A brief look at Leonardo da Vinci's-Mona Lisa & Vitruvian Man

Leonardo da Vinci, (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519), was an Italian polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, botanist and writer.

Leonardo was and is renowned primarily as a painter.

Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, are one of the most famous; most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time.

Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon.

Mona Lisa

Da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa in 1503, during the Italian Renaissance and, according to Vasari, "after he had lingered over it four years, left it unfinished…."

He is thought to have continued to work on it for three years after he moved to France and to have finished it shortly before he died in 1519.

The work is owned by the Government of France and is on the wall in the Louvre in Paris, France with the title Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo.

• Interpretation:- The painting is a half-length portrait and depicts a woman whose facial expression is often described as enigmatic.

• The woman sits markedly upright with her arms folded, which is also a sign of her reserved posture. Only her gaze is fixed on the observer and seems to welcome them to this silent communication.

• Since the brightly lit face is practically framed with various much darker elements (hair, veil, shadows), the observer's attraction to Mona Lisa's face is brought to even greater extent.

• Thus, the composition of the figure evokes an ambiguous effect: we are attracted to this mysterious woman but have to stay at a distance as if she were a divine creature.

• Behind her a vast landscape recedes to icy mountains. Winding paths and a distant bridge give only the slightest indications of human presence.

• The blurred outlines, graceful figure, dramatic contrasts of light and dark, and overall feeling of calm are characteristic of da Vinci's style.

• Due to the expressive synthesis that da Vinci achieved between sitter and landscape it is arguable whether Mona Lisa should be considered as a traditional portrait, for it represents an ideal rather than a real woman

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Vitruvian Man

The Vitruvian Man is a world-renowned drawing created by Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1487.It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the famed architect, Vitruvius Pollio.

The drawing, which is in pen and ink on paper, depicts a male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and simultaneously inscribed in a circle and square. The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions or, less often, Proportions of Man.

It is stored in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, Italy, and, like most works on paper, is displayed only occasionally.

According to Leonardo's preview in the accompanying text, written in mirror writing, it was made as a study of the proportions of the (male) human body as described in Vitruvius:

• the length of a man's outspread arms (arm span) is equal to his height
• the distance from the hairline to the bottom of the chin is one-tenth of a man's height
• the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin is one-eighth of a man's height
• the distance from the bottom of the neck to the hairline is one-sixth of a man's height
• the maximum width of the shoulders is a quarter of a man's height
• the distance from the middle of the chest to the top of the head is a quarter of a man's height
• the distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand is a quarter of a man's height
• the distance from the elbow to the armpit is one-eighth of a man's height
• the length of the hand is one-tenth of a man's height
• the distance from the bottom of the chin to the nose is one-third of the length of the head
• the distance from the hairline to the eyebrows is one-third of the length of the face
• the length of the ear is one-third of the length of the face
• the length of a man's foot is one-sixth of his height

The multiple viewpoint that set in with Romanticism has convinced us that there is no such thing as a universal set of proportions for the human body. The field of anthropometry was created in order to describe individual variations. Vitruvius' statements may be interpreted as statements about average proportions.

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