The article by Irina Gurskaya is published in an abbreviated form.
The article is in an abbreviated form in Russian: http://proza.ru/2021/10/28/1371
Full text of the article in Russian:http://proza.ru/2021/10/30/1827
#MonaLisa #LeonardodaVinci #nature
Abstract
The article suggests and substantiates the hypothesis that the portrait of Mona Lisa, presumably the wife of the silk merchant Lisa del Giocondo (Gherardini), is an image of the Earth embodied in a human image. This portrait is a reflection of Leonardo da Vinci's philosophy of being and has become the crown of his inner work, the main semantic message of which is the image of our planet, the mother of all life on earth. That's why this picture is so infinitely mysterious and will remain so forever. Lisa del Giocondo's facial features may have associatively responded to Leonardo's search for the realization of his idea of painting a portrait of the Earth. Or, in the process of working on a private order, the idea arose to create a portrait of the Earth. The Mother Deity is not just a direct quotation of ancient culture and religion, which the Renaissance rediscovered for itself. Leonardo da Vinci, the mythological interpretation of the deification of nature, with all the asceticism of the image, elevated into an emotionally rich dialogue of the wise, completely incomprehensible Creator - the Earth and each of us who looks at the painting "Mona Lisa".
Introduction
The purpose and objectives of the study: to identify the symbolism of the portrait "Mona Lisa".
Hypothesis: the main idea of Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Mona Lisa— is an image in the female portrait of a image of the Earth.
Decoding the "mooniness" of the image of Gioconda
"And any one standing on the moon, when it and the
sun are both beneath us, would see this our earth and the element of water upon it just as we see the moon, and the earth would light it as it lights us" [1, p. 193] — Leonardo wrote in his diaries, and this was not just one of the observations of the artist and thinker of the Renaissance. He looked at the moon and tried to imagine the appearance of the Earth: the same round disk above the horizon, the same shining light coming from it, the same black sky around…
These thoughts about the Earth in his diaries: how it should look from space, Leonardo needed to paint a portrait of the Mona Lisa - a portrait of the Earth.
In other words, this image, in the final form that we have, is a portrait of the Earth, our planet, the mother of everything living on earth, and is not a portrait of any particular woman. Also, this is not a generalized universal portrait of a perfect spiritualized intellectual person, as some researchers have said, Gioconda is a portrait, one might say, of the deity Gaia, as the ancient Greeks believed, of a living being. This deity became the prototype of the Mona Lisa, but in his own reinterpretation of this image by the artist Leonardo da Vinci.
Looking at Gioconda, even before realizing her smile and gaze, one feels a kind of moonlight radiance emanating from this portrait. This is literally the effect of the Earth's radiance, which should come from it, according to Leonardo's reasoning, like the moon.
The "mooniness" of the image of Gioconda, and all the details and features are absolutely appropriate and accurate in revealing the image, if we consider this portrait as the idea of depicting the portrait of the Earth. For example, the rounded face of Gioconda, not a young or old mature woman, also evokes an association with the Moon. The volume and brightness of the glow to the face of the Gioconda against the background of the twilight landscape adds a darker frame of the head: dark hair, a veil thrown over the head, a deep shadow on the left side of the face. Due to the similarity of the glow, the contrast similar to the blackness of the night sky, the landscape below and in the distance, the face is associated with the Moon floating above this world in the sky. Even the turn of her head, this barely perceptible unhurried dynamics of movement resembles an imperceptible movement across the firmament of this satellite of the Earth. Based on the above, it could be decided that Leonardo wanted to depict the Moon, but the color of Gioconda's clothes in various shades of brown, ochre, greenish speaks in favor of the fact that this is the image of the Earth.
Features of Leonardo's worldview
In the Renaissance, there is an active interest in the knowledge of the surrounding world and, first of all, in the study of nature and man. The natural principle, which was considered sinful and not worthy of attention in the medieval tradition, society gradually rehabilitates and builds into a new system of values:
"Man is first of all not a divine, but a natural being, he is a "child of nature", and nature is the "cradle of man" [2, p. 350].
At the same time, in the general context of the glorification of man and his role in the development of society, in Leonardo's worldview, the attitude towards man is more dramatic. The idea of placing a person in the center of the universe is impossible for Leonardo's humanism:
"Leonardo's harmony of the world is not at all a clear and cloudless harmony, it is not alien to shades of gloom and tragedy. This is especially true of Leonard's reflection on man and his place and role in the natural world" [3, p. 113].
He could speak very unflatteringly about a person, and, as an omnipotent, sentient, living being, he turns to the Earth:
"Oh, earth, why don't you open up to throw them into the deep cracks of your great abysses and bowels and no longer show the sky a monster so cruel and insensitive?" [4, p. 403].
Understanding the Earth as a kind of living entity is both a sign of personal attitude, respect and reverence for the Earth in Leonardo's worldview, and a tribute to a scientist who understands the immensity of the source of knowledge.
Gioconda's Facial Features
Having painted the painting "Mona Lisa", Leonardo visualized the image of the Earth, which was actually his constant inner interlocutor.
What is so strange about this face, what riddles haunt researchers? At first glance, it is even boring and ugly. The lips do not have the "scarletness" described by J. Vasari and the general coloristic solution of Gioconda's face in ochre shades of earth rather makes him related to the surrounding landscape. And in this we can trace a certain logic - the desire to show the general nature of all the elements of the picture. In addition, usually in Leonardo's paintings, the lighting of faces and draperies is decided in such a way as to convey the volume as clearly as possible, to reveal every change in the shape of the object. But in this case, such an attentive chiaroscuro modeling of Gioconda's face is not just an artistic technique familiar to Leonardo, such a solution allows you to combine two concepts in this face: the relief of the face and the relief of the earth. This slightly puffy face is very tactfully stylized, and is associated with a soft hilly landscape. All the features can be said to be conditionally human, in shape and color scheme, echoing the surrounding landscape.
Moreover, the absence of eyebrows and eyelashes is also logical and understandable in the context of the fact that this is a portrait of the Earth: eyebrows, even the most subtle and inconspicuous, would make the expression of Gioconda's face more static and definite, which would not allow Leonardo to give this image such incredible psychological ambiguity.
Another mystery of the Gioconda, and, at first glance, the discrepancy between the external and internal in this image is the mourning veil and the cheerful mood of the model. It is impossible to explain this contradiction by considering the Mona Lisa as an ordinary woman. But if we consider this portrait as a portrait of the Earth, everything falls into place. And this veil is no longer a sign of mourning, but a kind of mysterious veil that envelops the Earth and hides its countless secrets from us. In this interpretation, the black veil and Gioconda's smile look absolutely appropriate and do not contradict each other.
Compositional solution of the painting
One of the main arguments why the portrait "Mona Lisa" still depicts not a person is the disparity of the scale of an ordinary earthly person and the woman who looks at us from this picture.
The size of the painting is very small, but this female image looks majestic. The figure is static, smoothed and massive — all these epithets can be used to describe our Earth as it is in our human perception. The gioconda is placed, in relation to the landscape, slightly on top. Thanks to such a compositional solution, Leonardo made her figure, as it were, towering, dominating space and large-scale landscape - Gioconda seems as gigantic and immense as these mountains.
The Impersonal psychologism of Gioconda
In order not to distract from the main thing, the picture is as minimalistic as possible. Of the household attributes belonging to the human world, only the necessary part of the chair at hand is conventionally shown in the foreground. On the sides of the painting, columns resting on a balustrade are almost invisible. Everything else in the painting is the Gioconda and the landscape surrounding it, or rather, the unity of these two components.
For example, the relief folds of the sleeves look like the folds of mountains, and the train thrown over the shoulder, the assembly of the dress resemble either a waterfall, or strips of land cut by water streams. A thin black veil-cape, translucent and airy in places blurs the contour of the figure of Gioconda, avoids excessive clarity, certainty, materialism of her figure.
Thus, in the portrait there is only formally a division into landscape and Gioconda in the foreground, but in fact it is one inseparable whole of the material earthly component and the essence of the Earth, with its psychological, ethical depth and, one might say, its history and palette of relationships with a person. This is, indeed, a task worthy of Leonardo, to reflect in the portrait the scale of a superhuman (thinking and feeling natural-spiritual) being - the Earth, and to make it absolutely close to us both in its mental state and mentally. At the same time, on her part, we are given a high bar of understanding and awareness.
It is impossible to describe Gioconda's smile unambiguously. It generates different emotions and confuses. It seems to us that she is smiling or mocking us, although this is just a subjective assessment reflecting our state: our fears, hopes, sadness or joy.
But, nevertheless, the main feeling that exists without any of our personal interpretations in the image of Mona Lisa is the unconditional feeling of a mother's love for her child. That's what her smile means. In addition, as a true loving mother, she worked hard, prepared everything for us so that we didn't need anything. And this feeling of inner satisfaction with her work is evident in her look and smile. At the same time, the divinely beautiful hands of the Mona Lisa lie folded. Everything we need for life, everything we use, we take from nature, from the Earth ourselves. It looks like a sign of trust on her part, she just looks at us, smiles and hopes for us, there is not a shadow of doubt or reproach.
Another important detail from Leonardo's life that needs to be mentioned: already in childhood, Leonardo lost close communication with his mother, and as an adult, like many other extraordinary people, he could experience a feeling of loneliness regardless of the number of friends and admirers in his environment. On the other hand, he aspired to solitude, so that time completely belonged to him, his inner world and his research.
Thus, in the painting "Mona Lisa" there are many very personal experiences of Leonardo. I think Leonardo da Vinci depicted this look and smile the way he wanted the Earth to look at him and smile at him. The person or humanity with whom Gioconda has been conducting her dialogue for so many years is reflected in her gaze. But first of all, Leonardo is reflected in her eyes, the person she has been looking at since she was born.
References
1. The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Arranged, Rendered into English and Introduced by Edward MacCurdy. New York: George Braziller Publ., 1955.
2. Naidysh, Viacheslav. Philosophy of Mythology. From Antiquity to the Era of Romanticism. Moscow: Gardariki Publ., 2002. (In Russian)
3. Gorfunkel’, Aleksandr. Renaissance Philosophy. Moscow: Vysshaia shkola Publ., 1980. (In Russian)
4. Leonardo da Vinci. Selected works. Transl. by A.A. Gubera, V.P. Zubova, V.K. Shileiko, A.M. Efrosa. [The text is printed according to the edition: Leonardo da Vinci. Selected works. 2 vols. M.; L.: Academia, 1935.] Moscow: Izd-vo Studii Artemiia Lebedeva, 2010, vol. I. (In Russian)