Art as Commercial Propaganda:
Mona Lisa Through the Ages Part II
Ó Dr. Tina Yarborough, Asst. Professor of Art History & Interdisciplinary Studies
Georgia College & State University
Some facts about Mona Lisa?
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Georgio Vasari Artist, art historian, & biographer who was the first to say Mona Lisa was Lisa Gherardini
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Lisa di Antonio Maria Gherardini [Mona Lisa Gherardini]: 24 years old; the wife of Francesco del Giocondo (a wealthy Florentine silk merchant).
English: Mona Lisa Italian: La Gioconda French: La Joconde |
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Another possibility is that Mona Lisa might be Isabella d’Este |
Isabella d’Este: the Marchioness of Aragon; 30 years old; the wife of Francesco Gonzaga in Mantua. |
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Mona |
Italian contraction of ma donna, my lady [or Madam]; sometimes Mrs./Ms. In USA |
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sfumato |
Italian word which means smoky, and in art -especially in Leonardo’s paintings means an overall haze or atmospheric lighting. Sfumato is created by using a thin, lightly tinted varnish over the entire composition |
Whoever
she is, even if a self-portrait of the artist – she was created by Leonardo
Da Vinci sometime between 1503 and 1506. Stop here for a moment and read
some material from the Smithsonian magazine to check out the
computer tests done to show that Mona may be Leonardo [just
skip the other letters to the editor which follow the Mona letters]:
Whether or not the Mona Lisa deserves to be the most famous painting
in the world is not an issue for us today; we already know that her image
has been re-employed as Kitsch
or as any of those "cheap, vulgar, sentimental, tasteless, trashy,
pretty, cute, objects with which the majority of us like to live"
(Calinescu, 248). She
has been replicated in any and all circumstances as we can see in this
slide of various Mona satires.
Why not listen to a few of the songs that have been composed in her honor? Nat King Cole’s is one of the most familiar.
Nat King Cole: "Mona Lisa"
Natalie Cole: "Mona Lisa"
Little Milton: "Grits Ain’t Groceries" (and Mona Lisa was a man!)
The Mother Hips: "Mona Lisa and the Last Supper"
continue on to the next page on the Mona Lisa discussion
copyright © Dr. Deborah Vess 1998-2001, Georgia College & State University and the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. All rights reserved. Rights to chapters authored by contributing faculty members reserved to Georgia College & State University, to the Interdisciplinary Studies Program at GC&SU, and to the individual faculty authors.