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Four ways in which Leonardo da Vinci was ahead of his time

<p>Leonardo da Vinci is generally recognised as one of the great figures of the Renaissance and one of the greatest ever polymaths. As the world marks the 500th anniversary of his death, it’s important to look at some of the ways in which he showed that – as well as being a painter, sculptor and engineer – he was a thinker who was way ahead of his time.</p> <h2>Engineering – Dr Hywel Jones</h2> <p>Leonardo da Vinci is renowned as much for his inventions as his works of art, studies of architecture and anatomical drawings. The documents that survive show us his ideas for a wide range of devices. They include some of the first concepts for gliders, helicopters, parachutes, diving suits, cranes, gearboxes and many types of weapons of war. Many of these may be seen in use today, having taken the best part of 400 years to become practical realities.</p> <p>He combined an imagination ahead of his time, an understanding of the emerging principles of science and engineering, and his superlative draftsmanship to devise new uses for levers, gears, pulleys, bearings and springs. His creations were designed to be useful but also to be appealing to his patrons: the warring dukes and kings of late 15th- and early 16th-century France and Italy.</p> <p>Although he apparently despised war, he was employed for much of the time as a military engineer, devising new defences and concepts for terrifying weapons. His sketches show a prototype “tank” circa 1485, with armour plating and the ability to fire in any direction.</p> <p>We now know that Leonardo’s “tank”, as drawn, <a href="https://leonardodavinci.stanford.edu/submissions/ghoe/leonardo.htm">was not practical</a> – it had mistakes in its gearing and would have been so heavy that it could not have manoeuvred. Other weapons, designed to impress and intimidate as much as actually work, included the giant (27-metre) cross-bow, a gun with 33 barrels, ammunition which resembles today’s “cluster bombs”, and the first example of aerodynamically stabilised artillery shells.</p> <p>His sketches for an “aerial screw” (1486-90) anticipate the idea of the helicopter, although it was not the first demonstration of vertical flight – a <a href="http://www.aerospaceweb.org/design/helicopter/history.shtml">Chinese toy with rotors</a> predates this by 1,800 years.</p> <p>Ornithopters, human powered flying machines which mimicked bird flight, were a fascination for him – and he drew many beautiful and innovative designs. However, bird flight was not fully understood at this time and he was unaware that a human being could never generate the required power to operate such devices.</p> <p>Most of Leonardo’s designs were never built or tested, although modern-day attempts to recreate them have met with mixed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C2YKrSxsWc&amp;list=PL7Gl77owRvTswswcbrhnAYKRnv53z14Vn&amp;index=5">success</a>, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmfmUGTfZjs&amp;list=PL7Gl77owRvTswswcbrhnAYKRnv53z14Vn&amp;index=7">some spectacular failures</a>. His imagination was so far ahead of its time that it would take four centuries before ideas such as the tank became practical through the development of light and strong materials, such as steel and aluminium, and new sources of power in the form of engines powered by fossil fuels. He would no doubt recognise – and be fascinated by – much of the machinery of modern life that we take for granted.</p> <h2>Mathematics – Dr Jeff Waldock</h2> <p>Although da Vinci is best known for his artistic works, he considered himself <a href="https://www.engineering.com/Blogs/tabid/3207/ArticleID/34/Leonardo-da-Vinci.aspx">more of a scientist than an artist</a>. <a href="http://monalisa.org/2012/09/12/leonardo-and-mathematics-in-his-paintings/">Mathematics</a> – in particular, perspective, symmetry, proportions and geometry – had a significant influence over his drawings and paintings, and he was most certainly ahead of his time in making use of it.</p> <p>Da Vinci used the mathematical principles of linear perspective – parallel lines, the horizon line, and a vanishing point – to create the illusion of depth on a flat surface. In The Annunciation, for example, he uses perspective to emphasise the corner of a building, a walled garden and a path.</p> <p>Leonardo’s Last Supper is a prime example of the use of the mathematics of perspective. The architecture of the building around Jesus and the 12 apostles, as well as lines on the floor beneath the table, create a “vanishing point”, providing a subconscious focal point for the painting.</p> <p>Leonardo knew of Vitruvius’s work – that with the navel as the centre, a perfect circle could be drawn around a body with outstretched arms and legs. He realised that if arm span and height are related, the person would fit perfectly inside a square. His Vitruvian Man took these observations and attempted to solve the problem of “squaring” a circle. It’s not, in fact, possible to do this exactly (squaring the circle is a metaphor for the impossible), but he managed to come very close.</p> <p>There exists in mathematics a number, called the “<a href="https://www.canva.com/learn/what-is-the-golden-ratio/">Golden Ratio</a>”, which appears in some patterns in nature – such as the spiral arrangement of leaves. It was first recognised by <a href="https://famous-mathematicians.com/luca-pacioli/">Luca Pacoli in 1509</a> that the use of the Golden Ratio led to aesthetically-pleasing images. Da Vinci believed it was critical in providing accurate proportionality, and it underpins the structure of the Mona Lisa.</p> <p>The importance of mathematics cannot be understated when discussing Leonardo’s later work, and he seems obsessed with these issues; while working on Mona Lisa, for example, Leonardo was reported to be concentrating on geometry, stating: “Let no one read me who is not a mathematician.”</p> <h2>Water – Dr Rebecca Sharpe</h2> <p>Leonardo da Vinci described water as “the vehicle of nature” (vetturale di natura), water being to the world what blood is to our bodies. From his earliest landscape drawings of a river cascading over rocks (1473), to the famous Mona Lisa (1503) and to his final deluge sketches (1517-18), a lot of Leonardo’s paintings featured water.</p> <p>He was not, however, just fascinated by water’s artistic features. He wanted to understand the fluid dynamics of water: the eddies and vortices under and on water surfaces. As a polymath, he was able to combine his knowledge and ability in art, design, science, philosophy and engineering to design projects, ideas and instruments to <a href="http://hydrologie.org/bluebooks/SP009.pdf">test his hypotheses</a>.</p> <p>In a compilation of writings – the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/look-inside-the-codex-leicester-which-bill-gates-bought-for-30-million-2015-7?r=US&amp;IR=T">Codex Leicester</a> (1510) – Leonardo made 730 conclusions about water alone. Through this work and others, da Vinci made <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&amp;lr=&amp;id=oL2cBAAAQBAJ&amp;oi=fnd&amp;pg=PT5&amp;dq=Jha,+2015+da+vinci&amp;ots=2y7j8TMLbi&amp;sig=pDTYnx3OK46RcdFYcCFhpmsgGB4#v=onepage&amp;q=Jha%2C%202015%20da%20vinci&amp;f=false">many contributions to modern water engineering and science</a> including accurately describing the hydrological cycle, understanding the impact of flow speed on pressure, and engineering canals and reservoirs for flood management and irrigation.</p> <p>Not all of his long list of water ideas and creations were as influential or as accurate, such as his water walking device, but collectively, his uniqueness and overriding contribution to water science and engineering is the development of a scientific approach. He is arguably the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/hyp.6207">first hydrologist who formulated hypotheses</a> on the basis of empirical evidence.</p> <p>The ramifications of his rigour live on today in a much wider sphere. As water is the vehicle of nature, Leonardo da Vinci is the driving force behind the foundations of water science and engineering.</p> <h2>Visual illusions – Dr Alessandro Soranzo</h2> <p>Leonardo da Vinci pioneered the study of physiognomy by introducing the concepts of “moti mentali” contained in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Codex-Urbinas-Latinus-1270">Codex Urbinae</a>, written between 1452 and 1519 and printed by Raffaelo du Fresne as Trattato della Pittura in 1651. Moti mentali can be translated as the representation of transient, dynamic mental states, thoughts and emotions. For da Vinci, the goal of portraitists should be representing the inner thoughts of their sitters, not just the external appearance.</p> <p>For this reason, Leonardo created “ambiguous” facial expression. In ambiguous expressions there is a constant “change: of appearance, hence dynamicity. Leonardo developed the technique of "sfumato” (from the Italian word for vanishing like smoke) for this purpose. In sfumato, the transitions from bright to dark, or from one colour to another, are subtle to soften or obscure sharp edges.</p> <p>This technique was not invented by Leonardo, but he further developed it and his use is unique. I agree with <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/i20166872">Alexander Nagel’s idea</a> that Leonardo’s use of sfumato is different from any other painter/s – including from that of Andrea del Verrocchio, who was Leonardo’s teacher.</p> <p>In particular, in many of Leonardo’s portraits, it is almost impossible to say when one colour ends and another starts – and this is evident in some crucial parts of his paintings, such as the mouths of his sitters. For example, the Laboratoire du Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France, in collaboration with the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/From-the-news-wires/2010/0716/Mona-Lisa-examination-reveals-layers-of-paint-for-dreamy-quality">reported that</a> Leonardo used up to 30 layers of varnish to achieve the subtle shading around the mouth of the La Bella Principessa (a portrait attributed to Leonardo <a href="https://books.google.it/books?hl=en&amp;lr=&amp;id=i2osO3TsTXQC&amp;oi=fnd&amp;pg=PP2&amp;ots=lVCXPANimQ&amp;sig=XoylZ5Qo8AhjVksY4g6T3RP6Z1Y&amp;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false">by Martin Kemp</a> as recently as 2011). Each of these layers was <a href="http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Leonardoin-%20a-new-light/21415">half the thickness of a human hair</a>. The area around the mouth of the Mona Lisa has a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/466694a">similar level of detail</a>.</p> <p>My colleague, Michelle Newberry, and I <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698915002163">suggested in 2015</a> that Leonardo created a sort of illusion around the mouth area in some of his portraits (for example, Mona Lisa and Bella Principessa) – from some vantage points, the sitters look content and cheerful but at other times they appear pensive or melancholic.</p> <p>It is remarkable that Leonardo, creating visual illusions, played with the disagreement between the eyes and the brain centuries before scientists understood the mechanisms behind it.</p> <p>Taking each discipline separately, there have undoubtedly been better artists, more important engineers or greater mathematicians. But as an individual, da Vinci was unprecedented and remains without peer – in art or science.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/four-ways-in-which-leonardo-da-vinci-was-ahead-of-his-time-115338" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.</em></p>

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Why is the Mona Lisa so famous?

<p dir="ltr">Since its creation in 1503, Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of a Florentine woman has struck a chord around the world. </p> <p dir="ltr">The Mona Lisa has appeared in pop culture references from music, movies and even other artworks. </p> <p dir="ltr">Her global popularity has prompted people to try stealing and vandalising her, as well as drawing in crowds of millions of people each year. </p> <p dir="ltr">But why is the portrait, and the subject’s elusive smile, so enticing?</p> <p dir="ltr">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.</p> <p dir="ltr">Here are just a few reasons why the Mona Lisa is synonymous with modern art. </p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>We’re not sure who she is</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Leonardo started the iconic portrait around 1503 when he was living in Florence, where the lady’s identity was never confirmed.</p> <p dir="ltr">The artist also didn’t leave any clues to her identity in the painting, like he did with other portraits of women. </p> <p dir="ltr">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. </p> <p dir="ltr">There has never been any confirmation of these rumours, leaving Mona Lisa’s true identity a major mystery of the art world. </p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>She’s not like the others</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Leonardo was known for experimentation and innovation, and the Mona Lisa is no exception.</p> <p dir="ltr">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.</p> <p dir="ltr">“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.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>She’s become an endless source of parodies</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">By 1914 the Mona Lisa had become highly recognizable, making her a ripe subject for appropriation.</p> <p dir="ltr">She has been parodied by artists including Fernand Léger, Philippe Halsman, Fernando Botero, Andy Warhol and many more. </p> <p dir="ltr">Following Andy Warhol’s rendition, the Mona Lisa started to cameo regularly in marketing campaigns. </p> <p dir="ltr">During the 1970s, she featured in around 23 new advertisements per year, and that number increased to 53 per year in the following decade.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>She’s a Parisian landmark</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">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. </p> <p dir="ltr">It was part of the royal collection before becoming the property of the French people during the Revolution (1787–99).</p> <p dir="ltr">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. </p> <p dir="ltr">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.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>

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Artist robot Ai-Da detained in Egypt on suspicion of espionage

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A robot with a flair for the arts was detained at the Egyptian border for 10 days ahead of a major exhibition. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ai-Da was set to present her artworks at the foot of the pyramids of Giza: the first ever art exhibition held in the historic area. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The show, titled </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Forever is Now</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, is an annual event organised by </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Art D’Égypte to support the art and culture scene in Egypt. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ai-Da’s digitally created artworks, and her presence at the event, was set to be the highlight of the show. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">However, Egyptian officials grew concerned when she arrived as her eyes feature cameras and an internet modem. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Because of Ai-Da’s technology, officials at the Egyptian border grew concerned that she had been sent to the country as part of an espionage conspiracy. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">According to </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/20/egypt-detains-artist-robot-ai-da-before-historic-pyramid-show"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Guardian</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, British officials had to work intensively to get Ai-Da out of detainment before the beginning of the art show, </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Egyptian officials offered to let Ai-Da free if she had some of her gadgetry removed, to which Aiden Meller, Ai-Da’s creator, refused. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">They offered to remove her eyes as a security measure, but Aiden insisted that she uses her eyes to create her artwork. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">She was eventually released, with her eyes intact, and the show went ahead as scheduled. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ai-Da is able to make unique art thanks to specially designed technology developed by researchers at Oxford and Leeds University. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ai-Da’s key algorithm converts images she captures with her camera-eyes and converts them to drawings. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The robot can also paint portraits, as her creators allowed her technology to analyse colours and techniques used by successful human artists. </span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image credits: Getty Images</span></em></p>

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Da Vinci’s artistic talent was due to a bung eye

<div> <div class="copy"> <p>Leonardo da Vinci’s artistic genius might in part have been the result of an eye disorder, according to a leading British ophthalmologist.</p> <p>After studying six paintings, drawings and sculptures believed to be of the man who painted the Mona Lisa, Christopher Tyler from the University of London, UK, concludes he suffered from strabismus, a misalignment of the eyes. </p> <p>Some forms of eye misalignment <a rel="noopener" href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797610397958?journalCode=pssa" target="_blank">are thought</a> to assist artistic work by suppressing the deviating eye, which provides two-dimensional monocular vision advantageous to painting and drawing. </p> <p>Tyler believes da Vinci had intermittent exotropia – a tendency for one of his eyes to turn outwards.</p> <p>This would result in the ability to switch to monocular vision, which may help explain his exceptional talent for capturing space on a flat canvas.{%recommended 3705%}</p> <p>If he’s right, the fifteenth century master joins an impressive club. Rembrandt, Degas and Picasso are among other artists identified as having strabismus on the basis of the eye alignment evident from self- portraits.</p> <p>Another Italian painter, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, was even known as Il Guercino, or “the squinter”.</p> <p>Tyler’s task was made more difficult because there are few validated portraits of da Vinci from life.</p> <p>“No work has an unimpeachable attribution as his likeness, so attributions are necessarily probabilistic,” he writes <a rel="noopener" href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/fullarticle/10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2018.3833" target="_blank">in a paper</a> published in JAMA Ophthalmology.</p> <p>He was encouraged, however, by the painter’s own belief that artists’ work is likely to reflect their own appearance, and was thus confident that any of his portraits “may be considered to reflect his own appearance to some extent”.</p> <p>Examination of half a dozen likely portraits and self-portraits in which the direction of gaze of each eye is identifiable shows that most paintings exhibit a consistent exotropic strabismus angle of minus-10.3 degrees.</p> <p>This is supported by a similar angle in the <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.scmp.com/business/money/wealth/article/2144271/meet-man-who-found-da-vinci-sold-record-us450-million" target="_blank">recently identified</a> da Vinci painting Salvator Mundi, which last year sold for a record US$450 million.</p> <p><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.leonardodavinci.net" target="_blank">The most influential figure</a> of the Italian Renaissance, da Vinci was an architect, musician, engineer scientist and inventor, as well as a painter.</p> <p>His other masterpieces include The Last Supper, The Baptism of Christ and The Vitruvian Man. </p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article was originally published on <a rel="noopener" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/da-vincis-artistic-talent-was-due-to-a-bung-eye/" target="_blank">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by Nick Carne.</em></p> </div> </div>

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7 Mysteries of the Mona Lisa

<p>As the most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa draws more than six million admirers to the Louvre each year. Just what is her peculiar power?</p> <p><strong>Monda Lisa mystery #1: Who was Mona Lisa?</strong></p> <p><img style="width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="/nothing.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/96ac8753d46042ba935d8ca973208772" />Over the past century, it has been proposed that Mona Lisa was a noblewoman – Isabella d’Este, Marquise of Mantua, or Costanza d’Avalos, Duchess of Francavilla. Others have stared at that unsettling visage and seen the face of a man – Leonardo da Vinci himself, or the man who was for 20 years his assistant (and perhaps his lover), Gian Giacomo Caprotti. There is even a theory that the picture may have started out as a portrait from life but, over the years that Leonardo worked on it, evolved into an abstract vision of the feminine ideal.</p> <p>These days, most experts agree that the Mona Lisa is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, wife of a Florentine silk merchant named Francesco del Giocondo (hence the name by which she is known in Italy and France, La Gioconda, or La Joconde). When she sat for Leonardo da Vinci, in around 1503, she was about 24 years old. Her <em>contrapposto</em> pose – with the body angled away from the viewer, head turned forward – was widely admired and copied by Leonardo’s contemporaries. And his<em> sfumato</em> technique, where sharp edges are blurred to create an uncannily lifelike effect, was seen as a brilliant technical innovation, very unlike the slightly frozen human figures of earlier, lesser painters.</p> <p><strong>Mona Lisa mystery #2: The hidden initials</strong></p> <p>In 2010, Silvano Vinceti, chairman of Italy’s National Committee for Cultural Heritage, claimed to have discerned letters minutely painted on Mona Lisa’s eyes: L and V (Leonardo da Vinci’s initials) in the right eye, and perhaps C, E or B in the left. The Louvre responded that Vinceti’s letters were simply microscopic cracks in the paint.</p> <p><strong>Mona Lisa mystery #3: The broken backdrop</strong></p> <p><img style="width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="/nothing.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/d24b5d5c75c44f5aa5f5219632097fab" /><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.5442561205273px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7844236/mona-lisa-backdrop-um.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/d24b5d5c75c44f5aa5f5219632097fab" /></p> <p>The distant, dreamlike vista behind Mona Lisa’s head seems to be higher on the right-hand side than on the left. It is hard to see how the landscape would join up. This is subliminally unsettling: Mona Lisa appears taller, more erect, when one’s gaze drifts to the left than when it is on the right.</p> <p><strong>Mona Lisa mystery #4: The bewitching smile</strong></p> <p>In 2000, scientists at Harvard University suggested a neurological explanation for Mona Lisa’s elusive smile. When a viewer looks at her eyes, the mouth is in peripheral vision, which sees in black and white. This accentuates the shadows at the corners of her mouth, making the smile seem broader. But the smile diminishes when you look straight at it. It is the variability of her smile, the fact that it changes when you look away from it, that makes her seem so alive, so mysterious.</p> <p><strong>Mona Lisa mystery #5: The unknown bridge</strong></p> <p><img style="width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="/nothing.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/2138f0c4b92d42fd8502466377e2c2b8" /><img style="width: 500px; height: 280.97982708933716px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7844234/mona-lisa-3-bridge-um.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/2138f0c4b92d42fd8502466377e2c2b8" /></p> <p>The Mona Lisa’s background landscape seems unreal, but the bridge might be one that Leonardo knew. It is usually said to be Ponte Buriano in Tuscany, but in 2011, a researcher claimed it depicts the Bobbio Bridge over the Trebbia, which was washed away in a flood in 1472.</p> <p><strong>Mona Lisa mystery #6: Da Vinci’s obsession</strong></p> <p>Leonardo da Vinci worked on the painting for four years, and possibly at intervals after that. He always took it with him when he travelled, and he never signed or dated it. The picture went with him when, towards the end of his life, he moved to France.</p> <p>It was sold to his last patron, King François I, and remained out of sight in the royal collection for almost 200 years. In 1799 Napoleon came across the painting and commandeered it for his bedroom. Only in 1804 did the Mona Lisa go on public display – in the newly founded Louvre Museum.</p> <p>At that time, it was not seen as particularly interesting, but in the middle of the 19th century Leonardo’s stock as an artist slowly rose. He came to be seen as the equal of the two acknowledged Renaissance greats, Michelangelo and Raphael. This new interest in Leonardo as a painter drew attention to his few known works.</p> <p><strong>Mona Lisa mystery #7: Was Mona Lisa unwell?</strong></p> <p>Mona Lisa has often been scrutinised by medical experts. In 2010, an Italian doctor looked at the swelling around her eyes and diagnosed excess cholesterol in her diet. Other conditions ascribed to her include facial paralysis, deafness, even syphilis.</p> <p>More happily, it has been suggested that the look of contentment on her face indicates she is pregnant. Dentists have also posited bruxism, compulsive grinding of the teeth; or that the line of her top lip suggests that her front teeth are missing – which, along with the faintest hint of a scar on her lip, raises the possibility that she was a victim of domestic violence.</p> <p>Jungians have seen her as an accomplished representation of the anima, the female archetype that resides in each one of us. It seems that almost any condition can be read into that puzzling face.</p> <p><em><sub>From Great Secrets of History © 2012. The Reader’s Digest Association, inc.</sub></em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on </em><em><a href="https://www.readersdigest.com.au/true-stories-lifestyle/entertainment/mysterious-mona-lisa">Reader’s Digest</a></em></p> <p><em>Images: Reader’s Digest</em></p> <p><em> </em></p>

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Where is Da Vinci’s $450m Jesus painting?

<p>A highly anticipated exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s works at the Louvre is set to open on October 24.</p> <p>Nearly 120 of the Italian artist’s most famous art pieces will be brought together with <em>Mona Lisa</em> at the Paris museum to commemorate the 500<sup>th</sup> anniversary of his death.</p> <p>However, with less than two weeks to go before the show opens, there are doubts as to whether the popular <em>Salvator Mundi </em>– the first Leonardo to be found for more than a century – will be featured.</p> <p>The painting, which depicted Jesus in Renaissance dress, emerged as the world’s most expensive after it sold at a 2017 auction for US$450.3 million to Prince Badr bin Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.</p> <p>The painting’s whereabouts is currently not known. New York art historian and dealer Robert Simon claimed he had heard that it was “being kept in a secure art storage facility in Switzerland” as of months ago, while <em><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-10/da-vinci-s-450-million-masterpiece-kept-on-mbs-s-yacht-artnet">Artnet.com</a> </em>alleged it was stored on a superyacht owned by Saudi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.</p> <p><em><a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/salvator-mundi-set-to-be-a-no-show">The Art Newspaper</a> </em>went further to claim that the <em>Salvator Mundi </em>will be “a no-show”, given that the museum had yet to secure the approval for the loan four weeks prior to the opening.</p> <p><span>A spokeswoman for the Louvre told the <em>Observer</em>: “I confirm the Louvre has asked for the loan of the <em>Salvator Mundi</em>. We don’t have the answer yet and thus, don’t have any further comment.”</span></p> <p>The painting’s authenticity has also been called into question. It was initially attributed to the “school of Giovanni Boltraffio”, a student of Leonardo’s, before it was upgraded to “a work by Boltraffio” in 1958. The piece was only authenticated as “an autograph work by Leonardo” in 2011.</p> <p>Several experts have challenged the attribution, with some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvator_Mundi_(Leonardo)#cite_note-nytimes.com-85">claiming</a> the painting was a “studio work with a little Leonardo at best”.</p>

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Ada Nicodemou reveals astonishing weight loss in bikini magazine cover

<p><em>Home and Away</em> star Ada Nicodemou has revealed the results of an eight-week diet and exercise plan that’s helped her become the fittest she’s ever been in her life.</p> <p>The 41-year-old showed off her abs and lean physique in a bikini in the latest issue of <strong> <a href="https://www.who.com.au/" target="_blank"><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Who</span></em></a></strong>.</p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 658px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media"> <div style="padding: 8px;"> <div style="background: #F8F8F8; line-height: 0; margin-top: 40px; padding: 62.5% 0; text-align: center; width: 100%;"> <div style="background: url(data:image/png; base64,ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaacwaaaascamaaaapwqozaaaabgdbtueaalgpc/xhbqaaaafzukdcak7ohokaaaamuexurczmzpf399fx1+bm5mzy9amaaadisurbvdjlvzxbesmgces5/p8/t9furvcrmu73jwlzosgsiizurcjo/ad+eqjjb4hv8bft+idpqocx1wjosbfhh2xssxeiyn3uli/6mnree07uiwjev8ueowds88ly97kqytlijkktuybbruayvh5wohixmpi5we58ek028czwyuqdlkpg1bkb4nnm+veanfhqn1k4+gpt6ugqcvu2h2ovuif/gwufyy8owepdyzsa3avcqpvovvzzz2vtnn2wu8qzvjddeto90gsy9mvlqtgysy231mxry6i2ggqjrty0l8fxcxfcbbhwrsyyaaaaaelftksuqmcc); display: block; height: 44px; margin: 0 auto -44px; position: relative; top: -22px; width: 44px;"></div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BkzWitmAUbv/" target="_blank">A post shared by Ada Nicodemou (@adanicodemou)</a> on Jul 4, 2018 at 1:04am PDT</p> </div> </blockquote> <p>The actress achieved her new figure by working out at least five times a week with boyfriend Adam Rigby and following a strict “Keto Diet” – which meant Nicodemou cut out carbs, fruit and alcohol and replaced them with meats, fats and vegetables.</p> <p>Nicodemou had the<em> Who </em>shoot booked at the end of her health kick, and although she dropped 5kg to hit 47kg by the time she posed for the pictures, she didn’t focus on weight loss.</p> <p>Her goal was to replace body fat with muscle for strength and toning.</p> <p>“I’m so proud of myself,” she told <em>Who</em>. </p> <p>“I’ve got the best body I’ve ever had, but I’ve worked really hard and it wasn’t easy.”</p> <p>On Instagram the star wrote: “A ton of hard work, self-discipline around diet and alcohol and belief can get you amazing results regardless of how old you are! A huge thank you to @fitmejones for going above and beyond and Adam for supporting me along the way, and sorry for being grumpy when I was tired and craving carbs.”</p> <p>Now, that she has reached the end goal of her strict diet, Nicodemou admitted that she will relax her diet and adopt a 80/20 approach to treating herself.</p> <p>“Life is to be enjoyed,” she told <em>Who</em>.</p> <p>Nicodemou is mum to her 5-year-old son Johnas, with her ex-husband Chrys Xipolitas.</p> <p>In 2014, the couple also suffered a stillbirth son, Harrison.</p> <p>Now, Nicodemou is eighteen-months into her relationship with Rigby, she said she has “made a decision to be happy”.</p> <p>“I’m choosing to enjoy my life a lot more.”</p>

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Can you spot the “mistake” in this rare Leonardo da Vinci painting?

<p>A Leonardo da Vinci painting in private hands is expected to fetch a staggering £75 million at auction – despite experts scratching their heads over one crucial “error”.</p> <p>The Italian painter’s Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World), painted around 1500, depicts Christ in Renaissance clothing holding a glass orb.</p> <p><img width="436" height="544" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/12/454AE0F900000578-0-image-m-32_1508413715307.jpg" alt="So did you spot it? Art buffs have pointed out that the glass orb in Christ's left hand appears completely see-through, when in reality the light should appear distorted" class="blkBorder img-share b-loaded" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" id="i-533bf6fa42566834"/></p> <p>However, art experts have pointed out that the orb appears completely see-through, when in reality the light passing through the orb should appear distorted.</p> <p>Da Vinci's biographer Walter Isaacson is among the art buffs questioning whether the artist “chose not to paint it that way, either because he thought it would be a distraction [...] or because he was subtly trying to impart a miraculous quality to Christ and his orb.”</p> <p>According to the<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/oct/19/mystery-jesus-christ-orb-leonardo-da-vinci-salvator-mundi-painting" target="_blank">Guardian</a></strong></span>, Isaacson wrote: “Solid glass or crystal, whether shaped like an orb or a lens, produces magnified, inverted, and reversed images.”</p> <p>He added: “Instead, Leonardo painted the orb as if it were a hollow glass bubble that does not refract or distort the light passing through it.”</p> <p>The painting was initially attributed as a work by Leonardo’s follower, Bernardino Luini.</p> <p>An American businessman, who bought it 12 years ago at a small U.S. auction house for less £7,500, began to research its history.</p> <p>In 2011 the work was confirmed as a genuine Leonardo and unveiled publicly. It was the first discovery of a painting by Da Vinci since 1909.</p> <p>Christie’s this week announced it would be selling Salvator Mundi next month in New York.</p> <p>The auction house’s Loic Gouzer said: “Salvator Mundi is a painting of the most iconic figure in the world by the most important artist of all time.</p> <p>“The opportunity to bring this masterpiece to the market is an honour that comes around once in a lifetime.”</p> <p> </p>

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Female and male models used for Mona Lisa

<p>Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile draws millions of viewers from across the world, all eager to see the art world's most famous female face. But is it?</p> <p>An Italian art detective is arguing that research backs his long-standing claim that Leonardo Da Vinci used both a female and male model to create the acclaimed portrait that hangs in Paris' Louvre museum.</p> <p>While the identity of the woman is not certain, historians believe Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, sat for Da Vinci for the painting.</p> <p>But Silvano Vinceti, who heads Italy's National Committee for the Promotion of Historic and Cultural Heritage, says he used infrared technology to examine the painting and made key findings in its first layer.</p> <p>“In that layer we can see that she was not smiling and joyful but looked melancholic and sad,” he said, adding the second model was Gian Giacomo Caprotti - Da Vinci's male apprentice, known as Salai.</p> <p>Using Photoshop, Vinceti compared the Mona Lisa face to other Da Vinci works Salai is believed to have posed for, including St John the Baptist.</p> <p>“We have used all the paintings in which Leonardo used Salai as a model and compared them to the Mona Lisa and certain details correspond perfectly; so he used two models and added creative details which came from his own imagination,” he said.</p> <p>“I believe that this goes with a long-time fascination of Leonardo's, that is, the subject of androgyny. In other words, for Leonardo, the perfect person was a combination of a man and a woman.”</p> <p>Vinceti also bases his theory on claims by 16th Italian art historian and painter Giorgio Vasari that Gherardini's husband hired clowns to try to make her smile for the sitting.</p> <p>Salai's name has in the past been linked to the Mona Lisa, but other historians have dismissed the claims.</p> <p>Have you ever seen the Mona Lisa? What did you think about Da Vinci’s masterpiece? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.</p> <p><em>First appeared on <a href="http://Stuff.co.nz" target="_blank"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Stuff.co.nz.</span></strong></a></em></p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><a href="/entertainment/art/2016/04/the-highest-selling-artworks-of-all-time/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>The highest selling artworks of all time</strong></em></span></a></p> <p><a href="/entertainment/art/2016/01/classic-art-reimagined-in-modern-times/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>Artists reimagines classical paintings in modern times</strong></em></span></a></p> <p><a href="/entertainment/art/2015/12/artists-childhood-photos/"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>Famous artists share their childhood photos</em></span></strong></a></p>

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8 secret messages hidden in artworks

<p>For centuries, artists have hidden secrets in their works of art. To this day, people are still trying to solve the mysteries concealed Da Vinci’s iconic paintings – and it turns out he wasn’t the only artist to hide secret messages in his pieces. Let’s take a look at some of the secret messages hidden in famous works of art.</p> <ol start="1"> <li>Portrait of Bill Clinton by Nelson Shanks – six years after he was commissioned to paint the former President, Shanks revealed the shadow on the mantelpiece behind Clinton was actually Monica Lewisky’s infamous dress.</li> <li>Portrait of Bill Oddie by Mark Roscoe – Roscoe didn’t really care for the wildlife presenter, and hid a small bird (the “tit”) in his portrait.</li> <li><em>The Ambassadors</em> by Hans Holbein the Younger – the blur in the foreground of this painting is actually a distorted human skull.</li> <li><em>The Music Lesson</em> by Johannes Vermeer – this painting actually hides several sexual innuendos. The girl is playing an instrument called “the virginal” and her lustful expression can be seen in her reflection in the mirror above.</li> <li><em>The Arnolfini Portrait</em> by Jan van Eyck – if you look closely at the script written on the wall in the background, you’ll find it’s actually the artist’s signature. Jackson Pollock later carried through this tradition in his artworks.</li> <li><em>Et In Arcadia Ego</em> by Nicolas Poussin – this painting was the subject of <em>The Da Vinci Code</em> author Dan Brown’s law suit as it is believed reveal the hidden location of Jesus and Mary Magdalene’s marital home.</li> <li><em>The Last Supper</em> by Leonardo da Vinci – if you look above Jesus, you may be able to see a secret code which historians believe to be the foretelling of a coming apocalyptic flood.</li> <li><em>Mona Lisa</em> by Leonardo da Vinci – after half a millennium, art scholars still have questions about the Mona Lisa. Who was she? Why is the background uneven? They even found the letters “LV” in her right eye in 2010 but still don’t know to what they are referring.</li> </ol> <p>Tell us in the comments below, have you seen any of these artworks up close?</p> <p><em>Source: <a href="http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/not-just-bill-clinton-eight-other-secret-messages-hidden-in-art--l14taekKag" target="_blank"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Independent</span></strong></a></em></p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><a href="/entertainment/art/2016/05/computer-creates-a-new-rembrandt-painting/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>Computer creates a new Rembrandt painting</strong></em></span></a></p> <p><a href="/entertainment/art/2016/04/the-highest-selling-artworks-of-all-time/"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>The highest selling artworks of all time</em></span></strong></a></p> <p><a href="/entertainment/art/2016/01/classic-art-reimagined-in-modern-times/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>Artists reimagines classical paintings in modern times</strong></em></span></a></p>

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Forger claims he is the artist behind $200 million da Vinci painting

<p>A convicted forger has claimed that he is the artist behind a 15th century portrait attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci that has been valued at around $200 million and that rather than a European noblewoman, the subject is actually a checkout operator from Bolton.</p> <p>This is the startling claim made by British forger Shaun Greenhalgh in the book A Forger's Tale. Mr Greenhalgh has served nearly five years in prison for forgery in the past.</p> <p>The sketch was sold to a private collector in 2007 for $30,000, but has since been valued at approximately $209 million by noted da Vinci expert Martin Kemp.</p> <p><img width="300" height="399" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/11635/da-vinci.jpg" alt="Da Vinci" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"/></p> <p>The work has been mired in controversy, and this latest incident is not going to help. Mr Greenhalgh suggests he was able to fool high-tech dating technology by digging up his own clay and using charcoal from ancient tress.</p> <p>And as for the subject of the painting, who was working a co-op supermarket? Mr Greenhalgh suggests, “Despite her humble position, she was a bossy little bugger and very self-important.”</p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><a href="/entertainment/art/2015/12/preserve-tattoos-after-you-die/"><strong>One can now keep tattoos forever</strong></a></em></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><a href="/entertainment/art/2015/11/fulvio-obregon-contrasting-celebrity-drawings/"><strong>Celebrities drawn next to their younger selves</strong></a></em></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><a href="/entertainment/art/2015/11/famous-painting-cakes/"><strong>Amazing cakes inspired by famous paintings</strong></a></em></span></p>

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