Unravelling the secrets of Mona Lisa
Pick and mix
For centuries, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa has been a mystery to art fans.
Who was she, what’s the meaning behind her enigmatic smile, was she pregnant - all questions that have been asked over time.
Landing for the first time in New Zealand, The Secrets of Mona Lisa is an exhibition uncovering 25 secrets behind the historic painting.
On Wednesday, a 6-metre-long container arrived at Expressions Whirinaki in Upper Hutt - full of about 40 iterations of the famous painting, gallery director Leanne Wickham said.
‘‘There’s something special about seeing the real piece of art but this way, you can explore her as a person and Leonardo da Vinci as an artist.’’
Wickham has been working for the past couple of years to have the exhibition brought over here and said it was perfect for gallery visitors who might never make it to the Louvre to see the real thing.
More than that, it appealed to people interested in more than art and allowed them to see the painted figure in a different context.
‘‘It encourages people that might not have a great love of art but have a love of history and a love of conspiracy theories or unravelling mysteries to come investigate.’’
The Secrets of Mona Lisa was put together by French scientific engineer Pascal Cotte, in 2004.
He was granted access to the painting and analysed it with a multi-spectral imaging camera, using different light wavelengths from ultraviolet to infrared. He uncovered different layers of the painting, showing alterations that had been made while she was painted.
One secret he found was behind her smile - she originally had a much larger and more expressive smile, which was painted over with her mysterious smirk.
He also discovered she originally had eyebrows and eyelashes. One lone hair of the eyebrow, disguised by a brush stroke, still exists on the painting. He theorised that over the years, cleaning the painting had slowly removed them.
The exhibition features an exact replica of the painting and 40 magnified, high-resolution sectional images exploring the work.
❚ The Secrets of Mona Lisa opens at Expressions Whirinaki next Saturday.