian, he was alive when the picture was finished, Francesco del Giocondo would have felt insulted and would probably have refused. According to him, this time a woman at the front hairline and eyebrows plucked could only be a prostitute. Analysis table after 2000 showed that the Mona Lisa's head is covered with a transparent veil, or inconspicuous.
A mythical table
The Mona Lisa has become legendary for a table at all times, artists have taken as reference. It is in fact the culmination of research from the fifteenth century on the representation of the portrait. In the Romantic era, artists have been fascinated by the enigma of the Mona Lisa and helped create the myth that surrounds it, making this painting one of the art world's most famous, if not the most famous.
The peregrinations of the Mona Lisa: a castle on the other.
Leonardo began the portrait in Florence in 1502, and after Giorgio Vasari completed after four years. The Mona Lisa Leonardo never leaves his lifetime. He probably wins in Amboise, where Francis I summoned him. This makes the acquisition - Leonardo himself or his heirs after his death - and installs in Fontainebleau Bath apartment in the castle.
In 1650, the portrait leaves the Castle of the Louvre while Fontaibleau royal residence, and then hung at Versailles from 1695. Louis XIV is one of the most prominent tables at Versailles, and the exhibits in the Royal Collection. In the eighteenth century, the picture falls a bit into oblivion, probably the victim of fashion of rococo. The Mona Lisa is not included in the exhibitions presented at the Royal Palace of Luxembourg between 1750 and 1779. It is even relegated to a secondary section of the Directorate of Buildings from 1760 to 1788. The fall of the French monarchy between 1789 and 1793, the establishment of public museums and the reign of Napoleon will then make a second wind tableeau of Leonardo da Vinci.
Table Louvre
Revolution radically transformed the status of the royal collections that become the property of citizens. The Mona Lisa is on the list of works to furnish the new Musée du Louvre. Jean-Honore Fragonard is responsible for transferring the collection. Table regains the Louvre became a museum in 1798, but was again moved on the orders of the First Consul Bonaparte, who is hanging on the Tuileries Palace in 1800 in Josephine's apartments, then went to the Louvre in 1804. The fall of the empire does not affect this new interest in Leonardo da Vinci as evidenced by the painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres entitled The Death of Leonardo da Vinci introduced in 1818.
Leonardo painting the Mona Lisa Aimee Brune-Pages, canvas done in 1845 in the vein of the romantic movement and exhibited at the Salon.
The Mona Lisa has attracted renewed interest initiated by the Romanesque movement. She inspires enthusiastic pages to Michelet, Théophile Gautier, Gustave Planche, George Sand, etc.. The mass reproduction of the Mona Lisa is permitted by the famous Burning Calamatta in 1859 also supports this new craze.
Burning Calamatta (1859).
Theft of the Mona Lisa (1911)
On 22 August 1911, Louis went to Béroud Louvre to make a sketch its next painting Mona Lisa in the Louvre, but instead of the Mona Lisa, is a big gap. Béroud contacted the guards, which indicate that the work must be at the photographic studio. A few hours later, Béroud inquired again with supervisors and he learns that Mona Lisa is not with the photographers. The picture has indeed been stolen August 21, 1911. This is the signal for battle. Inspector Louis Lepine and his team are responsible for the safety case under the direction of the Prefect of Police himself. The borders are closed, railway stations and ports of commerce are under surveillance. A few days later, the director of the Louvre is removed. Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and imprisoned a week. He had publicly threatened to burn the Louvre. During his interrogation, it involves his friend Pablo Picasso, who was also arrested. The police suspect them to mount the case to demonstrate that the works exhibited in museums French are not safe. The flight is also claimed by the writer Gabriele d'Annunzio, Italian nationalist.
The empty place of the Mona Lisa on the wall of the Salon Carre after the flight.
Rumors come and go. There is talk of a mysterious American collector who had passed the order. It also says that international fraudster would have to make copies of the Mona Lisa with a French forger, and he would have held that flight to increase the price of its copies ... false leads, of course. The poet and painter are made harmless, the investigation stalled. Bombshell: the glass covering the painting is found in a corner with a left thumb print. Unfortunately, only inches rights are preserved in the files of the time.
The Friends of the Louvre offers a reward of twenty-five thousand francs (she had not in hand, he had recourse to a subscription which will involve both the rich donors and modest people), an anonymous proposal to double this sum. The magazine L'Illustration promised fifty thousand francs which would bring to the table in the newspaper.
chamber Vincenzo Perugia: Table two years remained hidden under his bed.
It was not until 1913 that the investigation continues. A dealer from Florence, Alfredo Geri, is visited by Vincenzo Perugia. The latter, a carpenter by trade, said he acted out of patriotism. Chosen to Paris to make the wooden chest protection of the Mona Lisa, it was he who stole the painting for the return to Italy. He thought the work had been stolen by Napoleon. How did he do it? Carpenter returned to the Louvre on Monday was also the closing day of the museum. Then, taking advantage of a moment when the Salon Carre, room where the Mona Lisa was exhibited, was empty, he picked up the table, removed the canvas from its protective box and hid it under her blouse. It was released in mingling with a group at lunch time, by a guard ... left empty by the keeper. Table stayed for two years under his bed in his room in the rue de l'Hopital Saint Louis, less than two kilometers from the Louvre Museum. Perugia police questioned her room, but he managed to convince police that he was not working at the Salon Carré day of travel, and obviously, the police made no house searches. The Mona Lisa was at a few meters them. Perugia in Italy returned in 1913 to sell the painting in Florence, birthplace of Leonardo da Vinci. Perugia unveiled the Mona Lisa at the dealer Alfredo Gerri. It was intact. He claimed the sum of 500,000 lire and ensuring that the work would in no case be returned to France. Gerri preferred to call the police. After his arrest, the Florence dealer Alfredo Geri, will affect 25,000 francs reward.
The police record of Vincenzo Perugia
Vincenzo Perugia is judged. His trial is done in Italy in Florence, to the cheers of the Italians who salute his patriotism. The verdict is mild, the carpenter was sentenced to one year in jail but will be released after a hundred days behind bars. Released soon, will Perugia in the Italian army during the First World War. The Mona Lisa, she did a little tour of Italy, a farewell tour before returning to the French capital by the Milan-Paris express train, and regain his place January 4, 1914 behind the gates of the Louvre, hosted a large pump by the President of the Republic, in the Salon Carré. Peruggia Why did he choose this Italian work and not another? "Because it's the most beautiful," he replied at the time. After the First World War, Perugia will return to France to get married and open an ... paint store. He died in 1947 in Annemasse. But his stunt has done much for the reputation of the Mona Lisa.
This incident inspired a movie Michel Deville, Stolen Mona Lisa (1966), George Chakiris and Marina Vlady.
Danger: War!
Just arrived at the Louvre, the painting continues its chaotic history. It starts out on the road to exile because war. During the summer of 1914, the picture is, indeed, works collected in 4 railway wagons and taken to Toulouse. The cars stay in the immense gothic nave of the Convent of the Jacobins during the conflict.
In September 1938, while it is on the brink of war following the Sudeten crisis, the Mona Lisa is one of the works removed to the Castle of Chambord, chosen to house them. The works were repatriated after the Munich agreement. But the operation has served as a dress rehearsal for the general démémagement August 1939. At the outbreak of war, painting by new for the Chateau de Chambord, where transitèrent at this time of many paintings and sculptures from museums in Paris, then it also takes the path of the exodus and finds himself successively in the Chateau d'Amboise, the abbey of Loc-Dieu, the Ingres Museum in Montauban, returns to Chambord before being stored under the bed of the curator of the Louvre museum in exile in the castle in Montal Quercy (Lot) until June 1945, when the table finds its place Louvre.
Voyages of the Mona Lisa.
Video: Trip to USA
In January 1963 the Minister of Culture André Malraux send the Mona Lisa in the U.S. where it is received by President Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson. It is exposed at the National Gallery in Washington and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She is admired by 1.7 million visitors in total. She makes another trip to Japan in 1974 where she won an absolute triumph. On the way home, she made a step in the USSR and the Russian public for it in the same home enthousiaste.Les two trips were unprecedented success, the work is better received by the crowds that movie star. Both also attended many travel to its reputation as the theft of 1911, and Japanese and American public since then devote a cult in this work who spent several weeks on their territory and to which hundreds of thousands of visitors filed past . The work of a creative genius holding a flawless technique related to the mysteries of his model and the vicissitudes of history have been the source of an unprecedented enthusiasm for the Mona Lisa that no other work of Art has ever seen.
Inauguration of the exhibition of the Mona Lisa in Washington in January 1963 attended by Kennedy, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, Andre Malraux, Minister of Cultural Affairs and his wife.
An array fragile
If the panel of poplar wood on which was painted the Mona Lisa is, according to experts, with exceptional quality, it remains least somewhat thin and fragile. If you look at the top of the table we can see a gap of 11 cm. This slot is clearly visible on the location of the table. In 1951, the panel was reinforced by a frame of oak and then in 1970 with four horizontal rails.
Since March 2005, the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum has a room renovated and specially equipped to receive it, the Hall of States, where it faces the equally famous painting by Veronese, The Marriage of Cana . TODAY 'Even today, the Mona Lisa is the centerpiece of the Louvre, but it is a fragile work. It is the subject of exceptional coverage, especially since experts have recently noticed that the thin poplar panel on which it unfolds this deformation that might irreversibly damage the paint, itself highly mutable.
poplar support of the Mona Lisa strengthened by four horizontal rails. 11cm slot is clearly visible on the back and the place of the table.
must also protect Mona Lisa of attempted assault. The painting by Leonardo da Vinci is under very high protection because the risks are real: August 2, 2007, a Russian woman violently threw an empty cup in the ground against the Mona Lisa. The woman was immediately arrested, while incoherent Russian, and then conduct ... at the psychiatric infirmary of the Prefecture of Police. This movement of madness against a work of art is not isolated. It even has a name: the Stendhal syndrome. The Mona Lisa is a painting very guarded and protected. It is in a box to prevent any vibration, heat, and humidity. It is also protected by a window shielded bulletproof and cons of object streams. And several museum guards are responsible for ensuring the mysterious Mona Lisa's face in front of which marched 8.5 million people in 2008.
The portrait of a young woman of her time.
The Mona Lisa is the portrait of a young woman on the bottom of a mountain landscape with distant horizons and foggy.
On a terrace bordered by a railing and two columns which you can see the foundation and the edge of drums, Mona Lisa is sitting in a wooden seat. The latter, shown in profile, is a semi-circular, and has armrests and bars.
Mona Lisa is seen to below the waist, discreetly turned to the right of the viewer, his head nearly face, accentuating the movement by making it look more for later. She crosses her hands, right on the wrist left and the left hand along the railing of the amount of the seat.
Mona Lisa wearing a dress and head on a transparent black veil. We note that completely shaved, according to the fashion of the time, it exhibits no eyelashes or eyebrows. Cleavage releases the neck and chest until the birth of her breasts.
She recalled silly string lacks any jewelry. A scarf down his left shoulder and the sleeves of his yellow clothing (in harmony with the surrounding landscape) form numerous folds on his forearm. She wears a veil over her hair undone. Its implementation is surprisingly simple compared to painted costumes at the same time. Mona Lisa is illuminated by a light source that comes from the left of the table.
The face of Mona Lisa stands on a landscape consisting of two superimposed parts: a landscape near, brown, and a more distant landscape, almost opaque color blue. The landscape near the right face of Mona Lisa shows a path or a road that winds between steep hills. To the left of the face of Mona Lisa, there was a river and a stone bridge with three or four arches separated by batteries (like the bridge Milvinus in Rome). Lost in the landscape blue in the distance, one can see a lake surrounded by steep cliffs. We also observed that the horizon is not really symmetrical on either side of the face of Mona Lisa. Experts do not agree on the places represented, some seeing an imaginary landscape, others instead of acknowledging landscapes known (the banks of the Arno River, Lake Como or a pre-Alpine landscape).
also observed that the body of Mona Lisa in the foreground, is shown frontally, while in the background, the landscape is shown in oblique view, almost as the crow flies. However, harmony is established between the figure and landscape. The lodge where Mona Lisa articulates subtly these two radically opposed views. Mona Lisa seems in fact very close to us, as the landscape lies in the distance near the horizon. The parapet is transitional figure between the foreground and scenery in the background.
A glance and a smile universally known
The eyes of Mona Lisa has not finished fascinate. While giving the impression of eyes follow the viewer's gaze fixed Mona Lisa a point beyond-the viewer and slightly to his left, causing a set depth dialogue between the work and the viewer.
Bruno Mathon, art critic, said that the Mona Lisa and " look at something in you, but who is behind you, in your past. She looks at the child you've been like a mother watching her child."
The smile of the Mona Lisa is an enigmatic elements of the painting, which helped develop the myth. His smile seems suspended, ready to die. That smile is remarkable since it is one of the first in the history of painting.
Leonardo da Vinci exclusively uses light to define the volumes, create the model, suggested distances. The contours are blurred, sfumati dissolved in the shade and even light. The artist contrasts and eliminates boundaries by blending imperceptibly with the image of nature, light and dark. The lines are rare (top of the cap, neckline)
From a technical standpoint, the paint is covered with a succession of colored glazes that literally vitrified table. Originally, the picture was not as dark.
The picture as it was, perhaps, originally.
The picture was clouded by the succession of different layers of varnish. The range of colors has never been more than an modulated portion of blue sky yellow sleeves, via through countless shades of gray, brown, red and ocher, a significant restriction toned elements, air and minerals. The
blur picture is characteristic of the technique of sfumato. Sfumato, Italian smoky, misty effect is obtained by superimposing several layers of paint that gives extremely delicate table imprecise. This technique has been used especially in the eyes shading setting.
The culmination of the art of portraiture to Renaisssance.
If portraiture refined throughout the fifteenth century, especially during the last quarter of the fifteenth century in Italy, especially Florence, as in the portrait painters looking expression personality model. The Mona Lisa achieves a synthesis of research include spatial solutions previously developed by the Flemish painters, including Hans Memling. Albrecht Dürer in Germany, comes curiously to a solution similar to that of Leonardo for the Mona Lisa.
Hans Memling (c. 1430-1484), Benedetto di Tommaso Portinari (circa 1487), Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
The portrait of Benedetto Portinari praying painted by Hans Memling in Bruges was in 1487 when the Portinari chapel of the hospital Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. Leonard, frequenting this place, had to take notice. The formula Flemish already experienced by Jan Van Eyck as 1428, had been brought to scale by the Florentine painters in the years 1485-1490. The Mona Lisa, synthesizing all the research, immediately becomes a model.
Twenty years later, the Mona Lisa applies, but with flexibility and ease quite new, the same formula experienced by Domenico Ghirlandaio in his works which inaugurated the large portraits, circa 1485-1490 (when the portraits by Memling are small).
Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), Portrait of an elderly man and his little son , circa 1490, 63 x 46 cm, Musée du Louvre.
Portrait of a femme, vers 1490, attribué à Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494),Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA
Peinture à l'huile, 56 x 37.6 cm .
Shortly before the Mona Lisa, Sandro Botticelli, Portrait in the alleged Smeralda Brandini, about 1490, deals not without majesty, a life-size portrait which, from an area separate from ours, watching us.
Sandro Botticelli "Portrait of Lady Smeralda Brandini", Oil on wood 65.7 x 41 cm Victoria and Albert Museum London
production prolific and multifaceted Leonardo da Vinci has paradoxically left little room to paint, so he placed it above all other arts. Four works have marked his career and the Mona Lisa alone unites the artist's research into the question of landscape, portrait and expression of the model.
In the last decades of the fifteenth century in Florence and elsewhere, the pattern of the river and winding road - valid for the Mona Lisa - become perfectly conventional, the depth appeared. Leonard already addresses this theme in 1472 in the table of his master, Verrocchio, Baptism of Christ, which he contributed. Like the landscape of the Mona Lisa, that of The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne suggests more vision than description because it includes the diffraction of light.
Andrea del Verrocchio, Baptism of Christ , 1472-1475, Uffizi Florence.
The Baptism of Christ is a painting by Andrea del Verrocchio began in 1470 and completed by Leonardo da Vinci between 1472 and 1475. It represents St. John the Baptist giving the baptism of Christ in the Jordan River. It is exposed to the Uffizi Gallery Florence.Léonard have taken the table later. It was long considered this his first work, but it shows the master suggests to modern criticism that it is an achievement later. He painted the angel on the left and then reworked the body of Christ to soften. He also reshaped the landscape, which originally was to be a valley full of trees. He was replaced by a stream that meanders into the distance, a pattern emerged in Flemish painting (The Virgin of Chancellor Rolin, Jan van Eyck) and had a great vogue in Italy in the last years of the fifteenth century .
A work admired, imitated and parodied that inspired many artists.
What also makes the success of the Mona Lisa, what are the various tributes to other artists to the best-known work of Leonardo da Vinci. Vasari devoted to the portrait of Mona Lisa pages eloquent witness to his admiration. Then, after a long period of neglect, the picture brought a renewed interest thanks to the Romantics. Camille Corot inspires them to Woman with a Pearl Earring.
Camille Corot, Woman with a Pearl , 1870, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Despite the title, which is inspired by the famous Vermeer painting Girl with the Pearl (or Teen with turban) is first of the Mona Lisa that inspired Corot to paint the Woman pearl. The girl wears a costume inspired directly from the peasant Italian or Greek. Her veil over his forehead, his eyes that do not give the viewer, sitting position, arms crossed, his hands dropped us back to the image of the Mona Lisa's face even though the girl seems more inspired by Madonna Raphael. Since 1830, in the wake of the Romantics, painting by Leonardo raises new interest in the origin of the myth today.
The Mona Lisa became a cult picture, especially since his flight in 1911, has often been imitated, parodied and turned away. This revolutionary table in the Renaissance and has inspired both artists, symbolizes the eyes of some, the official art. Soon after his return to Paris in 1914, after his flight, the Mona Lisa is starting to interest the avant-garde artists, who no longer hesitate to abuse. Over time, these diversions have only strengthened the reputation of the painting and the fascination it inspires.
Kazimir Malevich, Partial Eclipse with Mona Lisa, Composition with the Mona , 1914, private collection.
Young cubist painter, Kazimir Malevich offers his vision of Mona Lisa: he sticks a torn reproduction of the Mona Lisa bar that two red crosses. For this avant-garde painter, art must get rid of his references. This collage may seem all the more shocking that the painting by Leonardo da Vinci has just found its place in the Louvre, after his flight in 1911.
Marcel Duchamp LHOOQ, 1919, National Center for Art and Culture Georges Pompidou.
Marcel Duchamp, the first, sporting a mustache and affix a title scabrous ( LHOOQ , 1919). Its title is both a homophone of the word look and allograph we can say: "She is hot ass". It is a vulgar postcard (19.7 x size 12.4 cm) reproducing the Mona Lisa. Duchamp was overloaded with a mustache, a goatee and letters that give the title to the work. The work is in the current ready-mades that the artist has created and participated in the determination Artist of question art. Duchamp had done for the magazine 391 of Francis Picabia. He talks to him a combination of ready-made and "iconoclastic Dadaism." The work is indeed contemporaneous with the onset of the implementation of the Dada movement in Paris where she manifesto.
But the work of Duchamp also includes an interpretation of the test of Sigmund Freud A childhood memory of Leonardo da Vinci in which the analyst speaks to the inability of the artist to complete his work, the sublimation Life in art and especially of his homosexuality. This vision of the Mona Lisa is based on certain assumptions which the model of the Mona Lisa a man and the ambiguity the feminine and the masculine gender in the work of Leonardo da Vinci (whose ambiguity has fueled the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown ).
Fernand Leger, the Mona Lisa with keys (1930), National Museum of Fernand Leger, Biot (Alpes-Maritimes
Fernand Leger back the Mona Lisa, for its part, to its status as an object by placing it alongside a harmless tin of sardines and a set of keys. The scenario of objects in space, without presentation support is a major concern of the painter Fernand Leger. The Mona Lisa the key is the culmination of extensive research including a sixty works, drawings and paintings, showing various solutions to everyday objects interact among themselves, by contrasts of scale and pictorial collage of quotations. "I took the object, I blew up the table, I put this object in the air, without perspective, without support. I have broken my objects in space and I made them take them by making them shine in front of the canvas. Quite a simple game of chords and rhythms because of background colors and surface of conductive lines, distances and oppositions, sometimes unusual encounters. "
The image of the Mona Lisa, symbol Italian Renaissance, is here ridiculed by his color lithographs bazaar. Before Fernand Leger, Marcel Duchamp, his friend had misappropriated the image of the Mona Lisa with LHOOQ . This attitude, profane and provocative, is softened with humor in the work of Leger. This may seem surreal collage intellectual, yet the objects are not responsible for the surreal symbolic, they are chosen for their shape and reinforce their contrast by leaving free the imagination of the viewer. "One day I had a canvas on a keychain. I did not know what I was going to put aside. I needed something absolutely contrary to the keys. So when I finished work, I'm out. I had barely taken a few steps and what I see in a showcase? A postcard of the Mona Lisa! I realized right away: this is what I needed, what could have contrasted more with the keys? As I put it on my canvas the Mona Lisa. Then I also added a can of sardines. This makes a sharp contrast. "
Fernando Bottero is a painter sculpeur and Colombian whose style is especially marked by the roundness of his characters. In 1960, he decided to settle in New York he exposes the caricature he made of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci ... This cartoon will make him famous in artistic circles New Yorkers.
More recently with artists like Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Robert Rauschenberg, the image returned to this icon, beyond the challenge is even more disturbing, dark, pessimistic, as a reflection of our current society (? )
Andy Warhol, Thirty are Better Than One, 1963, private collection. Andy Warhol silk screen offers a thirty small reproductions of the work: Thirty are Better Than One, "thirty are better than one.
Jean Michel Basquiat Mona Lisa, 1983, Jose Mugrabi collection Basquiat painting Mona Lisa as a banknote. It stresses the link between painting and are reached by the astronomical works of art which thus become a symbol of money.
Banksy, Mona Lisa with an AK 47 - 2000 - spray paint stencil.
The street artist, graffiti artist Banksy, has represented several times in Mona Lisa revolutionary or provocative and sexy young woman.
Yan Pei-Ming is in the same vein rather dark, with its monochrome polyptych consists of five tables.
Yang Pei-Minh, Funerals Mona Lisa, Louvre, Exposition of 2008.
the Mona Lisa, in the center of this "altar", is flanked either side by an imaginary landscape indistinct enough where we can see repeated human skulls (made from a scanner the skull of the artist) lying on the ground.
For the first time, the landscape in the background has a certain unity that would have pleased the art historian Daniel Arasse! Two other portraits complete this triptych, left the artist's father died, his eyes open, and right a portrait of the artist somehow foreshadows his death. It is caught by both the dullness of the work and time by printing white ...
As explained himself Iang-Pei Minh: "In China, white is the color of mourning, but it is white, I interpreted gray (2). And death is everywhere except the Mona Lisa is alive and well despite the tears of paint on his face and his hands folded ... That is the paradox of these ghostly funeral of the icon of Western painting by Yan Pei-Ming, an artist who in his lifetime is exhibited at the Louvre, and it is already represents "death, dying or asleep "(About Yan Pei-Ming collected by Guillaume Durand)
