smiler

 

write about a picture ...

Mona Lisa. La Gioconda: from the Italian, the smiling one. Smiler.

Well, if you're going to write about a painting, why not start at the top? Because this is simply the most famous painting there is. I remember visiting the Louvre, twenty years ago, and negotiating the crowds around the painting, taking endless useless flash photos of it (behind security glass, all their pictures got was a photo of their flash) as the guards tried half heartedly to stop them. It was almost impossible to get close without fighting your way through. But the inexplicable popularity is clear. This is what they come to see, even though there are four better Leonardos just around the corner, which I quickly sought out to view in splendid isolation. Perhaps because of this I have tended to dismiss La Gioconda in the past, and so it has been interesting to look at it up close for the first time.

Perhaps the enigmatic smile is what draws people to it. More likely, she is famous for being famous. In 1911 an Italian patriot stole the painting from the Louvre and eventually offered to sell it to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. He was arrested but hailed as a hero in some quarters. Before then it was not well known and indeed the theft was carried out during opening hours and not noticed until the next day – and even then not by the staff. It was returned to the Louvre after two years, by which time the mystery of its theft had become a cause célèbre in the popular press around the world, so that on its return it became an object of intense curiosity. Since then it has survived numerous attempts at vandalism and now sits behind bullet proof glass.

It is a small painting: the figure is about life-size. Painted on a wooden panel, which has cracked slightly at the top with a line through the forehead, it is done in oil paint which seen close up is heavily crazed – no doubt due to its storage in less than ideal conditions over five hundred years, and not least during the second world war. It depicts the lady in three-quarters profile, her head turned to us, with her hands held loosely in her lap. It is a set-up like many Renaissance portraits of the Virgin Mary. The expression is mysterious but innocent. Compare Leonardo's Portrait of an Unknown Lady, nearby in the Louvre – someone who is much more worldly-wise.

Is La Gioconda really smiling, or is this fanciful? Look closely and you can see laughter lines in the corner of the eyes, and the mouth has a distinct upturn. But then again, is the title a pun? This is generally held to be a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. Vasari, the unreliable gossip-historian who wrote a Life of Leonardo, thirty years after his death, noted that such a portrait had been commissioned, and he refers to her as Mona Lisa (Madam or My Lady Lisa). Leonardo's assistant is recorded as having a portrait called La Gioconda in his possession, having been bequeathed it by his master. So did people call her Smiler as a pun? Or was Leonardo creating a visual pun, giving his sitter a smile? Then again, a lot of his subjects are smiling.

The portrait itself seems realistic, not particularly flattering: although I have always felt that the skin tone of the face is rather waxy. It seems to shine in an unnatural way. But actually it is similar to other Leonardos such as the two Virgin paintings in the Louvre in this respect. The Portrait of an Unknown Lady by contrast looks much more realistic, photographic almost. Mona Lisa's pose looks comfortable; her hands relaxed, natural.

The fantastical background has often been criticized. Some of Leonardo's portraits have almost no background, just a dark anonymous space, although the Virgins and his St John the Baptist in the Louvre feature mountain prospects too – but not on this scale. We see a range of foothills, a vast lake behind and then rocky mountains rising up, but the two sides of the image do not seem to match. It is as if the aerial perspective is drawn from different altitudes. On the right hand side there is an even vaster lake and bigger more distant mountains, and the horizon line is much higher than on the left. This seems unresolved, unfinished, as though he changed his mind and didn't get round to correcting the other side of the view.

As I study the portrait closely, I am amazed to discover that this image that I have seen reproduced thousands of times, has a number of features I have never noticed. She is wearing a veil, so slight as to be almost invisible. It covers her head and the edge can be seen at the top of her forehead, and is more visible on her right where it falls free of her hair. I had always thought that the hair was badly rendered here, or that this was a reworking or unfinished in some way. She is also sitting in a chair, very upright it seems. Only the arms are visible. Immediately behind her is a wall and the merest hint of the base of two columns either side, as if she is sitting on a loggia that looks out over the vast landscape behind. I was aware of the mountains and the lake but not some of the detail: the foothills in the foreground with a road to the left and a bridge to the right, and beyond a sail boat in the lake.

So this has been a valuable exercise. I understand and appreciate the portrait much more than I did previously. I have always admired Leonardo and his works, including his paintings, and now see my dismissal of La Gioconda as a rather snobbish affectation merely because of its popularity. Long may you smile on us, Lady Lisa.