Mona Lisa

We visited the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, in May 2011. The largest museum in the world houses one of the smallest and most famous and valuable paintings -- Leonardo da Vinci's "The Mona Lisa". Knowing how popular she is, we entered from Portes de Lions and hurried past many other artworks to get to where she was being displayed. (As of 2019, that entrance is closed.) It was difficult to see her as she was behind glass and recessed. Alas, my photograph has my reflection in it!



I once had a book of illusions that suggested viewing pictures of the Mona Lisa upside down in order to have your brain perceive her smiling. Try it some time. The PTA's resident art teacher at the school where I volunteer likes to have her 5th-graders do a portrait of Mona Lisa. They turned out awesome!






When I teach my lesson on Johannes Vermeer, using his "Girl With a Pearl Earring", I tell my students that she is often referred to as the Mona Lisa of the North. What a great way to integrate art with geography!







Today, one of Seattle's portrait artists -- Troy Gua -- enjoys combining two famous people into a single morphed image. Here is his George Washington and Mona Lisa combination, entitled "Made in Heaven." It makes me wonder what Gilbert Stuart and Leonardo would have thought about this painting!






In one of my posts about the Baltic Ports, I talk about seeing "Madonna Litta" at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Another portrait painted by Leonardo da Vinci (and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio) equally small like his Mona Lisa.