Lisa del Giocondo

          Mona Lisa, painted by the great Leonardo da Vince who’s one of the famous artists during the renaissance period. The first time I saw that painting was when I’m still a kid and looking through our books during our discussion about different painters. I was fascinated by the way it is painted and became one of my favorite paintings. Later on, we started learning things about the painting and I was shocked about the painting’s controversies. I didn’t know that even paintings have issues to others. I did a research about it and found out many things. I became more interested about the painting’s controversies and gathered different information. Some of it shriveled through my bones while reading facts and watching documentaries while others captured my attention for a while and started thinking things out. I also researched about how he came up to painting it in that way. I learned that he used to paint with a technique called Sfumato. It is one of the four canonical painting modes of the Renaissance. There are also other modes like the cangiante, chiaroscuro, and the unione. Sfumato is derived from the word ‘fumo’ in Italian which means smoke or fume and in English it is similar to blurred. According to Leonardo da Vince, the sfumato means without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus plane.

          Going back to “Mona Lisa”, History accorded that she was the wife of a Florentine gentleman whose real name is Lisa del Giocondo. Although it’s painted, the appearance of the Lisa has no proof that she really survive. The real thing is her smile, Why, you might ask? She seems to be smiling but her eyes are in sorrow and sadness. They said that she is pregnant because her hands are folded to hide the bump. The original Lisa del Giocondo was actually pregnant during that time according to history. They say that Mona Lisa is also Leonardo da Vinci when he was still young and beardless which has similarities to his self-portrait. Some historians acclaimed that she is a combination of man and a woman which is Amon and Elisa in Latin which makes her a hermaphrodite. Many are curious why she has no eyebrows at all. During the 16^th century, plucking out eyebrows is customary to those noble women. They even said that Mona Lisa is perfect in terms of symmetry. An ancient symbol of chalice is formed when you look at it which is an indirect hint to the mystical Holy Grail. It was also included in the bestseller book of Dan Brown, ‘Da Vinci Code’.