3D imaging reveals incarnations of 'Mona Lisa'
Posted: 27 September 2006 0749 hrs
OTTAWA : Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" originally wore a delicate
maternity garment, her hair gathered up in a bun, details that have
disappeared under varnish but are now visible under 3D imaging,
scientists said Tuesday.
Researchers of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC)
announced their findings of the first 3D images of the masterpiece,
using a complex laser scanner, at a news conference in
Ottawa.
"This is the 'Mona Lisa' as we have never seen her before," said
NRC president Pierre Coulombe.
A team of NRC researchers had traveled to Paris in October 2004 to
conduct the research on probably the Louvre Museum's most viewed
painting, at the request of the French state museum agency Centre
de Recherche et de Restauration des Musees de France (CRRMF).
The 3D scans revealed that the woman with the enigmatic smile was
originally painted with her hair tied back in a bun, even though
today it appears loose on her shoulders.
The revelation settles an old controversy because only girls or
women of bad virtue wore their hair loose in 16th century Italy,
said CRRMF project leader Bruno Mottin, and the real Mona Lisa was
a woman of social stature.
One of her garments, similar to fashions that pregnant or nursing
women wore in this period, was also lost under yellow varnish and
no longer visible to the naked eye, infrared scans showed.
"This is something that had never been seen until now," Mottin
said.
The real Mona Lisa had three children. Da Vinci was commissioned by
wealthy Florentine businessman Francesco del Giocondo to paint his
wife between 1503 and 1506 after the birth of their second child,
but he kept it and worked on it until his death, likely changing
her hair and other features.
In the original "Mona Lisa," the subject gripped her chair more
tightly, and she is not resting against the back of her chair, as
some believed, but sitting upright, scans showed.
Researchers also gleaned insights about the Da Vinci's painting
technique, including his sfumato or smoke technique of soft,
heavily shaded modeling, said Mottin.
"There is no special mystery in the painting like in (Dan Brown's
book) 'The Da Vinci Code,'" he said. "But, in that painting,
Leonardo tried to capture the essence of life ... It embodies all
his skills ... That is the true mystery we've uncovered."
Researchers identified a lack of brushstrokes, suggesting that Da
Vinci may have used his fingers to paint, except there are no
fingerprints on the artwork.
Scans of the "Mona Lisa" revealed that darker areas, such as the
eyes and corners of her smile, are thicker and "composed of a
succession of thinly applied glaze layers," said NRC scientist
Francois Blais.
However, how Da Vinci actually applied his layers of pigment and
oil medium remains a mystery, he said.
"It's extremely thinly painted and extremely flat, and yet the
details of the curls of hair, for example, are extremely distinct.
So, the technique is unlike anything we've ever seen before," said
John Taylor of the NRC.
A 12-centimeter (4.7-inch) split at the top of the painting, which
worried curators, appears to be stable, NRC scientists said in a
statement.
It was likely caused by the removal of the original frame and
repaired between the middle of the 18th and beginning of the 19th
century, they said.
Also, the poplar wood panel on which Da Vinci painted his
masterwork has a convex warp on the middle right side that is 12
millimeters (0.5 inches) higher than its surroundings, researchers
said, but it does not threaten the "Mona Lisa" smile.
The 3D scans were done over two nights in October 2004 before the
painting was placed in a new glass display case at the Louvre
Museum in Paris.
Mottin said although the Mona Lisa is seen by seven million
visitors to the museum annually, scientists have had few
opportunities to study her in a laboratory -- only once in the
1930s, in 1952 and now.
"She suffers from her celebrity," he said.
The new images will allow curators to continue their research
without touching the canvas, as well as try new restoration
techniques on the 3D model before applying them to the actual
portrait, said Taylor.
The Canadian camera technology has been used previously to scan
Michelangelo's statue "David" and paintings by artists like Renoir
and Corot.
It was also used to create animation for Hollywood movies such as
Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and, onboard the NASA
space shuttle Atlantis, to examine the changing state of the
shuttle's heat tiles during a mission. - AFP /dt
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com
