Mona Lisa’s Elements and Principles of Art Essay
Introduction, line and texture, color, shape, and space, balance, emphasis, and subordination, scale and proportion.
The Mona Lisa , painted by Leonardo da Vinci, is among the most famous paintings globally. The artist painted the Mona Lisa due to his fascination with the way light appears on curved surfaces. The image involves a half-body portrait of a woman, and the enigmatic smile of the lady reflects the artist’s idea of the connection between nature and humanity. The excellent and beautiful Mona Lisa painting contains various elements of art, such as line, color, and shape, as well as the principles, for instance, emphasis and rhythm.
Leonardo da Vinci used numerous elements of art in Mona Lisa , for instance, curved lines to represent comfort, loveliness, and gentleness. The picture contains several repeating lines from the clothing folds and the road in the background. Leonardo da Vinci used oil painting which created a smooth texture and slightly glossy surfaces; however, the far set contains slightly rougher underpaintings. Numerous shadings give the figure shape outlining areas where the forehead turns to hair and clothing changes to a hand.
Moreover, the face of the Mona Lisa painting contains warm colors such as orange, yellow, and red, while the background contains cool colors, for instance, green and blue. The artist used realistic quantities of darker shades for shading. The hair comprises layers of transparent color that are slightly thick, contributing to the glowing appearance of the lady’s face (Keshelava 17). Mona Lisa’s painting has a rectangular shape measuring 30 by 20 inches as the artist applied artistic principles to deliver an excellent piece. The figure also contains a sense of depth since it is angled on a chair and background. The figure seems to consist of three triangles, with the lady being the biggest and two locations on the left top and right top corner. It is a two-dimensional space picture having height and width as well as illusionistic with atmospheric perspective.
Leonardo da Vinci applied the principles of art while painting Mona Lisa , for instance, asymmetrical balance. The woman exerts weight on a single side of the painting; however, there is still balance despite the figure’s positioning being off-center. The image emphasizes the woman’s facial expression since she is smiling, and her eyes fall directly in the viewers’ center of vision (Keshelava 18). The smile and the eyes make a subtle expression challenging to capture in most photographs and paintings. The less visually exciting areas are the right and left backgrounds since they seem faded, lacking distinct features or information.
The scale and proportion of the Mona Lisa can be explained using Botero’s version of Mona Lisa , which possesses a similar manipulation. The latter results in distortion of the painting since it has a massive head to body presenting a child-like figure. The Mona Lisa portrait lies in a well-structured space and is painted to a reasonable scale. It is half-length of a woman from head to the waist.
Mona Lisa portrait by Da Vinci implies the elements and principles of art such as emphasis and coordination. The painting has curved lines to indicate comfort and loveliness and a reasonable amount of darker colors for shading. It comprises three triangles with a lady occupying the most prominent space and two left and suitable backgrounds, both being at the top. The positioning of the picture is off-center, exerting weight on one side, thus making it have asymmetrical balance. The emphasis is on the woman’s facial expressions, and the background is less attractive due to inadequate details.
Keshava, Grigol. “Analysis of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa del Giocondo.” International Journal of Health Sciences , vol. 8, no. 3, 2020, pp. 17-20.
- Chicago (A-D)
- Chicago (N-B)
IvyPanda. (2023, October 29). Mona Lisa’s Elements and Principles of Art. https://ivypanda.com/essays/mona-lisas-elements-and-principles-of-art/
"Mona Lisa’s Elements and Principles of Art." IvyPanda , 29 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/mona-lisas-elements-and-principles-of-art/.
IvyPanda . (2023) 'Mona Lisa’s Elements and Principles of Art'. 29 October.
IvyPanda . 2023. "Mona Lisa’s Elements and Principles of Art." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/mona-lisas-elements-and-principles-of-art/.
1. IvyPanda . "Mona Lisa’s Elements and Principles of Art." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/mona-lisas-elements-and-principles-of-art/.
Bibliography
IvyPanda . "Mona Lisa’s Elements and Principles of Art." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/mona-lisas-elements-and-principles-of-art/.
- Mona Lisa and the Last Supper Paintings
- The Ambiguity of Mona Lisa Painting
- “The Mona Lisa” and “Lavender Mist” Paintings Comparison
- Arts Analysis: Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and The Creation
- Leonardo da Vinci and Andy Warhol
- Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa as a Source of Inspiration
- Leonardo da Vinci - Artist, Scientist, Inventor
- Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring
- Art History - Mona Lisa
- Louvre Museum: Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa"
- Paintings by Edward Hopper and Thomas Hart Benton
- The Painting Dempsey and Firpo by George Bellows
- Syncretism in The Mosaic of Christ As the Sun
- Leonardo Da Vinci and His Painting “Last Supper”
- The Impact of the Art Media on the Form and Content
If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.
If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.
To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: europe 1300 - 1800 > unit 4.
- About Leonardo
- Letter to the Duke of Milan
- Leonardo: Anatomist - by Nature Video
- Leonardo and his drawings
- Virgin of the Rocks
- Adoration of the Magi
- “Vitruvian Man”
- Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist (Burlington House Cartoon)
- The Last Supper
Portraits were once rare
The most recognized painting in the world.
"We all know the face and hands of the figure, set in its marble chair, in that circle of fantastic rocks, as in some faint light under sea. Perhaps of all ancient pictures time has chilled it least. The presence that thus rose so strangely beside the waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all 'the ends of the world are come,' and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed!"
A new formula
A recent discovery, want to join the conversation.
- Upvote Button navigates to signup page
- Downvote Button navigates to signup page
- Flag Button navigates to signup page
Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.
To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser .
Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.
- We're Hiring!
- Help Center
Mona Lisa's Smile. Five Centuries of Artistic Appropriation
This is an exhibition catalogue essay for a group show that had to do with the lasting influence of Mona Lisa's portrait by Leonardo da Vinci. As the artists were asked t furnish a work inspired by Mona Lisa, the essay explores the notion of appropriation by referring to specific examples of past artwork, ancient and modern.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.
RELATED TOPICS
- We're Hiring!
- Help Center
- Find new research papers in:
- Health Sciences
- Earth Sciences
- Cognitive Science
- Mathematics
- Computer Science
- Academia ©2024