Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile
Scientists have discovered how the artist managed to achieve his
trademark smoky effect, known as sfumato, on the painting; by applying
up to 40 layers of extremely thin glaze thought to have been smeared on
with his fingers.
The glaze, mixed with subtly different pigments, creates the slight
blurring and shadows around the mouth that give the Mona Lisa her barely
noticeable smile that seems to disappear when looked at directly.
Using X-rays to study the painting, the researchers saw how the
layers of glaze and paint had been built up to varying levels on
different areas of the face.With the drying times for the glaze taking
months, such effects would have taken years to achieve.
The scientists also suspect that he used his fingers to apply the
glaze to his paintings as there are no brush marks or contours visible
on the paintings.
Techniques
Leonardo da Vinci is known to have employed the sfumato effect to
seamlessly blend shading together and to blur outlines. But the exact
techniques used to achieve this have long fascinated and intrigued art
experts.
The new discoveries have been made by scientists at Laboratoire du
Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musees de France and the
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility.
Writing in the scientific journal Angewandle Chemie, Dr Philippe
Walter, who led the study, said: "The perfection of Leonardo da Vinci's
painting technique has always been fascinating.
"The gradation of tones or colours from light to dark is barely
perceptible. Above all, the way the flesh is rendered gives rise to many
comments because of its crucial role in the fascination exerted by
Leonardo's portraits.
Dexterity
"The thinness of the glaze layers must be underlined: it confirms the
dexterity of the painter to apply such thin layers. Moreover, the
measured slow and regular evolution of the thickness of the glaze layers
implies that numerous layers... have to be applied to obtain the darkest
shadows.
"Even today, Leonardo's realisation of such thin layers still remains
an amazing feat."
The team also studied skin tones in six other of Leonardo's most
famous paintings, including Virgin of the Rocks, Madonna of the
Carnation, Saint John the Baptist and the Virgin and the Child
They found that each layer of glaze was around just two micrometers,
around 50 times thinner than a human hair. In the lightest areas of the
skin, the glaze was found to be very thin but in the darkest areas it
had been built up layer upon layer to be up to 55 micrometers thick.
Grains of black and red pigment were also found in the glaze, but
were so small that they would be impossible to detect using conventional
analysis techniques..
Dr Walter and his team believe that Leonardo experimented by creating
different types of glaze and with different pigments to perfect the
sfumato effect. Prof. Francis Ames-Lewis, a distinguished art historian
and vice-president of the Leonardo da Vinci Society, an organisation
devoted to the scholarly study of the Italian painter's work, said:
"Leonardo da Vinci was concerned with producing smooth tonal gradients
from light to dark without any perceptible change like we see in real
life and sfumato was essential to this.
"What is extraordinary is the meticulous way he carried this out and
the precision of his technique. In the Mona Lisa, he captures a complex
and ambiguous personality and conveys it with the help of sfumato.
- Internet |
