Why is the Mona Lisa so famous?
Since its creation in 1503, Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of a Florentine woman has struck a chord around the world.
The Mona Lisa has appeared in pop culture references from music, movies and even other artworks.
Her global popularity has prompted people to try stealing and vandalising her, as well as drawing in crowds of millions of people each year.
But why is the portrait, and the subject’s elusive smile, so enticing?
History professor and recent Leonardo biographer Walter Isaacson argues that her fame is due to viewers emotionally engaging with her, while others claim that her mystery has helped make her notorious.
Here are just a few reasons why the Mona Lisa is synonymous with modern art.
We’re not sure who she is
Leonardo started the iconic portrait around 1503 when he was living in Florence, where the lady’s identity was never confirmed.
The artist also didn’t leave any clues to her identity in the painting, like he did with other portraits of women.
Early sources, such as 16th-century art historian Giorgio Vasari, who described the Mona Lisa in The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, claim she is Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo.
There has never been any confirmation of these rumours, leaving Mona Lisa’s true identity a major mystery of the art world.
She’s not like the others
Leonardo was known for experimentation and innovation, and the Mona Lisa is no exception.
However, the iconic work did demonstrate the artist’s new understanding of facial musculature, which helped him produce the first known anatomical drawing of a smile.
“In this work of Leonardo there was a smile so pleasing, that it was a thing more divine than human to behold,” Vasari wrote of the Mona Lisa. “It was nothing but alive.”
She’s become an endless source of parodies
By 1914 the Mona Lisa had become highly recognizable, making her a ripe subject for appropriation.
She has been parodied by artists including Fernand Léger, Philippe Halsman, Fernando Botero, Andy Warhol and many more.
Following Andy Warhol’s rendition, the Mona Lisa started to cameo regularly in marketing campaigns.
During the 1970s, she featured in around 23 new advertisements per year, and that number increased to 53 per year in the following decade.
She’s a Parisian landmark
The Mona Lisa hangs behind bulletproof glass in a gallery of the Louvre Museum in Paris, where it has been a part of the museum's collection since 1804.
It was part of the royal collection before becoming the property of the French people during the Revolution (1787–99).
The Mona Lisa has regularly been on tour to major museums and galleries around the world, and is always welcomed back to Paris with immense fanfare.
A leaked French Ministry of Culture report from 2018 disclosed, among other things, that even with all the masterpieces contained in the Louvre’s permanent collection, nine out of ten visitors claim they come to see the Mona Lisa and her familiar smile.
Image credits: Getty Images