People have intuitively felt for a long time that in this portrait, created by the genius Leonardo, some kind of mystery is hidden. After all, it is not for nothing that the controversy about whose portrait the artist actually painted does not subside to this day.
In 1502-1506. Leonardo da Vinci painted his most amazing work - a portrait of Mona Lisa, wife of Messer Francesco del Giocondo. Over time, the picture received a simpler name - "La Gioconda". The name "La Gioconda" became conditional, as many had doubts about the identity of the woman depicted in the picture.
In the 16th century, Giorgio Vasari, a compatriot of Leonardo, author of the famous "Biography of the most famous painters, sculptors and architects", could not explain why the artist did not give Francesco del Giocondo a portrait of his wife. Since that time, many hypotheses have appeared, the authors of which are trying to answer the question: who is depicted in the painting "La Gioconda"?
The most curious is the hypothesis of researchers from America, who came to the conclusion that the portrait depicts Leonardo da Vinci himself. This conclusion was made as a result of a comparative analysis of the artist's self-portrait and "La Gioconda" using a special computer program. Other researchers, comparing "La Gioconda" with portraits of noble persons of that era, with other paintings by Leonardo, gave it different names, if suddenly a portrait resemblance was found. The most famous among them are: the Duchess of Francaville; Philibert of Savoy, Isabelle d'Este, courtesan; Signora Pacifika, Giuliano Medici's mistress and even the Blessed Virgin Mary.
But Leonardo da Vinci, of course, did not paint his self-portrait disguised as the Mona Lisa, who actually posed. Otherwise, he would have been caught and ridiculed immediately near the portrait, since it would be easy to compare the original with his image. Even Raphael, the great artist who, despite his youth, was admitted to the painting, did not notice anything like this.
To solve the riddle of "La Gioconda", it should be noted at least two strange facts in the biography of Leonardo da Vinci.
1. Leonardo did not paint himself.
Not a single picturesque self-portrait of Leonardo has come down to us. Only a drawing made several years after the creation of "La Gioconda" is known. What is Leonardo's dislike for his appearance?
Promotional video:
2. Leonardo had no family.
There is no evidence that he loved any woman (apart from tender feelings and a hint of platonic love for Cecilia Gallerini, Lodovico Moro's mistress). And this despite the fact that Leonardo was stately and handsome, strong and courageous, courteous and educated.
Why did Leonardo never fall in love with any woman?
To answer these questions, let's look first at the artist's early childhood and the history of the da Vinci family. Leonardo's father, notary ser Piero da Vinci, owned an estate in the vicinity of the town of Vinci in the Tuscan Albanian mountains. Here, in the mountains, he met Leonardo's future mother, a girl named Caterina. She was a simple peasant woman - strong, healthy and beautiful.
Seru Pierrot was 25 years old when in 1452 Caterina gave birth to Leonardo. “Right there, old Antonio (Piero's father),” writes one of Leonardo's biographers, “in order to knock the crap out of Catherine's head and calm his conscience, he married his son to a Florentine Albiera from the Amadori family and, having untied a thick bag, persuaded the young man Piero del Vacca, nicknamed for his hot temper Zadira, to marry the beautiful deceived Katerina."
So Leonardo, as soon as he was born, was separated from his mother. Already at the age of 5, he began to notice that some woman was watching him relentlessly. It was Katerina, his mother. He often met her while walking. As a rule, Katerina stood at one of the houses of the village and looked at Leonardo with a sad smile.
From the point of view of classical psychoanalysis, it is highly probable that the boy has developed the so-called Oedipus complex, which consists in love for the mother with simultaneous jealousy and hatred for the father.
In the case of Leonardo da Vinci, most likely it was this complex that took place, and if not in full, then at least partially. The image of Katerina, a beautiful peasant woman, was imprinted in Leonardo's mind from childhood. For Leonardo, she remained just Katerina even when he already in Florence learned that Piero Zadira's wife was his mother.
In Leonardo's notes we read: "Catherine came on the day of July 16, 1493". He stubbornly refused to call her mother.
Deprived of his mother since childhood, Leonardo could not fully feel what sons love for her. But he loved this image. He was in love with his own mother. This is why he never loved another woman and did not have a family. This is why he didn't paint self-portraits.
Leonardo looked a lot like his mother. As soon as he painted himself, the features of his mother would appear on the canvas, but only in a man's guise. In fact, it turned out to be an image of his ideal, his idol, but in a grotesque form. Given his condition, it is easy to understand that it was difficult or impossible for Leonardo to endure this.
Constantly under the burden of the complex, Leonardo could not help but want to paint a portrait of Catherine. He clearly remembered the traits dear to him. But to paint a picture worthy of his idol, a picture where Katerina would be alive, he needed a model. As you can see, Mona Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, looked like Caterina or could resemble her. Only one thing is known for sure: the artist did not paint her portrait by order.
Leonardo deliberately made friends with Messer Francesco del Giocondo and himself offered to paint a portrait of his wife. What else, besides portrait resemblance, could attract the artist Mona Lisa? She smiled sadly. Mona Lisa at this time still did not come to her senses after the death of her daughter. The sad smile of the young woman revived in Leonardo's memory the smile of Catherine, his mother, whom he had already buried by that time.
Leonardo undertook to paint for Francesco del Giocondo a portrait of his wife Mona Lisa and, having worked on it for 4 years, left it unfinished. Under the guise of painting a portrait of Mona Lisa, Leonardo painted a portrait of Catherine. With a living model in front of him, the artist transformed the schematic image of Katerina stored in his memory into a living image.
“In reality, in this face, the eyes had that shine and that moisture that we see in a living person, and around them there was a bluish reddishness and those hairs that cannot be conveyed without mastering the greatest subtleties of painting. Eyelashes, thanks to the fact that it was shown where they are thicker, and where less often, and how they are located around the eye in accordance with the pores of the skin, could not be depicted more naturally”(Giorgio Vasari).
Leonardo used the Mona Lisa as a decoration material. In fact, "La Gioconda" is Katerina, who has the skin of Mona Lisa. Long 4 years, spending, according to some estimates, at least 10,000 hours, with a magnifying glass in his hand, Leonardo created his masterpiece, applying brush strokes 1 / 20-1 / 40 mm in size. Only Leonardo was capable of this - it is hard labor, the work of an obsessed one.
When the portrait was ready (not counting the landscape), the Florentines recognized the Mona Lisa in the woman depicted in the painting. They attributed some discrepancy between the portrait and the original to the author's artistic vision, because portraits often did not convey the model with photographic accuracy, but, on the contrary, embellished it. Therefore, Mona Lisa was recognized by everyone except her husband.
Francesco del Giocondo realized that the portrait was not his wife. But he did not know that it was Caterina, whom Leonardo looked like in his youth. It is this circumstance that can explain such a seemingly strange result of a comparative computer analysis of La Gioconda and a self-portrait.
Having completed the portrait, Leonardo immediately left Florence. He took the picture with him, as it was of great value only to him. For 16 years - until the end of his life - he did not part with the portrait, he kept it all the time and did not show it to anyone.
And one more interesting fact. Later, after leaving Florence, Leonardo painted the background of the painting. This is a mountainous landscape. These are the mountains, which are most suitable for Katerina, and not for someone else. These are the mountains in which she was born, this is her world.
Leonardo da Vinci, secretive and ingenious, deeply hid the secret of the "La Gioconda".
N. Nepomnyashchy