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Liban Mohamed

ENG 111

9/20/17

Essay Two

Leonardo Da Vincis Mona Lisa in the Renaissance

Made in the Italian renaissance, a rebirth of the arts and literature in Italy and the rest of

Europe. Paired with many other Famous Artists like

Michelangelo and Raphael the movement soared and spread

quickly throughout Europe. Unlike most old art this painting is

still preserved and one of the most well-known of its time and

all time. The Mona Lisa embodied the art styles of the

renaissance by depicting realism and how accurate it was

compared to real life.

The Mona Lisa is an oil painting made by Renaissance

artist Leonardo Da Vinci in 1506.It has a vertical composition

of about 77 x 53 centimeters. This painting is a portrait of a

Figure 1 Leonardo Da Vinci. Mona Lisa (Muse
Du Louvre), 1506. 77 cm 53 cm
woman who historians guessed was a woman named Madam

Lisa Giocondo, the wife of a wealthy Florentine. This painting utilized realism, a popular

renaissance art type, in every possible aspect. From the oval face and sharp triangular nose

features to the thin but long slender hands, embodies realism. Da Vinci also used thin long wavy

strokes for her hair and long wavy lines for her gown as well. In the background of the portrait

seems to be a beautiful nature landscape. Unlike the realism and preciseness depicted on the

Mona Lisa, the background was the exact opposite. This being said because there were lot of
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blurry lines in the back showing nature, water, and trees as well Da Vinci utilized shapes in the

background using triangle like shapes for trees and an oval for the body of water.

In The renaissance realism was widely spread, meaning people looked much more

realistic in paintings. Artists were always using real people as models so they could be accurate

vs based off of memory. In the Mona Lisa realism was displayed in many ways, one being her

facial features, her eyes, nose, and overall shape were very realistic and proportionate to the way

it would be on her in real life. Ball agreed and found that the smooth shading of the iconic face is

a product of astonishingly fine control of glaze thickness, reflecting how real it was.

Leonardo Like many other Renaissance artists were very Accurate in their paintings and

made their human paintings as lifelike and anatomically correct as possible. This showed that

Humans were positioned in possible ways and their bodies were proportionate to other parts. A

part of the Mona Lisa that portrayed this trait was her hands. The way that her hands were

positioned and the length of her finger in correlation with the rest of her hand was very accurate.

This showed that artists like Da Vinci studied the human body and understood how to display it

in their art. Carbon and Hesslinger agreed that this created a fresher and better-looking person.

The renaissance was a period of beautiful art, new inventions, and many new religions

and theories. All of these factors played an essential role in the art that appeared during this time.

With great enlightenment artists like Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael the movement kept

going for decades. The renaissance led to many art movements and made it prevalent in our

society.
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Works Cited

Ball, Philip. "Behind the Mona Lisa's Smile." Nature, vol. 466, no. 7307, 2010, pp. 694,

Research Library,

http://ezproxy.cpcc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/744075942?acco

untid=10008.n

Carbon, Claus-Christian, and Vera M. Hesslinger. "Restoring Depth to Leonardo's Mona

Lisa." American Scientist, vol. 103, no. 6, 2015, pp. 404-409, Research Library,

http://ezproxy.cpcc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1728368727?acc

ountid=10008.

Mona Lisa. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 8 Sept. 2017,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa.