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Do you think Mona Lisa is happy?


Still Waters

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If Mona Lisa doesn’t look happy to you, that might be because of your own mental state, according to scientists at the University of California, San Francisco.

Our emotions change our perceptions of the world around us, they say, and that includes works of art. “If you see the Mona Lisa after you have just had a screaming fight with your husband, you’re going to see [the painting] differently,” Erika Siegel, one of the researchers, told the Daily Mail. “But if you’re having the time of your life at the Louvre, you’re going to see the enigmatic smile.”

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/do-you-think-mona-lisa-is-happy-1265456

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Hmmm... I've never had a screaming fight with my husband - so I can't really say...

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Happy! She's killing herself, thinking about this great cartoon she just saw.

Apologies to Cook and Moore.

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To me it looks as if she has a very slight smile as if to be pleasant, rather than to sit for a painting expressionless. I'd say she is happy though.

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How bad is it if your first thought is...she isn't anything...

she's dead.

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It would be easier to tell if she was happy if she had eyebrows.

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She looks like she's smirking because she knows something I don't.

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She's happier then that man and woman in American Gothic...:angry:

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She just knows something which i don't and she brags about it with that face expression hehe

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She looks like a neckbeard just asked her on a date and she is just about to politely decline for the fourth or fifth time.

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I think all of Da Vinci's paintings are creepy.

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38 minutes ago, MysticWolf said:

I think all of Da Vinci's paintings are creepy.

Could that be some sort of "uncanny valley"?

 

When I look at paintings of that period by other artists I see depictions of faces. When I look at some da Vinci works I see a person looking out of the painting. The longer I stare into the eyes of the painting, the less like a painting it seems and the more like an actual human.

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I never felt very enchanted by the Mona Lisa, not even when I saw it Person in the Louvre, and I had a good time there. I mean I understand it's a well-done painting (minus the missing eyebrows) and I wish I could paint half as well, but I never saw any "enigmatic smile" in that painting at best she's what we Germans call "schmunzeln" a "not quite smile".

And in danger of sounding a bit mean, I find that "research" pretty useless. Everybody with common sense can tell that the appeal and meaning of paintings, songs etc can be subjective and that your emotional state can influence how you see them. Even an episode of "Boy Meets World" pointed that out...

And yeah, seeing the Mona Lisa's smile isn't a foolproof meter for happiness. I for example like @Podo 's interpretation, because that's exactly my kinda humor and it makes me happy :D  I also like to imagine her thinking "Well, so this is my life now..." or "I wish Mr. Da Viinci would put his clothes back on..."

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People always talk about the Mona Lisa smile, but it isn't anything special in and of itself while remaining significant. The way people perceive emotion is indicative of their mental state, true.... but the smile on the Mona Lisa totally is the smile someone shoots someone during a scandalous type of hyper-sexual affair. My opinion entirely!

Edited by Skulduggery
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To me it looks like she always has doubts about something, And puts on a fake smile.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Her smile looks like the smiles I did when ever I had my photo done at school. I always found it awkward when someone tells me to smile for a pic, so I would end up with that forced awkward smile.

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I wonder what she's looking at? I think this is the key to her expression. Seems to me she's looking disapprovingly at something. 

What did Leo have to do or say to get that expression from her? Maybe he's painting her in his underwear or something.

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Podos post is close I think...Shes looking at someone thinking  " you can't be serious "   :lol:

Came across a modern version

17386efaf8916a28a723e23c8e4b8ae2.jpg

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1 hour ago, khol said:

Podos post is close I think...Shes looking at someone thinking  " you can't be serious "   :lol:

Came across a modern version

17386efaf8916a28a723e23c8e4b8ae2.jpg

Pretty hot if you ask me.

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As I recall, DaVinci carried this painting around with him. Yep. From the link: http://decodedarts.com/leonardo-da-vincis-mona-lisa-paintings-artistic-merit-and-mystery-woman/921

Was the Mona Lisa one of da Vinci’s greatest works of art? Apparently, Leonardo carried the Mona Lisa painting with him for the remainder of his life and he travelled extensively after the painting’s completion. So, either this painting was of value to the artist, or the woman in the painting was someone very special in the artist’s life. Or, the conspiracy theories have some merit and there was a hidden message in the painting.

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Yeah. In one of me previous lives in 1500, we dated for a while. So fickle.

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13 hours ago, susieice said:

As I recall, DaVinci carried this painting around with him. Yep. From the link: http://decodedarts.com/leonardo-da-vincis-mona-lisa-paintings-artistic-merit-and-mystery-woman/921

Was the Mona Lisa one of da Vinci’s greatest works of art? Apparently, Leonardo carried the Mona Lisa painting with him for the remainder of his life and he travelled extensively after the painting’s completion. So, either this painting was of value to the artist, or the woman in the painting was someone very special in the artist’s life. Or, the conspiracy theories have some merit and there was a hidden message in the painting.

Putting aside the ambiguous expression on the face for a moment, the technical excellence of the picture is what Leonardo and others since have admired.  The hands, for instance, are more famous among art connoisseurs than the 'popular' fascination with the smile.  As far as reading into the expression, and how it needs be dependent upon the emotional perspective of the viewer, I can tell you as a corollary that when Greta Garbo began filming the final scene in her 1933 film Queen Christina, in which the queen boldly sails away from her life and the drama of the 'story', director Rouben Mamoulian told her to simply 'think of nothing', knowing that the blank face of Garbo could be filled with whatever emotion the viewer held at the finale:

5afef67966018_garboqueenchristina.jpg.bfc1c5a5cab105a79898e4bc04cc592d.jpg

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