Saratoga News

Just call her the Hamlet of art history

By Mary Ann Cook

What put the smile on the Mona Lisa's face? That's one question that's been bedeviling mankind for centuries--five centuries, to be exact. We probably have as many theories to answer that question as we have numbers of people who have streamed by to see her. And that's no small number. Some three million visit her in the Louvre annually, and that's a conservative estimate.

One of my favorite theories is that the poor dear has bad teeth, and the field of dentistry was in such sorry shape at that time in history that there was nothing to be done about it, even though she was (if she's who she thinks she is) the wife of a wealthy man. All that tiramisu and gelato consumption had taken its toll. And she was too self-conscious to reveal to the world anything behind that smile. Her teeth may have been crooked, ill-formed or--horrors--missing in action.

Here's another theory that's made the rounds for a long time: She's pregnant. It's obvious from the way she's sitting, her girth and that _____* smile. She has told no one yet of her condition, and so she is smiling about the secret life growing within.

This leads us, unfortunately, into the labyrinth of determining just who she is, er, was. The world is awash in theories about her identity. She's been accused of being everyone from Lisa Gioconda, the usual culprit, to a nun to a prostitute.

That pretty well covers the waterfront of womanhood. Especially if the fleet's in. And a nun or a prostitute would need to smile, if she could keep from raging, about the incipient life awaiting.

Here's the argument from those who don't believe she's a portrait of Gioconda: Gioconda was, in fact, much younger at the time the portrait was done than the painting makes her look. Leonardo would never have made her look older. Heaven forfend, or whatever they said in the early 16th century. Just the opposite: he would have made an older woman look younger, not the reverse, to please the patron.

Yet another theory: Portrait painters tend to paint themselves, or at least vestiges of their own visages creep in. Was Leonardo painting his own portrait, a younger, female version, of course, and smiling about it all the way to immortality? Maybe so; he was a known trickster.

Another version has it that Mona (meaning madame or Mrs. in those times) is smiling to cover up her grief. Records show that Gioconda lost a 2-year-old girl during the four years or more she was supposedly sitting for the painting. Legend has it that Leonardo hired musicians and buffoons to keep the smile coming through each sitting. Was this to counteract grief?

Yes, the lady is definitely in mourning, says Frances Haberly-Roberson in Famous Italian Paintings and Their Stories. Look at the costuming: the sitter wears a veil and no jewelry: that proves she's in mourning. She's simply trying to maintain her equilibrium, to be a good sport about all that racket from the mandolin player and the nonsense from the fool who was hired to entertain her. Stiff upper lip has become an enigmatic smile.

More recent art history books take a less flower-bestrewn track. They say the smile is simply the result of all Leonardo's experimentation. Light and shadow obsessed him, so he tried all manner of things to capture it. Atmospheric chiaroscuro is what it's called, and it's evident in all his other works as well.

That's the whole answer to the smile question, say present-day scholars. Technique explains it all. And high-tech technique for its day, at that.

But that answer deprives us of the mystery of the ages, all those qualities poets and painters have enshrouded her in. Carotti said she was "the emanation of the intellect, sentimental and poetic power of her time with all the mystery of the human soul and all its destiny."

Walter Pater said she is "a diver in deep seas and keeps their fallen day about her." Kenneth Clark more recently said she's "the Hamlet of art history that we must each re-create for ourselves." In short, we all find something in her.

She's been called the Sphinx of Beauty, but frankly I think she could use some makeup pointers. Those eyebrows, for one. An eyebrow pencil is sorely needed. Some blush wouldn't hurt. And a concealer for those eyelids. Incidentally, those lids are so heavy, she may have just awakened from a catnap. And stealing a surreptitious nap while posing leads us to yet another reason for the smile.

When you get right down to it, she's probably really smiling because of all the fuss we're making over why she's smiling.

*About that blank: you fill it in. Everyone has a different adjective to supply: smug, cunning, sly, mysterious, flirtatious--whatever adjective suits--one size fits all, since she's all things to all people.

Los Gatos Weekly-Times columnist Mary Ann Cook recently returned from a trip to Paris, where she pondered the lady with the enigmatic smile.

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