With the Mona Lisa, it was all about techniques than the picture itself. - The milky effect, soft edges etc. are signature to Da Vinci's style of painting that not many can recreate to this day. - Look at the pose. It's front facing and not stiff, unlike most of the Renaissance portraits at the time. - BACKGROUND. How many Renaissance portraits had such a vivid background? None. Da Vinci experimented with landscapes and perspective in color (the slowly vanishing colors) and that was breathtaking for a portrait commission of the time. ✔️points for creativity. - The painting also had illusions (with eye movements and also the smile which was soft to not show the true expression). Obviously, the stealing might add to the hype but the Mona Lisa was a revolutionary painting for Renaissance times.
You can't be serious with the background comment though. There are PLENTY of Renaissance paintings with extremly detailed backgrounds, to the point where my Art Professors at uni would talk about and analyze them twice as much as the actual focus of the painting. There are a lot of italian Renaissance painters that are specificly known for their elaborate backgrounds... (Sorry if the english is off by the way, i'm not a native speaker)
Thoran666 Totally agree. When I went to Paris, there was a whole, large room JUST for the Mona Lisa. It was super packed and crowded I had to literally push through the crowd to see her. When I got to the front, all I saw was a painting that would be in any museum in general, basically. Overall, it’s a good painting but it’s a tad overrated.
I disagree. Yes, the Mona Lisa is MORE famous than it would otherwise be without the publicity of being stolen. People want to bring down everything valued by society, but it's not just pure manufactured interest. Remember, tons of other paintings have received different opinions and glowing praise, but the Mona Lisa's fame stuck because it is a genuinely wonderful painting in its own right. Like I said in my other comment: The Mona Lisa is not the most impressively realistic painting, it's not the most powerful imagery, etc. But the simplicity and mystery in its concept is I think what makes it interesting even regardless of its history. It is only an image of one woman, nothing else, she has that subtle smile, and the strange background that is an eerily 'empty' foggy valley that looks like it could belong in the pages of some medieval legend. Furthermore, the lines are quite soft, with no major contrasting parts so it's very easy on the eyes. And your focus is drawn right to her face due to the use of light and darkness, and how her face looks at the viewer. These things combined give it a certain magical quality. It almost appears dream-like.
When I saw it at the Louvre, I thought it was a great painting...but really it was more about the awe of being near the most famous painting in the world.
Reminds me of a dark fantasy book I read where the god of the dead punished his inmates by stealing their identity, leaving them to wander eternity with no faces & no voice. Book: Prince of Lies
The point of the banana taped to the wall was a social commentary on the commodification of modern art, and how a value can be assigned to just about anything, regardless of quality, skill, or merit. There are parallels to be drawn between the banana and the hype behind the Mona Lisa...
You people are missing a major point of the video, which is that she provides a blank slate onto which professional critics and amateurs alike can write a bunch of flowery prose to make it look like art criticism is some kind of arcane discipline.
It's just another example of how meaning that we take as absolute because it's been the same our entire lives usually has mundane and arbitrary origins, typically not befitting the pedestal we've placed the thoughts on.
Michael Bush well... Da Vinci was considered a one of a kind genius already when he was alive and that one painting followed him all his life... He never considered it finished... It actually is a very special piece of art
lo zero reminds me of my trans self. So I'm buying the interpretation da vinci was essentially a trans woman drawing a portrait of herself since she couldn't modify her own body
That's a cool story but i'd replace the word overrated with overhyped. Media coverage indeed made the painting more famous than it needed to be. But it's a bloody damn great painting. And i know so not because i've read critics' explanations of light and shadow this and composition that but because i have my own eyes. This is undeniably a magnetic image. It simply has the exact recipe for drawing the spectator in and that recipe was masterfully executed. I am absolutely certain that anyone who gives a crap about art, visuals, or simply things that look good will agree that this painting is something else, even among leonardo's fantastic array of works. But it's definitely overhyped with people claiming there are sectet messages in there, often the painting is even said to be connected to the illuminati and whatnot. Basically there have been a ton of conspiracies around mona lisa for centuries which perpetuated the hype more and more. But there's no doubt the painting itself deserves all the praise it has received.
@@Hankblue Well a big part (maybe the biggest part) of art is the story and the history behind the piece. Yes modern artists can paint something similar but that wouldn't be interesting since it's been done for ages and the artist brings nothing new to the table.
Buzzfeed is nowhere NEAR the level Vox is at. Every video at Vox is practically a documentary smooshed into a couple minutes. Every video at Buzzfeed is little more than memes and propaganda.
But is that white canvas as famous as the Mona Lisa? Is it as iconic an image as the Mona Lisa? Is it on refrigerator magnets, mentioned in commercials, the subject of songs, articles, mentioned in the movies, TV shows etc.
On a high school art trip to Europe when I was sixteen, I had a strong and unexpected reaction to seeing the Mona Lisa. Wondering lost through the Louvre, not speaking or reading French very well, with limited time to see that painting and everything else on my syllabus, after passing "Winged Victory" again for about the fifth time, I finally found my way into the correct gallery. As I scanned through the room, my eyes hit a crowd made up of the backs of people's heads. It appeared as if she was giving the throng her polite attention, like a bored but patient celebrity in a long receiving line. Someone moved out of the way and our eyes locked. I recognized her, but felt a sudden shock as it also seemed as if she recognized me and her beginning of a smile was in reaction to seeing me walk into the room. I remember shaking my head and thinking, "Oh, Lady! I've been looking every where for you." As I shouldered through the crowd to get closer, her eyes seemed to sparkle back with humor as if to say, "I've been waiting right here for you for over a century. Where have you been all this time?" Leonardo's genius is that he caught that instant; the moment when she spots you and lights up at the sight of you. Her attention seems personal and piercing, as if everyone else around her has just lost her attention and she is fighting the impulse to crack into a giant grin at the sight of your face. You can tell that she is done with the crowd and is ready to go off and have lunch or something with you and to have a nice catch up to see how you've been. It's like meeting a celebrity and finding out that they were a great admirer of yours and had been really looking forward to your meeting with anticipation. She gives the impression that seeing you is the highlight of her very long day. Like you've kept her waiting, but she just can't be mad at you, even though she knows she should be. I've never had a similar reaction to any other painting, certainly not to Leonardo's Ginevra de' Benci, the only work of his in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Ginevra is just the opposite. She looks tired, pale, uncomfortable and ill. I can only guess that Leonardo really liked Mona Lisa and found her charming and just didn't like Genevra as much.
Photos of the painting only convey the image, not the experience. Definitely go if you ever get a chance. I'll have to content myself with Rembrandt's self- portrait in the National Gallery of Art. His eye follow me around the room but he doesn't look pleased to see me.
What I love about this painting is that it means to me something so different than the feeling you described, and yet I completely understand what you establish, about her look, about her face, about the crowd she's in front of. I had the chance to see it multiple time in my life since I live in France and going to Paris is not hard at all, and every time I saw her, it was in different and similar ways. She always has that look and smile, which basically means the same thing, and yet I interpreted her in different ways, depending on the conditions. Wether the room was crowded or nearly emtpy, wether I thought the painting would be bigger than what we described to me, or smaller than it was in my memory, wether I went to the Louvre just to see her, passing by, just to say her hello, or simply wandering in the museum and run into her by complete hazard, she looked at me like saying "Hey, I was waiting for you", or "It's been a long time. You grew up.", or "Don't worry about me, I'm not moving, go do much more important things." or "You changed a lot. It suits you well." I would love to see her again, now that my personnality is well defined, and that I realized art is more than an entertainment. Just to interpret her new reaction.
You people are missing a major point of the video, which is that she provides a blank slate onto which professional critics and amateurs alike can write a bunch of flowery prose to make it look like art criticism is some kind of arcane discipline.
I mean, she was already a masterpiece, it wouldn't have been as big a deal if it wasn't a really good painting. It's just that most people don't really care that much about art, unless there's some sort of real-life drama mixed in.
+Ross Granick Bluntly put. Modern people or the general public don't see the artistic qualities. Except that her eyes follow you, no eyebrows, and creepy smile. That's Da Vinci's painting at work, his technique and ominous feeling he gave it. The time period it was painted the Renaissance=Rebirth of classical Greco-Roman art and the techniques he used to paint it makes it a masterpiece. People know about it widely in this time period because of the drama associated with it not for what it is, a painting by one of the masters in the Renaissance.
Ahhh...at 5:00, there's your answer. Kind of like some people don't become famous until after they're dead...After this painting was stolen, people started talking about her because they were forced to find what was so meaningful about it, and to highlight it...so she's not "famous for nothing", rather, she's famous for being the epitome of a critic's blank canvas. It's about finding your own meaning. And that's the mystery she brings- that just when you thought she couldn't be talked about more, here we are trying to get in on it and decipher more meaning for ourselves.
Absence makes the 'Art' grow fonder - in people's imagination of what they're missing out on, and then they get to see it, echo the proclamation of its press writers. Funny how our perception of art is often dependent on 'experts' view on what is beautiful and refine about it.
When you enter the hall of mona lisa on a calm day you are greeted by a plain looking wall. On this wall you see a big bulletproof casket with a rather small painting inside. It's a special moment but after all you've seen it a thousand times already online. after a few seconds of taking in the moment, you turn around. then you are greeted by large masterpieces filled with detail and meaning. beautiful pieces of art, yet only covered by a red lint.
When I finally visited Louvre, I was shocked to see how small the most famous painting in the world actually was. lol A little after that I went to Hermitage in Leningrad (yes the city was still called that) and was shocked to see how HUGE Henri Matisse's "La Danse" was. I loved the latter experience much more
Personally I'm fine with this kind of experimentation, "What is art, really?" is a valid artistic and philosophical question worth addressing creatively, and in this case, paradoxically... sometimes... making something that doesn't seem creative is the most creative way to ask the question; but I wonder when modern artists decided that "What is art, really?" was the *only* valid question an artist could pose to be taken seriously. It feels like narcissistic navel gazing.
Finally. An explanation that makes sense to me. Mona Lisa is one of least interesting paintings I have ever bothered to see, yet people keep talking about how she smiles, how beautiful she is (huh?) and how brilliant the triangles on the background are. The triangles on the background!
The thing about the Mona Lisa is that it's not even da Vinci's greatest work, it's pretty ok compared to his other works. But the one thing that really makes it stand out to me is the use of sfumato and the softness of the piece.
NighteeeeeY I'm just saying it has no visual appeal, has nothing to do with the "artistic meaning" (while you curl your mustache giving me a condescending look through your monocle). What is so great about a painting with an emotionless face, that is practically what my face is the majority of the day or in any of my photos, it isn't special in any way.
the Whole point of the painting style Da vinci used was that the soft edges of the eyes and mouth make it difficult to pin down exactly what expression she is giving the viewer. This is why different people, or even the same person at different times see different expressions on her face. This video is correct that the painting is a 'blank slate' but not in the way that the creator of this video means, her expression is the blank slate. It isn't overrated, Da vinci was the first to use this style of painting, and today we use makeup and airbrushing in photoshop to achieve the same effect on real life models. What does that tell you?
insertcleverphrasehere so what if we can't pin down her expression, no offense to Da Vinci because I think he has some amazing work but Mona Lisa is not that great, I'm not saying in terms of quality because it is very well done.
Yeah I'm not going to take a straight on picture? It won't be better than any other photo of it. But there will only me one photo of me with the Mona Lisa.
Rather than photo the painting itself, when I saw the Mona Lisa I decided to make a video showing all the many people crowding around the painting...all taking selfies!
Tbh Mona Lisa is amazing, if you look at it from any angle it always looks like she’s loooking at you. It has so many techniques that were ahead of its time. It’s also widely iconic. It’s not just some realistic eye drawings, it’s something that has a lot of amazing techniques
I go to the Louvre every holidays (and I'm French so I have a lot of holidays), I sometimes happens to be in the Mona Lisa room... To see the Wedding of Cana.
The Mona Lisa is not the most impressively realistic painting, it's not the most powerful imagery, etc. But the simplicity and mystery in its concept is I think what makes it interesting even regardless of its history. It is only an image of one woman, nothing else, she has that subtle smile, and the strange background that is an eerily 'empty' foggy valley that looks like it could belong in the pages of some medieval legend. Furthermore, the lines are quite soft, with no major contrasting parts so it's very easy on the eyes. And your focus is drawn right to her face due to the use of light and darkness, and how her face looks at the viewer. These things combined give it a certain magical quality. It almost appears dream-like.
When I saw the painting at the Louvre, I had the strangest impression: one moment she was smiling, one moment she wasn't. This happened over and over again. That's when I realized the appeal of the painting and of the "mysterious smile".
One of the most interesting things about seeing the Mona Lisa in real life was all the people just... not seeing it. There was a half-hour line for getting close to the mona Lisa, and everyone in line was looking at their phone. When they did actually get close to the painting they took 5 seconds to take a picture with it (backs turned towards the painting) and left without even looking at it. It's a shame, because although it might be overrated, I loved taking the time to actually look at it and seeing all the skills that went into it.
I remember when I went to Paris and visited the louvre and saw the Mona Lisa, and a bunch of people were talking pictures and it was like you saw it and that was it, interestingly now though the louvre doesn't pay insurance on the painting, they just pay millions of dollars on hand on guards which was actually cheaper than the insurance lol
High production quality, engaging presentation and quality content: this channel is quickly becoming one of my favourites! Great work and really interesting video!
a lot of what was said in this video isn't true. its very clear people don't understand art history and the innovation the Mona Lisa had in the time of the renaissance, driving art to what it is today. its mostly history that makes it famous, and the creation of new techniques (atmospheric perspective, three quarter view, her hands, etc.) that Leonardo davinci created. I'd recommend to learn just a tad bit of art history before criticizing such art (not the video but the comment section). that doesn't mean its the best in the world, but without it art wouldn't be the same
basically what you said is exactly what the video explained, people who were into art around that time understood the big deal with the mona lisa, like you, and what you said, but people who never got into art or painting never understood what was all about until it get robbed. That´s why it is overrrated because people who know art and people who don´t know what the mona is all about, a mix of pure art and mysticism.
That Mona Lisa picture serves a very important and noble purpose in the art world, that is, it frees all the space around the much better paintings in the same gallery where it hangs at the Louvre, like the magnificent Veronese, and the amazing Tizianos.
One time when I was a High School freshman, I drew The Mona Lisa with Jar Jar Binks’s face as a project in Art Class and I called it The Mona Meesa and I showed it to my friends and they thought it was hilarious! 😂😂😂😂
Yeah, in the painting she used to have a big turban too. And one eye used to google. And a tooth was gone. And she used to have huge man hands. That was the awesome version!
She actually had very fair and thin eyebrows but years of the painting itself decaying make it impossible to see them anymore. Look up Mona Lisa original and you can see what it looked like before it was aged by air, light, and other factors. There have been scans done on the painting (very carefully) in order to know exactly what the original colors were and what was missing from our sight.
Honestly, it's actually an amazing painting but because it's such a common pop culture icon it's desensitised our appreciation for it that it's now just an icon and not really a painting anymore
I understand nothing about art, I'll admit it, but when I went to the Louvre, having zero expectations about liking the Mona Lisa, I was actually extremely captivated by it. I've felt hypnotized and in owe. There were many people around it and the painting is small, but to this days I'm still so happy I've seen it 'cause I had a glimpse of Leonardo Da Vinci genius. Therefore I can't say that it's "overrated"
At any given time during the Louvre's operating hours, there gathers a crowd of about 50-60 people that surround the painting that is walled off by posts and ropes and has a large glass cover around it. It took me 10-15 minutes to get the end of the crowd and once I feared my eyes on all her glory I saw only a small painting by a man who was more an accomplished inventor than he was a great painter.
The beauty comes from the genius-level consideration that was put into making the artwork. Just imagine one thing you love about the human face but then imagine that and a hundred other things you love about the human face all put together in a work of art, that's exactly what an artists like Leonardo do.
I am an artist and I see a lot of things behind the painting, dont take it letterally. Try to see and understand how and why the artist did this and did that in the painting, every tiny details has different meaning. If you can not appreciate art how can you appreciate life?life is beautiful and so is art, art comes in many forms, we ourselves are a masterpiece created by God.
Mona Lisa is very fascinating and I think that's because of the way it has had all the world's attention despitebeing so simple compared to the rest of his work. It's in a way iconic and because of the story behind it and its fame, it has a certain feel to it, I think it'll forever be remembered as the one painting that everyone knows. And I think that it's very commandable that it has kept everyone's attention for so long because other better paintings weren't able to. .
She never smiled mate. The right side of her mouth looked almost exactly the same as the left side. Tis why teh painting is/was so enigmatic, nobody knew if she was smiling or not? Mandela or what. lol
When I visited the Louvre at the age of ten, there were a bunch of paintings better than the Mona Lisa like the one ahead of it. All just stared at the Mona Lisa. Why? I still wonder..
They absolutely fail to mention that it might be a sly veil at a self-portrait of the artist himself. More importantly the background is so completely bizarre for the time period. If you block the subject everything else you see is wildly abstract. Something that wasn't done at that time. Space and time are somehow meshed together and it looks like something painted 200 years later. I don't like this theory of this painting but there's so much to read into the Mona Lisa; It's a ground breaking work, as it should be.
This might sound weird, but I notice that some RU-vid videos with more simple thumbnails tend to get more views. Maybe that's a human thing. The Mona Lisa is considered great because of its simplicity.
The Mona Lisa first became famous in the very early 1500s. It was the most realistic head anybody had ever seen. Until Leonardo, the Florentines painted in a linear manner, essentially filling in the colour between the outlines, rather like a colouring book with a little form modelling. Leonardo softened all the edges and created the illusion of 3-dimensional form and atmosphere. Her smile, by the way, is a pun on her name. Leonardo loved puns and used them in several of his paintings. Mona Lisa's name was Lisa Gioconda, and giocando, in Italian, means playful or happy; hence the famous smile. However, this video is absolutely correct about the way that the painting was brought into the layperson's life from the 20th century onwards. Bravo!!
It was the painting that Leonardo Davinci kept taking with him and kept improving up to old age. It is a painting that shows the way he innovated in painting and ofcourse showed how next to all his other accomplishments in his life he was also able to paint. He was a homouniversalis and this has always caught my imagination. The fact that even though this painting was made in commission and was the wife of his commissioner says something about the passion and karakter of the man. I would like to see it in real but everytime i was at the louvre there is a waiting line that scares me :) If you go on wiki and search for the painting you can see it in extreem detail in a foto. I would recommend doing that.
I don't know when we were there I was underwhelmed, it's a small bland painting and on the other side of the room is a very large painting with a lot of stuff on it wich was much better...
At 2:41 the video states that the Sistine Madonna by Raphael was in the Louvre, showing an image. But... it's in Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. Right?
I believe you are correct! While I do not know where the Sistine Madonna was at the time, the sources that Vox used definitely do not say that it is the Louvre’s most famous painting. I read the newspaper that covered this part of the video and it merely says "In European art circles [the Mona Lisa] is considered to rank second only to the 'Sistine Madonna' by Raphael. Both are priceless". No mention of the Sistine Madonna being stored or displayed in the Louvre!
When you see that STAMP in the Louvre for the first time, in the midst of so many other amazing (and GIANT) paintings, surrounded by fans - just because -, you start to wonder. For me, it‘s 15 years, now. ...nice video. :-) Thank you.
