c.1502m, 77*53cm,Oil on wood
There is another work of Leonardo's which is perhaps even more
famous than 'The Last Supper'. It is the portrait of a
Florentine lady whose name was Lisa, 'Mona Lisa'. A fame as
great as that of Leonardo's 'Mona Lisa' is not an unmixed blessing for a work of art. We become so used to seeing it
on picture postcards, and even advertisements,that we find it
difficult to see it with fresh eyes as the painting by a real
man portraying a real woman of flesh and blood. But it is worth while
to forget what we know, or believe we know, about the
picture, and to look at it as if we were the first people ever to set
eyes on it. What strikes us first is the amazing degree to which Lisa looks alive. She really seems to look at us and to have
a mind of her own. Like a living being, she seems to change
before our eyes and to look a little different every time we come back to her. Even in photographs of the picture we experience this strange effect,
but in front of the original in the Louvre it is almost uncanny. Sometimes she seems to mock at
us, and then again we seem to catch something like sadness in her smile. All this sounds rather mysterious, and so it is; that is so often the effect of a great work of art. Nevertheless,
Leonardo certainly knew how he achieved this effect, and by
what means. That great observer of nature knew more about
the way we use out eyes than anybody who had ever lived before him. He had clearly seen a problem which the conquest
of nature had posed to artists - a problem no less intricate than the one of combining correct drawing with a harmonious composition.
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