Da Vinci Tricked Everyone With A Secret Illusion

this is the most expensive painting to ever be sold at auction for 450 million dollars oops sorry wrong Da Vinci painting that's better it was actually Salvatore Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci that sold for 450 million dollars in 2017. this is the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci and if it went up for auction now it would likely sell for far more than her orb clutching counterpart she's Rich she's famous she's also apparently a bit of a disappointment eight million people go to the Louvre every year just to see the Mona Lisa but once they arrive they only spend about 15 seconds actually looking at her but how is this possible is the Mona Lisa not worth the hype and let's go back to the beginning shall we it's 1503 Leonardo da Vinci has just returned to Florence after a two-year stay in jacenna shortly after his arrival he's approached by a wealthy silk Merchant named Francesco Del jacondo to paint a portrait of his 24 year old wife Lisa what started off as a run-of-the-mill portrait turned into Leonardo da Vinci's magnum opus a masterpiece the artist would continue working on until his death a painting he would never part with the feature he tinkered with the most her smile Lisa sits in an armchair her body turns to the side her head faces in our Direction and she stares directly at us which was quite provocative at the time it wasn't unusual for wealthy women to pose for portraits but they always posed passively always looking away but not the Mona Lisa she's comfortable and confident and maybe even smiling a bit I think she wears a silk gown with ornate gold detailing around her neckline a garment possibly a scarf Cascades down her left shoulder a thin translucent Veil frames her loose curls her dress is elegant simple so it's not distract from her face her left arm sits on the armrest fingers dangling gently off the end her right arm wraps around her left wrist she's surrounded by a beautiful Tuscan landscape likely inspired by the real world but ultimately a figment of Leonardo's imagination over her right shoulder there's a winding path leading to a body of water over her left shoulder a bridge extends over a narrow waterway that appears to flow into a larger body of water um hold on something's not right here don't get me wrong the background is magical and stunning but do you notice how the two sides of the Horizon don't line up it's crooked but how could Leonardo da Vinci make such a glaring mistake he must not be the artistic genius yes everyone thinks he is right wrong here's the kicker the conflicting Horizons were all a part of Leonardo's plan to create a sneaky Optical trick because when our brain receives conflicting visual information in this case two different Horizon Lines it jumps between the two images trying to figure out which one is correct but when it comes to the background of the Mona Lisa our brains can't figure out the right answer because well there are two right answers so our brain oscillates back and forth between them this constant re-evaluation tricks us into thinking we're seeing the Mona Lisa from different angles creating the illusion that she's moving trippy huh Leonardo invented a technique called fumato an Italian's fumato means Smokey and it's the blending of tones in a painting so that there's no distinct outline he used this technique to depict the atmospheric Haze blurring the jagged mountainous structures in the distance and also around her eyes and lips which is another reason she's so lifelike if you've existed on planet Earth for more than a few years you've probably seen this face more times than you can count she's literally everywhere and maybe one of those billion times you looked into her eyes you thought who gives a rip or maybe you just don't understand why she looks like she's submerged in Old asparagus water so why is this the most famous painting in the world maybe it's because she has no eyelashes or eyebrows no this can't be why because she actually did used to have them but they faded with time due to over cleaning George basari even wrote about them in his 50 1850 book seeing that the eyes had the luster and moistness which are always seen in the living creature and around them were the lashes and all those Rosy and pearly tints that demand the greatest delicacy of execution the eyebrows through his having shown the manner in which the hair spring from the flesh here more close and here more scanty and curve according to the pores of the flesh could not be more natural this is a copy of the Mona Lisa likely made by one of Leonardo's art students in 1503 it gives a more accurate depiction of what Lisa actually looked like and also shows how much brighter the colors would have been when she was created in the beginning of the 16th century so if you're wondering no Leonardo didn't just like painting his sepia tone the yellowish Brown Hue was actually caused by a yellowing of the varnish covering the painting which could be fixed with a good restoration but will likely never happen for fear of damaging the painting a big reason why the Mona Lisa is so famous is because it was created by one of the greatest Minds that ever lived although Leonardo da Vinci is now primarily known as a master painter he likely thought of himself more as a scientist and during his life he made the majority of his money performing as a musician we can see many of his intellectual Pursuits in his notebook entries where he sketched and wrote extensively about physics engineering and science if we pass the page where he invented the parachute or the page where he invented the helicopter or the armored car or the salute of other inventions he conceived of long before the rest of the world there's a page mapping out different lip expressions and at the tippy top of this page is a sketch of something you might recognize that famous elusive smile she's smiling and then she's not how is this even possible neurophysiologist Dr Margaret Livingstone realized that the secret behind the Mona Lisa's ever-changing grin has to do with how our eyes function when we look directly at something in this case face into the eyes of the Mona Lisa were able to see her eyes very clearly while the objects around them appear blurry to us this is because these surrounding objects in this case her mouth are in our peripheral vision according to Livingstone our central vision or the vision we use when we look directly at something is very good at seeing detail while our peripheral vision can recognize Shadow but not detail Leonardo strategically painted the Shadows around Mona Lisa's mouth so that when we look into her eyes she's grinning from ear to ear but when we look at her mouth she's at best smirking amazing in 1516 Leonardo da Vinci accepted a position working for King Francis the first and moved to France with the Mona Lisa in tow when Leonardo died in 1519 King Francis the first acquired the painting and it became part of the royal collection the Masterpiece started to gain admirers shortly after Leonardo's death George rosari described the Mona Elisa in Passionate detail in his 1550 book the lives of the most excellent painters sculptors and Architects he writes the nose with its beautiful nostrils Rosy and tender appeared to be alive the mouth with its opening and its ends United by the red of the lips to the flesh tints of the face seemed in truth to be not colors but flesh in the pit of the throat if one gazes upon it intently could be seen the beating of a pulse and indeed it may be said that it was painted in such a manner as to make every Brave artificer be he who he may tremble and lose courage and in this work of Leonardo there was a smile so pleasing that it was a thing more Divine than human to behold and it was held to be something marvelous in that it was not other than alive but vasari wasn't the only one enamored with the Mona Lisa French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte even insisted on hanging it in his bedroom before it was sent to be displayed at the Lube in Paris in 1804 the Mona Lisa lived a cushy life at the Louvre for over a hundred years until the early morning of August 11 1911 when she was stolen really though the Mona Lisa was stolen even worse it took over 24 hours before anyone noticed she was even gone once the death was reported the Louvre shut its doors to the public and the world was instantly fascinated by The Heist it became a national Scandal seemingly overnight once the museum opened its doors again thousands came just to see the bare spot on the wall where the painting once hung I wonder if they looked for more than 15 seconds newspapers across the globe wrote about the missing Masterpiece the Mona Lisa was well known before the theft but evidently not as famous as she is today given that the Washington Post accidentally used the wrong portrait in their story the investigation into who stole the Mona Lisa brought a few promising leads including famous artist Pablo Picasso but everyone was cleared the Mona Lisa had been missing for two years when an art dealer in Florence received a strange call from a man named Vincenzo prudia he stated that he possessed the stolen painting and was interested in selling it the art dealer hesitantly agreed to meet peruja and once he realized he had the real Mona Lisa he contacted the police and peruja was arrested Vincenzo worked as a staff member at the Louvre making protective cases for paintings which explains somewhat how he was able to swipe the Mona Lisa without getting caught but why did he do it Vincenzo Perugia was an Italian nationalist who believed Napoleon Bonaparte had stolen the Mona Lisa from Italy although this was untrue it wasn't that strange of an assumption to make since Napoleon stole a lot of things and art was no exception in perugia's mind he was simply returning the Mona Lisa to her rightful home in Italy he was arrested and served 12 and a half months in prison Leonardo never delivered the Mona Lisa to the jacondo family maybe because he altered the painting so much over the years that it didn't even really look like Lisa anymore some Scholars even questioned whether Lisa Del decondo was the subject at all saying it might be a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci himself or maybe a model of Leonardo's solai also believed to be the artist's lover Sigmund Freud even speculated it could be depicting Leonardo's mother Leonardo da Vinci was an absolute genius and the more I learned about him the more I'm convinced he might have been an alien and well maybe he was no I'm just kidding this isn't that kind of video I love this painting because of the way Leonardo was able to inject his own Spirit of obsessive Wonder into it who is she where is she why is she always looking at me is she smiling nope in the current world Where Art and Science are often seen as mutually exclusive all we have to do is look at the Mona Lisa to know that the best art is really just beautiful science it's said that Leonardo da Vinci took 16 years to create this painting but in reality it took an entire lifetime of intense engineering mathematical scientific anatomical and artistic research to create the greatest of all his inventions the Mona Lisa have we all been tricked into thinking she's the best painting ever I think so because of the story of her theft that captivated the world and made her a National Treasure because of Leonardo's Innovative Optical tricks that made her look so real so familiar so mysterious Vincenzo peruja has largely been forgotten over time but the Mona Lisa has only become more famous and if it wasn't for him the Mona Lisa may not have risen to fame as dramatically as she did maybe it was all part of her master plan as Walter Peter writes in his book hers is the head upon which all the ends of the world are are to come she is older than the Rocks among which she sits like a vampire she has been dead many times and learned the secrets of the grave and this quote is from a book written in 1850 proving that the Mona Lisa was capturing hearts and Minds long before the theft art critic teofil Gautier wrote in 1859 that the Mona Lisa is a sphinx of beauty who Smiles so mysteriously beneath the forms expressed one feels a thought that is vague infinite inexpressible one is moved troubled repressed desires hopes that drive one to despair stir painfully Gotye was clearly projecting his own thoughts and feelings onto the painting but I think this perfectly illustrates the Mona Lisa's superpower because she's anyone you want her to be thinking whatever you want her to think if there were an alternate reality where the Mona Lisa was never stolen I believe she would still be famous though maybe a little less mass-produced although I have to admit there's something to the saying you never know what you have until it's gone

Channel: Art Deco

Views: 1,434,340

Keywords: Mona Lisa, Leonardo da vinci, da vinci, italian, italy, renaissance, 1500s, 16th century, art, classic art, fine art, la joconde, Lisa del giocondo, Lisa gherardini, Francesco del giocondo, giocondo, painting, famous, Louvre, Paris, france, vincenzo Peruggia, explain, deep dive, art criticism, story, explained, hidden meaning, sfumato, gallery, king Francis I, Napoleon Bonaparte, George Vasari, Walter pater, theophile Gautier, interesting, facts, solai, top, salvator mundi, why, overrated

Id: NctcpUvRcqM

Length: 13min 24sec (804 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 17 2023