Mona Lisa also known as La Gioconda or La Joconde is a sixteenth-century portrait painted in oil on a poplar panel in Florence, Italy by Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci during the Renaissance.
The work is currently owned by the Government of France and is on display at the Musée du Louvre museum in Paris under the title Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo.
Arguably, it is the most famous and iconic painting in the world.
The painting is a half-length portrait and depicts a seated woman whose facial expression is frequently described as enigmatic.Others believe that the slight smile is an indication that the subject is hiding a secret. The mystery behind the ambiguity of the subject's expression have been revealed,solved by scientists.
For nearly five hundred years , people have gazed at leonardo da vinci's portrait of monalisa with a sense of bafflement . First she is smiling ,then the smile fades a moment later it returns,only to disappear again. Now, scientists claim to have uncovered the secret of how davinci produced the optical effects that created monalisa's enigmatic smile.
A team in europe has found that artist managed to achieve this smoky effect known as "sfumato" on the painting by applying up to fourty layers of extremely thin glaze,thought to have been smeared on with his fingers.
