May 30, 2024 • 30 mins
How did the Mona Lisa get so famous? Why doesn't she have any eyebrows? And why was Picasso investigated for the painting's theft? This episode Will and Mango go deep on the smirking beauty and try to figure out what's really going on behind that sly smile.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what will? What's that? Mango? So I'm
trying to write a poem for the Mona Lisa and
I need little help. Rhyme Zone says there's no perfect
rhyme for Mona Lisa. So what do you think rhyme's best?
(00:24):
Like amnesia anesthesia or moesha? Wait, Mango? First of all,
why are you writing Mona Lisa poem? Because even though
there are over a million pieces of art in the Louver,
the Mona Lisa is the only one who actually receives
her own mail, and people have been writing to the
Mona Lisa since the nineteenth century. She even has her
(00:45):
own mailbox because the painting is so enchanting. So I'm curious, So, like,
what what do people actually write? Some of the letters
express how moved people are by the artwork, and some
ask the smirking Beauty for advice, and some of the
letters actually include marriage proposals.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
It is pretty incredible. I love that people have a
parasocial relationship with a piece of art. I think it's
the first time I've heard about this.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, and it used to be. For years you actually
have to make a trip to the Louver to pass
along your fan mail tour. But these days you can
actually post a letter to the museid Louver service de
public attention dey Mona Lisa, which I've obviously said in
a perfect franch accent. You nailed it, Mango, So I figure,
why not add to the file.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, in that case, maybe try rhyming Mona Lisa with
milk of Magnesia, Mango.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
That's where you would have an answer for me. So
why don't we put the poetry aside for a moment
and dive into today's episode, which is all about the
Mona Lisa.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Hey, their podcast listeners, I'm Will Pearson and as always
I'm here with my good friend Mango and sitting behind
that big booth that's our powd Dylan. Now, Mango, I
know I got here a little bit before you did,
but Dylan was already here. I think he had clocked
in a good half hour before I even sat down,
and he's been holding that weird smile Mona Lisa's style for.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
The last hour. Now. It's really impressive. Yeah, it's weird,
but it's also really captivating. It's also crazy that he
shaved his eyebrows. I mean, it's just spot on to
the Mona Lisa. But that's just the links to Dylan
goes to for these bits. It's truly impressive. Anyway, mego,
let's dive in here. So what is it about the
Mona Lisa that is so captivating? Like?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Why do people stand in lines to get into the
louver just so they can stand in this huge crowd
and try to see this painting? Is it just her
smile or like what is it?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah? So obviously it's not just the smile. First of all,
it's a super good painting, which I believe is a
direct quote from our forum.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I think, I think, I think I remember seeing
that quote. But what makes the painting so unique? Well,
to start with, most sixteenth.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Century portraits of nobility showed off their social status and
their wealth with a lot of like flamboyant clothing. So
the painting's also played up hair styles and accessories. But
you know, if you've seen the Mona Lisa, which is
believed to be this Italian noble Lisa del Giacondo, it's
unique because she's dressed really simply, all of which draws
most of the attention straight to her face and that
(03:34):
weird smile. Yeah, but there's also other stuff, right, So,
typical Italian portraiture used full figure poses, but Mona Lisa
is painted in this revolutionary three fourths length pose. Also,
she's not stoic or demure, which would be typical of
a female portrait. She's she's turning slightly toward the viewer
and she meets our eyes directly like a man typically would,
(03:56):
or a man at the time. And mod Lisa also
showcases some very vinci techniques. What would those be? Yeah?
What is this technique called sfumtu, which means vanished or evaporated. Basically,
Leonardo would create these imperceptible transitions between light and dark
by shading the colors really gradually so that the background
(04:17):
fades into the distance. It's almost like adding a blur filter.
And it's another deviation from traditional Italian portraiture of the time,
which would paint the backgrounds in this same sharp focus
as the central figure. Actually, is this fuma to also
a drink. Yeah, it's in a marrow, which makes sense
because if you drink enough smatu, things are going to
(04:38):
get faded into the background.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, I just want to say it's Fu Matu over
and over. But this is all cool. But I do
think we should get back to the Mona Lisa's weird smile.
I know I keep bringing it up, but I feel
like we have to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, it's the smile that launched a mediocre two thousand
and three movie emego. It's sixty percent on Rotten Tomato,
so I would say, I don't sleep on it. So
I was up.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I just, you know, I like to know what it
gets on rotten tomatoes. But I also looked into Mona
Lisa's smile and it's amazing. Like the preoccupation with the
painting smile dates back to the Renaissance writer and historian
Giorgio Vasari, and he actually said, in this work of Leonardo,
there was a smile so pleasing that it was a
thing more divine than human to behold, and it was
(05:26):
held to be something marvelous in that it was alive.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Which sounds spooky. Sounds spooky.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
But he also wasn't the only one that was so
captivated here. So the treacherous attraction of Moasa's smile is
said to have consumed French artist Luke Maspero too. According
to popular myth, Maspero allegedly ended his life over it.
We actually leapt from the I know it's crazy, actually
leapt from the fourth story window of his Paris hotel room,
(05:54):
and in the note he left behind, he wrote, for years,
I have grappled desperately her smile. I prefer to die.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
That's so dramatic, you know, you know, why would a
smile and a painting drive someone so crazy? It it
feels ludicrous.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, you know what, there's actually some science here, like,
there are explanations for it. Some people who look at
the painting think she's not smiling at all, and that's
because the human eye uses two types of vision. There's
fobial and there's peripheral. Now, fobial or direct vision is
excellent at picking up detail, but is less suited to
picking up things like shadows, and so, according to Margaret Livingstone,
(06:36):
a professor at Harvard Quote, the elusive quality of the
Mona Lisa smile can be explained by the fact that
her smile is almost entirely in low spatial frequencies and
so is seen best by your peripheral vision. It's almost
like an optical illusion, like the more a person stares
straight ahead, the less their peripheral vision actually works.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Oh that's really cool. So I'm at the I'm staring
at the Mona Lisa because I want to take it
all in and get my money's worth. But the harder
I stare, the harder it is for my vision to
register that smile. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
And it's only when you start looking at other parts
of the painting, like the background or hands or the chair,
that's when your eyes really pick up on the smile,
which could sort of strike you as alive, right because
it's not there, and it suddenly appears like Mona Lisa
is finally deigned to smile at you, the sweaty jet
lag tourists who's come all the way to friends to
(07:29):
see her.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
I mean, that's the theory, Mango. You know what's funny
is that I'm really glad you mentioned the chair. Wait, chair,
What did I say about the chair? I don't think
I said anything about the chair, did I Just that
it exists? It trikes out chair. The chair is one
of the most interesting parts of the Mona Lisa, and
one that art historians actually focus on specifically, it's a
(07:52):
Pozetto chair, which means little well, which some historians believe
is a reference to the amphibious nature of Mona Lisa.
She's surrounded by water, She's wearing this green dress, and
if you know she's sitting on a little well, you
can imagine the rivers behind her are flowing into her.
Mm hmm. It's obviously a rich and surprising and ingeniously
conceived work of art. But here's what I've always been
(08:14):
stuck on with the Mona Lisa. Like the Renaissance had
I don't know if you know this, but a lot
of really super good paintings Mago, which also sounds like
a quote from Art Forum.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Straight from it. But seriously, I've always wondered what made
the Mona Lisa stick out amongst all this amazing art,
And through our research, I finally found the answer, Mango.
It's the vibes. Vibes, yeah, yeah, well, the vibes and
incredible marketing, like the Mona Lisa is like the Jeremy
Allen White of Renaissance paintings.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I don't even know what that means.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
All right, well, hear me out on this. So even
before it was in the loop, the Mona Lisa started
out hot like it had this great pedigree. It was
in the royal collection of the literal King of France,
Francis I, and who's court Leonardo spent the last years
of his life. The painting was there for centuries until
the French Revolution claimed the royal collection as the property
(09:08):
of the people. Then Napoleon took it and placed it
in his bedroom because he loved it that much, and
then finally it landed in the Louver. Sure, so there's
like a lot of history there of being owned by
important people. But it was also the heat around Leonardo
da Vinci that helped grow interest in the Mona Lisa,
because something happened in the nineteenth century where Leonardo became
(09:29):
more popular, you know, see, not only as a very
good painter, but also as a great scientist and inventor
of course, and many of his so called inventions were
later debunked, and his contributions to science and architecture came
to be seen as you know, less than they might
have been at first. But this idea of Leonardo as
a genius has continued well into the twenty first century,
(09:50):
and that of course has contributed to the Mona Lisa's popularity.
But then there was Marcel Duchamp's contribution to the painting.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
So you're talking about Deuchamp. The data is too, you know,
made all that fun crazy art, like signed that urinal
and entered it into an art exhibition.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Back guy, Yeah, very same guy. So Duchamp took a
postcard reproduction of the Mona Lisa. This was back in
nineteen nineteen. He drew a beard and mustache on it.
It was like this playful depiction. It was meant to
be in irreverent commentary about the worship of art. But
he also wrote lhoo q across the bottom of the postcard.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Which sounds like, look right, is that us? What was
I mean? Exactly? Well, it's a vulgar phrase for I
guess you could say she's hot, But the polite translation
is there is fire down below, got it? You've never
written that on anything anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
The depiction of the Mona Lisa became a huge thing
to deface of this revered work of art as commentary,
and before a long other artists followed suit and distorted disfigure.
They played with rep reductions of the Mona Lisa, including
Andy Warhol. Actually, over decades, as technology improved, the painting
was endlessly reproduced, sometimes manipulated, sometimes not, and so her
(11:11):
face became one of the most well known in the world,
even to people who don't really care about art.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Right, so, I may have never been to the Loof
or never even heard of Leo da Vinci, But by
the twentieth century, even if I hate art, it's hard
to avoid the Mona Lisa's presence. That's exactly right. In fact,
in the nineteen sixties and seventies, the Mona Lisa was
so famous she went on tour. She traveled to the
US and a first class cabin on an ocean liner
(11:37):
threw about forty thousand people a day to the Metropolitan
Museum in New York City and then in the National
Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. And then after that
she went on to Japan. And of course the popularity
was only increased by that heist too, Right, wait, there
was a heist. It is really really fun, But why
don't we take a quick break before we get to that.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're discussing the
Mona Lisa and Mango.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
You were just telling us about an art theft involving
da Vinci's most famous painting. Is that right? That's right.
So in nineteen eleven, the Mona Lisa had made it
to the Louver, a huge museum in Paris, literally huge like.
At the time, the Louver was the largest building in
the world, with more than a thousand rooms spread out
over forty five acres.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Can you believe, Oh my gosh, that's ridiculous. So what
is the heating bill on a place like that? Can
you imagine?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Nothing? Because it's France, so it's just cold, right, A
good point, that's fair. Anyways, it was a quiet Monday
morning in Paris on the twenty first of August nineteen eleven,
and three men were hurrying out of the Louver, which
is odd so that the museum was closed to visitors
on Mondays. The men were Vincenzo Perusia and the brothers,
Vincenzo and Michelle Lancelotti. They're these young Italian handymen. They
(13:08):
had come to the Louver on Sunday afternoon, hidden overnight
in a storeroom near the Salon care A gallery of
Renaissance paintings, and then in the morning, wearing white workmen's smocks,
they went into the salon and seized a small painting
off the wall. They ripped off the glass, shadow box
and frame, and then they went to a stairwell and
Perusia hid the painting under his clothes, and then they
(13:30):
slipped out of the gallery down a back stairwell, threw
a side entrance and onto the streets of Paris. And
so they stole the Mona Lisa. Yeah, they stole the
Mona Lisa. It took twenty six hours before the louver
staff even noticed that it was missing. You have to
remember how big the louver is, right, and in nineteen
eleven there were fewer than one hundred and fifty guards
looking out for all of that art.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I'm curious, so, like, how did they plan it and
why did they steal it? Like, give me the Ocean's
ta plot here.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Mango before in nineteen ten, a letter was mailed to
the Louver from Vienna which threatened the Mona Lisa. So
museum officials hired a firm named Kobie to put a
dozen of its most prized paintings under glass, and the
work took three months, and one of the men assigned
to the project was Vincenzo Perusia who was one of
the thieves, and Prusia was this Italian worker on a
(14:22):
French construction crew, so they teased him a lot. Prusia
later testified in court that they quote almost always called
me Manja Macaroni or Macaroni eater, and very often they
stole my personal property and salted my wine. So he
was getting at this French crew. Yeah, and you took
(14:43):
it personally. And some accounts say Prusa was motivated by
national pride and he wanted to repatriate Mona Lisa to Italy. Anyway,
there there was this media explosion when the Louver announced
the theft. Newspaper headlines were all over the place, you know,
wanted posters for the painting were hung on Parisian walls,
and crowds masked at police headquarters. And when the Louver
(15:04):
actually reopened after a week, thousands of spectators, including Franz Kafka,
flooded into the salon to stare at the empty wall
where the Mona Lisa had once been. An empty people
are so weird, like why would people line up to
stare at a blank wall? I mean the grief was remarkable, right,
like the national outpouring. According to historians, mimicked the shock
(15:28):
of Princess Diana's death and where was the actual painting
being kept during all of this? So Prussia had squirreled
the Mona Lisa away in this false bottom of the
wooden trunk in his room at a boardinghouse. And when
the Parisian police interrogated him as part of all their interviews,
because they basically interviewed everyone who was working at the
louver at the time, he said he only learned about
(15:48):
the theft from the newspapers and that the reason he
was late to work that Monday in August was that
he had drunk too much the night before and overslept.
But Prusia ultimately wanted money for this world famous painting,
so he twenty eight months and then in December nineteen thirteen,
he left that boarding house with the trunk and he
took a train to Florence, where he tried to offload
the painting to an art dealer, who promptly called the police.
(16:12):
He then had a brief trial in Florence, pleaded guilty,
and ended up serving just eight months in prison. I mean,
I guess it's a fairly happy ending of the story, then, yeah,
and the painting actually went on tour in Italy briefly
before it got sent back to France. But the theft
made the Mona Lisa a global icon. In the first
two days after it was rehung in the Louvers Salon,
(16:33):
more than one hundred thousand people viewed it, and today
eight million people see the Mona Lisa every single year.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Wow, it does feel like Prusia should have gotten like
this pr fee or something like that for boosting the
Mona Lisa's profile.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, but weirdly, you know, there are actually some conspiracy theories.
So some said that theft was the French government's way
of trying to distract the public opinion from uprisings in
colonial West Africa. A few months before the was found,
the New York Times speculated that the Louver Restores had
botched a restoration job and that the museum was just
(17:07):
like concocting this story to cover that up. There was
also a rumor that a gang of international art thieves
had poached the painting and substituted a fake that was
in Perusia's possession when he was caught, which is all
kind of incredible. Whoa really. Yeah, And apparently this Argentinian
also confessed to masterminding the crime. He did this to
American reporter named Carl Decker. He basically said he paid
(17:29):
Perusia and the other two men to steal the painting
because the glass box that protected it weighed two hundred pounds,
so you needed a few men on the job. And
then he said he had six forgeries made and sold
to private collectors. So for a while there was some
question of whether the Mona Lisa and the Louver was
the real deal. And then the other conspiracy theory around
the theft was this whole you know Picasso thing. Wait
(17:52):
what Picasso thing? Yeah, it's kind of incredible. So during
that eighteen month period where the French police were not
arrested the dudes who actually stole the Mona Lisa, they
arrested Pablo Picasso and the poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire.
It started when this guy, Joseph Gary Pierre went to
the Paris Journal and told them that for the past
(18:13):
several years he'd been stealing and then selling minor artwork
from the Louver, and to prove it, Pire produced a
small statue that the Louver curators confirmed with museums, and
the police eventually connected Piree to Apollinaire, who was a
member of Picasso's modernist entourage. They were called labond de Picasso,
and there were this like group of artistic firebrands known
(18:37):
around town as the wild Men of Paris. And it
wasn't really that big a stretch for the police to
assume this ring of art thieves were sophisticated enough to
swipe the Mona Lisa. Of course, neither Apollinaire nor Picasso
had played any part in that painting's disappearance.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
All right, So Picasso and his buddies didn't steal the
Mona Lisa. They were they were innocent.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah. Well, the funny thing is they weren't exactly innocent.
Pierre was telling the truth that Picasso had bought stolen
statues from him and kept them buried in this cupboard
in his Paris apartment. And you know, later the artist
pretended ignorance, like he didn't know they were stolen. But
at the bottom of every statue it was stamped in
bold property of de Louver. That's not a good look. Yeah,
(19:21):
And it got weirder because when pire got put on trial,
it kind of ended up being like this massive farce.
Picasso and his friends confessed to putting their stolen statues
in this old suitcase and almost throwing the bag into
the sind before realizing they couldn't destroy this incredible art.
So upon Air confesses to everything on the stand, but
(19:44):
he also throws in a lot of lies, and Picasso,
who normally liked to project, you know, a supermasho image,
he breaks down and weeps and also says a lot
of nonsense, and it all confuses the judge and he
gets baffled by the whole thing and then ultimately just
dismisses the men with a warning. But because's involvement obviously
(20:04):
only brought the Mona Lisa more press, that is so funny,
all right, Well, let's take a moment to talk about
who the Mona Lisa actually is. Like, who is this
woman whose portrait has been reproduced a ridiculous amount of
times for five hundred plus years. Yeah, it's funny because
I feel like there used to be a real mystery
about who the Mona Lisa was.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
That's right, But back in two thousand and eight, a
German university found conclusive evidence that it's Lisa Gerdini del
Jacondo dated notes from October fifteen oh three, scribbled in
the margins of a book at Heidelberg University's library. They
confirmed that Lisa del Jacondo was indeed the model and
her husband was most likely the man who commissioned the portrait.
(20:46):
The comments comparati Leonardo to the ancient Greek artist at
Pelis and said he was working on three paintings at
the time, one of them a portrait of Lisa del Jacondo,
which sounds pretty conclusive. Yeah, I will say at c
Like for almost any given fact or assertion about the
Mona Lisa, there is someone, often with the fancy Tyler
(21:07):
degree who disputes it, of course, like anything. But probably
the only thing everyone can agree on is that it's rectangular.
But let's go with the Lisa del Jacondo theory for
just a minute. Like, there's been this long standing theory
that Lisa was or had recently been pregnant when she's
set for this portrait, and in two thousand and four,
(21:27):
a series of three D scans essentially confirmed this. The
scans showed this fine gauzy veil around Mona Lisa's shoulders,
this garment that women of the Italian and Renaissance were
when they were expecting it's called a guamelo.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Well, couldn't we just see the veil by looking at
the painting? Like, why do we need three D scans
of all of us? Actually the scans have been able
to tell us a whole lot. Like for a while,
there was this big question over whether the Mona Lisa
didn't have eyelashes or eyebrows, and there was a debate
over whether it was just the fashion at the time
or whether maybe leonah Ardo never actually finished the painting.
(22:02):
But an engineer named Pascal Cote used the scans to
reveal traces of the Mona Lisa's left brow and basically
that the lashes have been obliterated both by time and
this long ago restoration. Also, the scans showed that da
Vinci changed his mind about two fingers on Lisa's left
hand and how they were going to be placed in
(22:22):
the painting, and that her face was originally a little
bit wider and the smile more prominent. So it's really
actually a lot that they can tell from these scans.
That's incredible. I had no idea you could like sort
of see beneath the painting. Call those layers. That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah, it's really really cool. But you know your question
about the veil. As the Mona Lisa aged, her veil
darkened and it made it harder to see. But with
the confirmation of the veil, historians were able to confirm
that Francesco del ja Condo asked for the painting of
his wife to celebrate the birth of his second.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Son, which confirms that Mona Lisa is his wife, Lisa
del Giaconda.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
That's right, actually his third wife to be exact. So
in fourteen ninety five, at the age of fifteen, Lisa
Garadini married prosperous silk and cloth merchant Francisco di Bartolomeo
Diza Nobi del Jacondo. It's a mouthful there, but that's
a pretty awesome name. Lisa and Francesco ended up having
five children, Piero, Camilla, Andrea Jacondo and Marietta. So that's
(23:24):
the Lisa in the Mona Lisa allegedly. Don't tell me
you're getting into conspiracy talk, care mango, Well, I want.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
To end this episode on a crazy note. So did
you know that some people believe there are two Mona Lisas. Oh, Basically,
there's this painting that looks a lot like the Mona Lisa.
It's a painting of a younger woman, kind of like
a fresher, younger Mona Lisa, with dark hair and an
enigmatic smile that sits at a slight angle in front
of a panoramic landscape, which obviously sounds familiar. It's called
(23:55):
the Aleworth Mona Lisa, and long story short, it got
passed around different art collectors over the centuries, including American
collector Henry F. Pulitzer. Pulitzer published a book arguing that
the Aleworth picture was in fact Leonardo's only real portrait
of Mona Lisa. The way did Leonardo actually paint this one?
I mean, some people think so, namely the Mona Lisa Foundation,
(24:19):
who have a vested interest in, you know, furthering this theory,
but most art scholars don't believe. So it's painted on canvas,
and Leonardo usually painted on wood, and they basically say
that it's just not good enough to be by Leonardo
da Vinci. It's just like a bad copy of the
Mona Lisa. But speaking of bad copy, what do you
(24:42):
say we get into the fact of wow? I like
what you did there, manga, Let's do it all right.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
So, one of the strangest things about the Mona Lisa
is that it's been attacked. A bunch in nineteen fifty
six threw a rock at it, which chipped the subject's
left elbow. Over the years, people have thrown acid on it,
They've tried to face it with spray paint, They've thrown
a mug at it, and weirdest of all, it had
a cake thrown in its face as recently as twenty
(25:14):
twenty two.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
That is so weird and disheartening, you know. According to
a book by Diane Hales, over the years, the Mona
Lisa has launched a number of fashion trends, and this
is what she writes. Quote Society women adopted the Mona
Lisa's look by dusting yellow powder on their faces and
necks to suggest her golden complexion, and immobilizing their facial
(25:37):
muscles to mimic her smile, which sounds like an early
imitation of botox. Also quote. In Parisian cabarets, dancers dressed
as Laja Conde, the French name for Mona Lisa, and
performed a saucy can can all right, that's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
All right, Well, did you know, in trying to figure
out who the Mona Lisa was, scientists have actually dug
up bones beneath a convent in Florence. Apparently one of
Lisa's daughters became a nun and in her old age
she moved into the convent with her daughter. So scientists
went digging beneath this chapel. They found bones that do
match up timeline wise with Lisa's death, but they were
(26:16):
hoping to use digital imaging on the skeleton to compare
it to the painting. But apparently there was no skull
found with the bones, and that means her face couldn't
actually be digitally reconstructed.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
So here's a fun one. To keep his subject smiling
or half smiling, Da Vinci had a whole bag of tricks.
He apparently employed six musicians to perform for her, had
people reading stories out loud to her, and also had
a fluffy white cat and a greyhound dog for her
to play with on set. All right, will people often
speculate how much the Mona Lisa is worse. Back in
(26:50):
nineteen sixty two, when the painting went on tour, the
price was placed at about one hundred million dollars, which
is around eight hundred and thirty four million dollars in
today's currency, but others estimated it's actually worth more. One
Entre Dour placed it in the billions of dollars because
of its value to France and the amount of tourism
the painting generates. Of course, all of that is actually
(27:12):
mood because it's illegal to buy or sell the Mona
Lisa in France. I love that they made it illegal
to buy its. Yeah, don't try it. So one of
the things I wanted to understand was why the Mona
Lisa ended up in France. And apparently Leonardo had started
painting Lisa in Italy, but when his patron, the Medici,
the brother of Pope Leo the ten, died, he wasn't
(27:35):
getting commissions in Italy. So you know, the French were
very welcoming. They praised his genius, so he moves there.
But some of the first damage to the Mona Lisa
actually happened early on. It happened when King Francis the
First owned the painting. He hung it in his bathing
suite where the steam actually dulled the color, and when
a restorer tried to preserve the color by putting the
(27:56):
lacquer on it, he permanently dulled it. All right, Well
here's one to close it out, mango. Did you know
that there is a scientist who claims to have figured
out what the Mona Lisa actually sounded like. This was
part of a promotion for the Japanese version of The
da Vinci Code. Montsumi Suzuki used the measurement from the
painting's face and hands to figure out how big her
(28:17):
skull would have been, also to determine her height about
five foot six inches. Then they used data simulation to
recreate the vocal cords to figure out her pitch and
apparently the voice is somewhat deep. Now, we also figured
out what Leonardo da Vinci's voice sounded like, and apparently
it was super nasal. I love that. Yeah, I do
(28:39):
wonder if knowing that da Vinci was nasal helps, you know,
help sell tickets for the movie. But whatever the case,
the fact is so good it makes me want to
give you this week's trophy. And also I'm thinking we
should stop the fact off just to get Dylan some
rogaine for his eyebrows, because totally went above and beyond.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
I mean, he just tries so hard that Dylan. All right, Well,
that's it for this week's Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
To remember.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
If you want to tell us anything about the show,
If you want to ask us questions, send in your
own poems about the Mona Lisa, just email our mothers
at PT genius Moms at gmail dot com. That's the letter,
p the letter T Genius Moms at gmail dot com.
They'll make sure we get the message.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Meng.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I don't know if you knew we created this email address,
but it's it's pretty amazing, so send us notes here.
That's right, Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongaechatikler
and research by our goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode
was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan, with
a from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for
iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social media
(30:07):
support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viny Shorey.
For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what will? What's that? Mango? So I'm
trying to write a poem for the Mona Lisa and
I need little help. Rhyme Zone says there's no perfect
rhyme for Mona Lisa. So what do you think rhyme's best?
(00:24):
Like amnesia anesthesia or moesha? Wait, Mango? First of all,
why are you writing Mona Lisa poem? Because even though
there are over a million pieces of art in the Louver,
the Mona Lisa is the only one who actually receives
her own mail, and people have been writing to the
Mona Lisa since the nineteenth century. She even has her
(00:45):
own mailbox because the painting is so enchanting. So I'm curious, So, like,
what what do people actually write? Some of the letters
express how moved people are by the artwork, and some
ask the smirking Beauty for advice, and some of the
letters actually include marriage proposals.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
It is pretty incredible. I love that people have a
parasocial relationship with a piece of art. I think it's
the first time I've heard about this.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, and it used to be. For years you actually
have to make a trip to the Louver to pass
along your fan mail tour. But these days you can
actually post a letter to the museid Louver service de
public attention dey Mona Lisa, which I've obviously said in
a perfect franch accent. You nailed it, Mango, So I figure,
why not add to the file.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, in that case, maybe try rhyming Mona Lisa with
milk of Magnesia, Mango.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
That's where you would have an answer for me. So
why don't we put the poetry aside for a moment
and dive into today's episode, which is all about the
Mona Lisa.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Hey, their podcast listeners, I'm Will Pearson and as always
I'm here with my good friend Mango and sitting behind
that big booth that's our powd Dylan. Now, Mango, I
know I got here a little bit before you did,
but Dylan was already here. I think he had clocked
in a good half hour before I even sat down,
and he's been holding that weird smile Mona Lisa's style for.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
The last hour. Now. It's really impressive. Yeah, it's weird,
but it's also really captivating. It's also crazy that he
shaved his eyebrows. I mean, it's just spot on to
the Mona Lisa. But that's just the links to Dylan
goes to for these bits. It's truly impressive. Anyway, mego,
let's dive in here. So what is it about the
Mona Lisa that is so captivating? Like?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Why do people stand in lines to get into the
louver just so they can stand in this huge crowd
and try to see this painting? Is it just her
smile or like what is it?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah? So obviously it's not just the smile. First of all,
it's a super good painting, which I believe is a
direct quote from our forum.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I think, I think, I think I remember seeing
that quote. But what makes the painting so unique? Well,
to start with, most sixteenth.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Century portraits of nobility showed off their social status and
their wealth with a lot of like flamboyant clothing. So
the painting's also played up hair styles and accessories. But
you know, if you've seen the Mona Lisa, which is
believed to be this Italian noble Lisa del Giacondo, it's
unique because she's dressed really simply, all of which draws
most of the attention straight to her face and that
(03:34):
weird smile. Yeah, but there's also other stuff, right, So,
typical Italian portraiture used full figure poses, but Mona Lisa
is painted in this revolutionary three fourths length pose. Also,
she's not stoic or demure, which would be typical of
a female portrait. She's she's turning slightly toward the viewer
and she meets our eyes directly like a man typically would,
(03:56):
or a man at the time. And mod Lisa also
showcases some very vinci techniques. What would those be? Yeah?
What is this technique called sfumtu, which means vanished or evaporated. Basically,
Leonardo would create these imperceptible transitions between light and dark
by shading the colors really gradually so that the background
(04:17):
fades into the distance. It's almost like adding a blur filter.
And it's another deviation from traditional Italian portraiture of the time,
which would paint the backgrounds in this same sharp focus
as the central figure. Actually, is this fuma to also
a drink. Yeah, it's in a marrow, which makes sense
because if you drink enough smatu, things are going to
(04:38):
get faded into the background.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, I just want to say it's Fu Matu over
and over. But this is all cool. But I do
think we should get back to the Mona Lisa's weird smile.
I know I keep bringing it up, but I feel
like we have to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, it's the smile that launched a mediocre two thousand
and three movie emego. It's sixty percent on Rotten Tomato,
so I would say, I don't sleep on it. So
I was up.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I just, you know, I like to know what it
gets on rotten tomatoes. But I also looked into Mona
Lisa's smile and it's amazing. Like the preoccupation with the
painting smile dates back to the Renaissance writer and historian
Giorgio Vasari, and he actually said, in this work of Leonardo,
there was a smile so pleasing that it was a
thing more divine than human to behold, and it was
(05:26):
held to be something marvelous in that it was alive.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Which sounds spooky. Sounds spooky.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
But he also wasn't the only one that was so
captivated here. So the treacherous attraction of Moasa's smile is
said to have consumed French artist Luke Maspero too. According
to popular myth, Maspero allegedly ended his life over it.
We actually leapt from the I know it's crazy, actually
leapt from the fourth story window of his Paris hotel room,
(05:54):
and in the note he left behind, he wrote, for years,
I have grappled desperately her smile. I prefer to die.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
That's so dramatic, you know, you know, why would a
smile and a painting drive someone so crazy? It it
feels ludicrous.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, you know what, there's actually some science here, like,
there are explanations for it. Some people who look at
the painting think she's not smiling at all, and that's
because the human eye uses two types of vision. There's
fobial and there's peripheral. Now, fobial or direct vision is
excellent at picking up detail, but is less suited to
picking up things like shadows, and so, according to Margaret Livingstone,
(06:36):
a professor at Harvard Quote, the elusive quality of the
Mona Lisa smile can be explained by the fact that
her smile is almost entirely in low spatial frequencies and
so is seen best by your peripheral vision. It's almost
like an optical illusion, like the more a person stares
straight ahead, the less their peripheral vision actually works.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Oh that's really cool. So I'm at the I'm staring
at the Mona Lisa because I want to take it
all in and get my money's worth. But the harder
I stare, the harder it is for my vision to
register that smile. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
And it's only when you start looking at other parts
of the painting, like the background or hands or the chair,
that's when your eyes really pick up on the smile,
which could sort of strike you as alive, right because
it's not there, and it suddenly appears like Mona Lisa
is finally deigned to smile at you, the sweaty jet
lag tourists who's come all the way to friends to
(07:29):
see her.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
I mean, that's the theory, Mango. You know what's funny
is that I'm really glad you mentioned the chair. Wait, chair,
What did I say about the chair? I don't think
I said anything about the chair, did I Just that
it exists? It trikes out chair. The chair is one
of the most interesting parts of the Mona Lisa, and
one that art historians actually focus on specifically, it's a
(07:52):
Pozetto chair, which means little well, which some historians believe
is a reference to the amphibious nature of Mona Lisa.
She's surrounded by water, She's wearing this green dress, and
if you know she's sitting on a little well, you
can imagine the rivers behind her are flowing into her.
Mm hmm. It's obviously a rich and surprising and ingeniously
conceived work of art. But here's what I've always been
(08:14):
stuck on with the Mona Lisa. Like the Renaissance had
I don't know if you know this, but a lot
of really super good paintings Mago, which also sounds like
a quote from Art Forum.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Straight from it. But seriously, I've always wondered what made
the Mona Lisa stick out amongst all this amazing art,
And through our research, I finally found the answer, Mango.
It's the vibes. Vibes, yeah, yeah, well, the vibes and
incredible marketing, like the Mona Lisa is like the Jeremy
Allen White of Renaissance paintings.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I don't even know what that means.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
All right, well, hear me out on this. So even
before it was in the loop, the Mona Lisa started
out hot like it had this great pedigree. It was
in the royal collection of the literal King of France,
Francis I, and who's court Leonardo spent the last years
of his life. The painting was there for centuries until
the French Revolution claimed the royal collection as the property
(09:08):
of the people. Then Napoleon took it and placed it
in his bedroom because he loved it that much, and
then finally it landed in the Louver. Sure, so there's
like a lot of history there of being owned by
important people. But it was also the heat around Leonardo
da Vinci that helped grow interest in the Mona Lisa,
because something happened in the nineteenth century where Leonardo became
(09:29):
more popular, you know, see, not only as a very
good painter, but also as a great scientist and inventor
of course, and many of his so called inventions were
later debunked, and his contributions to science and architecture came
to be seen as you know, less than they might
have been at first. But this idea of Leonardo as
a genius has continued well into the twenty first century,
(09:50):
and that of course has contributed to the Mona Lisa's popularity.
But then there was Marcel Duchamp's contribution to the painting.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
So you're talking about Deuchamp. The data is too, you know,
made all that fun crazy art, like signed that urinal
and entered it into an art exhibition.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Back guy, Yeah, very same guy. So Duchamp took a
postcard reproduction of the Mona Lisa. This was back in
nineteen nineteen. He drew a beard and mustache on it.
It was like this playful depiction. It was meant to
be in irreverent commentary about the worship of art. But
he also wrote lhoo q across the bottom of the postcard.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Which sounds like, look right, is that us? What was
I mean? Exactly? Well, it's a vulgar phrase for I
guess you could say she's hot, But the polite translation
is there is fire down below, got it? You've never
written that on anything anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
The depiction of the Mona Lisa became a huge thing
to deface of this revered work of art as commentary,
and before a long other artists followed suit and distorted disfigure.
They played with rep reductions of the Mona Lisa, including
Andy Warhol. Actually, over decades, as technology improved, the painting
was endlessly reproduced, sometimes manipulated, sometimes not, and so her
(11:11):
face became one of the most well known in the world,
even to people who don't really care about art.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Right, so, I may have never been to the Loof
or never even heard of Leo da Vinci, But by
the twentieth century, even if I hate art, it's hard
to avoid the Mona Lisa's presence. That's exactly right. In fact,
in the nineteen sixties and seventies, the Mona Lisa was
so famous she went on tour. She traveled to the
US and a first class cabin on an ocean liner
(11:37):
threw about forty thousand people a day to the Metropolitan
Museum in New York City and then in the National
Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. And then after that
she went on to Japan. And of course the popularity
was only increased by that heist too, Right, wait, there
was a heist. It is really really fun, But why
don't we take a quick break before we get to that.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're discussing the
Mona Lisa and Mango.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
You were just telling us about an art theft involving
da Vinci's most famous painting. Is that right? That's right.
So in nineteen eleven, the Mona Lisa had made it
to the Louver, a huge museum in Paris, literally huge like.
At the time, the Louver was the largest building in
the world, with more than a thousand rooms spread out
over forty five acres.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Can you believe, Oh my gosh, that's ridiculous. So what
is the heating bill on a place like that? Can
you imagine?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Nothing? Because it's France, so it's just cold, right, A
good point, that's fair. Anyways, it was a quiet Monday
morning in Paris on the twenty first of August nineteen eleven,
and three men were hurrying out of the Louver, which
is odd so that the museum was closed to visitors
on Mondays. The men were Vincenzo Perusia and the brothers,
Vincenzo and Michelle Lancelotti. They're these young Italian handymen. They
(13:08):
had come to the Louver on Sunday afternoon, hidden overnight
in a storeroom near the Salon care A gallery of
Renaissance paintings, and then in the morning, wearing white workmen's smocks,
they went into the salon and seized a small painting
off the wall. They ripped off the glass, shadow box
and frame, and then they went to a stairwell and
Perusia hid the painting under his clothes, and then they
(13:30):
slipped out of the gallery down a back stairwell, threw
a side entrance and onto the streets of Paris. And
so they stole the Mona Lisa. Yeah, they stole the
Mona Lisa. It took twenty six hours before the louver
staff even noticed that it was missing. You have to
remember how big the louver is, right, and in nineteen
eleven there were fewer than one hundred and fifty guards
looking out for all of that art.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I'm curious, so, like, how did they plan it and
why did they steal it? Like, give me the Ocean's
ta plot here.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Mango before in nineteen ten, a letter was mailed to
the Louver from Vienna which threatened the Mona Lisa. So
museum officials hired a firm named Kobie to put a
dozen of its most prized paintings under glass, and the
work took three months, and one of the men assigned
to the project was Vincenzo Perusia who was one of
the thieves, and Prusia was this Italian worker on a
(14:22):
French construction crew, so they teased him a lot. Prusia
later testified in court that they quote almost always called
me Manja Macaroni or Macaroni eater, and very often they
stole my personal property and salted my wine. So he
was getting at this French crew. Yeah, and you took
(14:43):
it personally. And some accounts say Prusa was motivated by
national pride and he wanted to repatriate Mona Lisa to Italy. Anyway,
there there was this media explosion when the Louver announced
the theft. Newspaper headlines were all over the place, you know,
wanted posters for the painting were hung on Parisian walls,
and crowds masked at police headquarters. And when the Louver
(15:04):
actually reopened after a week, thousands of spectators, including Franz Kafka,
flooded into the salon to stare at the empty wall
where the Mona Lisa had once been. An empty people
are so weird, like why would people line up to
stare at a blank wall? I mean the grief was remarkable, right,
like the national outpouring. According to historians, mimicked the shock
(15:28):
of Princess Diana's death and where was the actual painting
being kept during all of this? So Prussia had squirreled
the Mona Lisa away in this false bottom of the
wooden trunk in his room at a boardinghouse. And when
the Parisian police interrogated him as part of all their interviews,
because they basically interviewed everyone who was working at the
louver at the time, he said he only learned about
(15:48):
the theft from the newspapers and that the reason he
was late to work that Monday in August was that
he had drunk too much the night before and overslept.
But Prusia ultimately wanted money for this world famous painting,
so he twenty eight months and then in December nineteen thirteen,
he left that boarding house with the trunk and he
took a train to Florence, where he tried to offload
the painting to an art dealer, who promptly called the police.
(16:12):
He then had a brief trial in Florence, pleaded guilty,
and ended up serving just eight months in prison. I mean,
I guess it's a fairly happy ending of the story, then, yeah,
and the painting actually went on tour in Italy briefly
before it got sent back to France. But the theft
made the Mona Lisa a global icon. In the first
two days after it was rehung in the Louvers Salon,
(16:33):
more than one hundred thousand people viewed it, and today
eight million people see the Mona Lisa every single year.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Wow, it does feel like Prusia should have gotten like
this pr fee or something like that for boosting the
Mona Lisa's profile.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, but weirdly, you know, there are actually some conspiracy theories.
So some said that theft was the French government's way
of trying to distract the public opinion from uprisings in
colonial West Africa. A few months before the was found,
the New York Times speculated that the Louver Restores had
botched a restoration job and that the museum was just
(17:07):
like concocting this story to cover that up. There was
also a rumor that a gang of international art thieves
had poached the painting and substituted a fake that was
in Perusia's possession when he was caught, which is all
kind of incredible. Whoa really. Yeah, And apparently this Argentinian
also confessed to masterminding the crime. He did this to
American reporter named Carl Decker. He basically said he paid
(17:29):
Perusia and the other two men to steal the painting
because the glass box that protected it weighed two hundred pounds,
so you needed a few men on the job. And
then he said he had six forgeries made and sold
to private collectors. So for a while there was some
question of whether the Mona Lisa and the Louver was
the real deal. And then the other conspiracy theory around
the theft was this whole you know Picasso thing. Wait
(17:52):
what Picasso thing? Yeah, it's kind of incredible. So during
that eighteen month period where the French police were not
arrested the dudes who actually stole the Mona Lisa, they
arrested Pablo Picasso and the poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire.
It started when this guy, Joseph Gary Pierre went to
the Paris Journal and told them that for the past
(18:13):
several years he'd been stealing and then selling minor artwork
from the Louver, and to prove it, Pire produced a
small statue that the Louver curators confirmed with museums, and
the police eventually connected Piree to Apollinaire, who was a
member of Picasso's modernist entourage. They were called labond de Picasso,
and there were this like group of artistic firebrands known
(18:37):
around town as the wild Men of Paris. And it
wasn't really that big a stretch for the police to
assume this ring of art thieves were sophisticated enough to
swipe the Mona Lisa. Of course, neither Apollinaire nor Picasso
had played any part in that painting's disappearance.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
All right, So Picasso and his buddies didn't steal the
Mona Lisa. They were they were innocent.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah. Well, the funny thing is they weren't exactly innocent.
Pierre was telling the truth that Picasso had bought stolen
statues from him and kept them buried in this cupboard
in his Paris apartment. And you know, later the artist
pretended ignorance, like he didn't know they were stolen. But
at the bottom of every statue it was stamped in
bold property of de Louver. That's not a good look. Yeah,
(19:21):
And it got weirder because when pire got put on trial,
it kind of ended up being like this massive farce.
Picasso and his friends confessed to putting their stolen statues
in this old suitcase and almost throwing the bag into
the sind before realizing they couldn't destroy this incredible art.
So upon Air confesses to everything on the stand, but
(19:44):
he also throws in a lot of lies, and Picasso,
who normally liked to project, you know, a supermasho image,
he breaks down and weeps and also says a lot
of nonsense, and it all confuses the judge and he
gets baffled by the whole thing and then ultimately just
dismisses the men with a warning. But because's involvement obviously
(20:04):
only brought the Mona Lisa more press, that is so funny,
all right, Well, let's take a moment to talk about
who the Mona Lisa actually is. Like, who is this
woman whose portrait has been reproduced a ridiculous amount of
times for five hundred plus years. Yeah, it's funny because
I feel like there used to be a real mystery
about who the Mona Lisa was.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
That's right, But back in two thousand and eight, a
German university found conclusive evidence that it's Lisa Gerdini del
Jacondo dated notes from October fifteen oh three, scribbled in
the margins of a book at Heidelberg University's library. They
confirmed that Lisa del Jacondo was indeed the model and
her husband was most likely the man who commissioned the portrait.
(20:46):
The comments comparati Leonardo to the ancient Greek artist at
Pelis and said he was working on three paintings at
the time, one of them a portrait of Lisa del Jacondo,
which sounds pretty conclusive. Yeah, I will say at c
Like for almost any given fact or assertion about the
Mona Lisa, there is someone, often with the fancy Tyler
(21:07):
degree who disputes it, of course, like anything. But probably
the only thing everyone can agree on is that it's rectangular.
But let's go with the Lisa del Jacondo theory for
just a minute. Like, there's been this long standing theory
that Lisa was or had recently been pregnant when she's
set for this portrait, and in two thousand and four,
(21:27):
a series of three D scans essentially confirmed this. The
scans showed this fine gauzy veil around Mona Lisa's shoulders,
this garment that women of the Italian and Renaissance were
when they were expecting it's called a guamelo.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Well, couldn't we just see the veil by looking at
the painting? Like, why do we need three D scans
of all of us? Actually the scans have been able
to tell us a whole lot. Like for a while,
there was this big question over whether the Mona Lisa
didn't have eyelashes or eyebrows, and there was a debate
over whether it was just the fashion at the time
or whether maybe leonah Ardo never actually finished the painting.
(22:02):
But an engineer named Pascal Cote used the scans to
reveal traces of the Mona Lisa's left brow and basically
that the lashes have been obliterated both by time and
this long ago restoration. Also, the scans showed that da
Vinci changed his mind about two fingers on Lisa's left
hand and how they were going to be placed in
(22:22):
the painting, and that her face was originally a little
bit wider and the smile more prominent. So it's really
actually a lot that they can tell from these scans.
That's incredible. I had no idea you could like sort
of see beneath the painting. Call those layers. That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah, it's really really cool. But you know your question
about the veil. As the Mona Lisa aged, her veil
darkened and it made it harder to see. But with
the confirmation of the veil, historians were able to confirm
that Francesco del ja Condo asked for the painting of
his wife to celebrate the birth of his second.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Son, which confirms that Mona Lisa is his wife, Lisa
del Giaconda.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
That's right, actually his third wife to be exact. So
in fourteen ninety five, at the age of fifteen, Lisa
Garadini married prosperous silk and cloth merchant Francisco di Bartolomeo
Diza Nobi del Jacondo. It's a mouthful there, but that's
a pretty awesome name. Lisa and Francesco ended up having
five children, Piero, Camilla, Andrea Jacondo and Marietta. So that's
(23:24):
the Lisa in the Mona Lisa allegedly. Don't tell me
you're getting into conspiracy talk, care mango, Well, I want.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
To end this episode on a crazy note. So did
you know that some people believe there are two Mona Lisas. Oh, Basically,
there's this painting that looks a lot like the Mona Lisa.
It's a painting of a younger woman, kind of like
a fresher, younger Mona Lisa, with dark hair and an
enigmatic smile that sits at a slight angle in front
of a panoramic landscape, which obviously sounds familiar. It's called
(23:55):
the Aleworth Mona Lisa, and long story short, it got
passed around different art collectors over the centuries, including American
collector Henry F. Pulitzer. Pulitzer published a book arguing that
the Aleworth picture was in fact Leonardo's only real portrait
of Mona Lisa. The way did Leonardo actually paint this one?
I mean, some people think so, namely the Mona Lisa Foundation,
(24:19):
who have a vested interest in, you know, furthering this theory,
but most art scholars don't believe. So it's painted on canvas,
and Leonardo usually painted on wood, and they basically say
that it's just not good enough to be by Leonardo
da Vinci. It's just like a bad copy of the
Mona Lisa. But speaking of bad copy, what do you
(24:42):
say we get into the fact of wow? I like
what you did there, manga, Let's do it all right.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
So, one of the strangest things about the Mona Lisa
is that it's been attacked. A bunch in nineteen fifty
six threw a rock at it, which chipped the subject's
left elbow. Over the years, people have thrown acid on it,
They've tried to face it with spray paint, They've thrown
a mug at it, and weirdest of all, it had
a cake thrown in its face as recently as twenty
(25:14):
twenty two.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
That is so weird and disheartening, you know. According to
a book by Diane Hales, over the years, the Mona
Lisa has launched a number of fashion trends, and this
is what she writes. Quote Society women adopted the Mona
Lisa's look by dusting yellow powder on their faces and
necks to suggest her golden complexion, and immobilizing their facial
(25:37):
muscles to mimic her smile, which sounds like an early
imitation of botox. Also quote. In Parisian cabarets, dancers dressed
as Laja Conde, the French name for Mona Lisa, and
performed a saucy can can all right, that's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
All right, Well, did you know, in trying to figure
out who the Mona Lisa was, scientists have actually dug
up bones beneath a convent in Florence. Apparently one of
Lisa's daughters became a nun and in her old age
she moved into the convent with her daughter. So scientists
went digging beneath this chapel. They found bones that do
match up timeline wise with Lisa's death, but they were
(26:16):
hoping to use digital imaging on the skeleton to compare
it to the painting. But apparently there was no skull
found with the bones, and that means her face couldn't
actually be digitally reconstructed.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
So here's a fun one. To keep his subject smiling
or half smiling, Da Vinci had a whole bag of tricks.
He apparently employed six musicians to perform for her, had
people reading stories out loud to her, and also had
a fluffy white cat and a greyhound dog for her
to play with on set. All right, will people often
speculate how much the Mona Lisa is worse. Back in
(26:50):
nineteen sixty two, when the painting went on tour, the
price was placed at about one hundred million dollars, which
is around eight hundred and thirty four million dollars in
today's currency, but others estimated it's actually worth more. One
Entre Dour placed it in the billions of dollars because
of its value to France and the amount of tourism
the painting generates. Of course, all of that is actually
(27:12):
mood because it's illegal to buy or sell the Mona
Lisa in France. I love that they made it illegal
to buy its. Yeah, don't try it. So one of
the things I wanted to understand was why the Mona
Lisa ended up in France. And apparently Leonardo had started
painting Lisa in Italy, but when his patron, the Medici,
the brother of Pope Leo the ten, died, he wasn't
(27:35):
getting commissions in Italy. So you know, the French were
very welcoming. They praised his genius, so he moves there.
But some of the first damage to the Mona Lisa
actually happened early on. It happened when King Francis the
First owned the painting. He hung it in his bathing
suite where the steam actually dulled the color, and when
a restorer tried to preserve the color by putting the
(27:56):
lacquer on it, he permanently dulled it. All right, Well
here's one to close it out, mango. Did you know
that there is a scientist who claims to have figured
out what the Mona Lisa actually sounded like. This was
part of a promotion for the Japanese version of The
da Vinci Code. Montsumi Suzuki used the measurement from the
painting's face and hands to figure out how big her
(28:17):
skull would have been, also to determine her height about
five foot six inches. Then they used data simulation to
recreate the vocal cords to figure out her pitch and
apparently the voice is somewhat deep. Now, we also figured
out what Leonardo da Vinci's voice sounded like, and apparently
it was super nasal. I love that. Yeah, I do
(28:39):
wonder if knowing that da Vinci was nasal helps, you know,
help sell tickets for the movie. But whatever the case,
the fact is so good it makes me want to
give you this week's trophy. And also I'm thinking we
should stop the fact off just to get Dylan some
rogaine for his eyebrows, because totally went above and beyond.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
I mean, he just tries so hard that Dylan. All right, Well,
that's it for this week's Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
To remember.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
If you want to tell us anything about the show,
If you want to ask us questions, send in your
own poems about the Mona Lisa, just email our mothers
at PT genius Moms at gmail dot com. That's the letter,
p the letter T Genius Moms at gmail dot com.
They'll make sure we get the message.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Meng.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I don't know if you knew we created this email address,
but it's it's pretty amazing, so send us notes here.
That's right, Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongaechatikler
and research by our goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode
was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan, with
a from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for
iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social media
(30:07):
support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viny Shorey.
For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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