Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-01-18
LeOnardO's "Mona Lisa. !"

Ss' tO"ef iot VhuunTy COutaln8 paper
on LEONARDO da Vinci," by Clarence
Cook, from which we make the follow
ing extract:
1t was while he was in Florence that
he painted, in 1500-1504, the celebrated
portrait Of Mona Lisa del Giocondo.
the original of which is now in the
Louvre. This lady was the third wife
Of Francisco del Giocondo, and was
married to her husband in 1895. Fran
cesco does not appear to have commits
stoned the portrait; at all events, he
did not own it when it was finished,
and it passed directly from the artists
hands into those of Francis l., who
paid for it the sum of four thousand
gold crowns. So much eloquence, po-
etry, and rhetorical enthusiasm have
been expended upon this famous pic
ture, to say nothing of the WINDY sus-
pirations of forced breath, and mystic
vaporings TO which we are every now
and then treated, that it is pleasant to
turn to Vasari's description of the pic
ture, and hear what was said of il by
one who saw it when it was in its origi-
nal beauty and freshness, before it had
darkened with time. Vassaris descrip
lion deals wholly with externals, and
his enthusiasm vents itself in admira-
ton at the miraculous painting of the
eyes, with their lashes, and the eye
brows, "where fuller and where moro
thickly set, with the separate hairs de-
lineated as they issue from the skin,
every turn eing followed and oil the
pores exhibited in the most natural
manner; the nose, with its beautiful
and delicate roseate nostrils; the mouth,
admirable in its outline, its lips uniting
the rose tints of their color with that of
the face; and the carnation of the cheek
which does not appear to be painted,
but hints of flesh and blood; he who
looks earnestly at the pit of the throat,
cannot but believe he seest the beating of
the pulses" ETC., etc. He tells US, too,
that Mono Lisa was exceedingly beauti-
full, and that while Leonardo was paint
ing her portrait, he had some one con-
stantly near her to sing, or play on in
struments, or to Jest, or otherwise
amuse her, to the end that she might
continue cheerful, and that her face
might not exhibit the melancholy ex-
preston often impaired by painters to
the ikenesses they take. In this por-
trait OF Leonard's. Oh the contrary,
there is 30 pleasing an expression and q
smile so sweet, that while looking at it
one thinks it rather divine than human,
and it has ever been esteemed wonder
full work, since life itself could exhibit
no other appearance.
To understand this eulogy, which
must always have far exceeded the
bounds of truth, it is necessary to remem-
Der that the portrait of Mona Lisa was
the first great portrait in the noble Sc
ries of such works created by the art of
modern times. As in 80 many other
things Leonardo here pointed out the
way, and was himself the first to walk
in it. Raphael was the first who great
ly followed. and in his portrait of NADIA
lena Strozzi, in the Pitt Palace, he is
thought to have tried his hand in rival
ry with the Mona Lisa.
The ecstatic interpretations to which
this famous portrait has been subjected
by English and French writer's find
little countenance in Leonardo's char
acter, as revealed in his other works, in
what we learn from his voluminous
MSS. of the nature of his mind, as we'll
as from the report of his biographers,
and the few hints gathered from acct
dental sources. His art was essentially
logical, and the methods he employed
were the outcome, not Of the imagina-
ton, but of the reason. To him, the
surest way of expressing the personal
ity of his sitter. was to let no point of
his or her physical structure escape his
observation. He believed that the
painting of human being should be-
gin with the marrow OF his bones, and he
would be one of the weightiest author
tiles on the side of whoever should ad-
painting and sculpture on anatomy, in
vocate the founding of the arts of figure
contradiction to those who teach the
uselessness of studying anything below
the skin. The reality and the vividness
of the Mona Lisa, even in these days,
when time has hurt it so, are the logi-
cal result of this long, prolonged
microscopic study of the detail,
united with sleepless eye lest the
largeness of the forms should be BELT
tied or broken up by the minuteness of
the finish.