Portrait of Mona Lisa, also known as La Gioconda, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo; This painting is

painted as oil on wood. The original painting size is77 x 53 cm (30 x 20 7/8 in) and is owned by by the
Government of France and is on the wall in the Louvre in Paris, France.

This figure of a woman, dressed in the Florentine fashion of her day and seated in a visionary,
mountainous landscape, is a remarkable instance of Leonardo's sfumato technique of soft, heavily
shaded modeling. The Mona Lisa's enigmatic expression, which seems both alluring and aloof, has given
the portrait universal fame.

The Mona Lisa's famous smile represents the sitter in the same way that the juniper branches represent
Ginevra Benci and the ermine represents Cecilia Gallerani in their portraits, in Washington and Krakow
respectively. It is a visual representation of the idea of happiness suggested by the word "gioconda" in
Italian. Leonardo made this notion of happiness the central motif of the portrait: it is this notion which
makes the work such an ideal. The nature of the landscape also plays a role. The middle distance, on the
same level as the sitter's chest, is in warm colors. Men live in this space: there is a winding road and a
bridge. This space represents the transition between the space of the sitter and the far distance, where
the landscape becomes a wild and uninhabited space of rocks and water which stretches to the horizon,
which Leonardo has cleverly drawn at the level of the sitter's eyes.

The painting was among the first portraits to depict the sitter before an imaginary landscape and
Leonardo was one of the first painters to use aerial perspective. The enigmatic woman is portrayed
seated in what appears to be an open loggia with dark pillar bases on either side. Behind her a vast
landscape recedes to icy mountains. Winding paths and a distant bridge give only the slightest
indications of human presence. The sensuous curves of the woman's hair and clothing, created through
sfumato, are echoed in the undulating imaginary valleys and rivers behind her. 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. The sense of overall harmony achieved in the painting especially apparent in
the sitter's faint smile reflects the idea of a link connecting humanity and nature.

In the Renaissance which brought together all human activities, art meant science, art meant truth to
life: Leonardo da Vinci was a great figure because he embodied the epic Endeavour of Italian art to
conquer universal values: he who combined within himself the fluctuating sensitivity of the artist and
the deep wisdom of the scientist, he, the poet and the master.
In his Mona Lisa, the individual, a sort of miraculous creation of nature, represents at the same time the
species: the portrait goes beyond its social limitations and acquires a universal meaning. Although
Leonardo worked on this picture as a scholar and thinker, not only as a painter and poet, the scientific
and philosophical aspects of his research inspired no following. But the formal aspect - the new
presentation, the nobler attitude and the increased dignity of the model - had a decisive influence over
Florentine portraits of the next twenty years, over the classical portrait. With his Mona Lisa, Leonardo
created a new formula, at the same time more monumental and more lively, more concrete and yet
more poetic than that of his predecessors. Before him, portraits had lacked mystery; artists only
represented outward appearances without any soul, or, if they showed the soul, they tried to express it
through gestures, symbolic objects or inscriptions. The Mona Lisa alone is a living enigma: the soul is
there, but inaccessible.