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영어

This paper has an intention to re-read a most famous picture of Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa. According to the first critic, G. Vasari, her smile should be a pleasing one, and his pleasing smile discours is until now wildly accepted, and it is by no means easy to be disproved. But E. H. Gombrich proposed not long time ago that da Vinci’s picture Mona Lisa should be re-readed on the whole, and he expressed his sentiments that her smiling should have even a sad look.
It can be highly evaluated that he revealed at last that a discours of G. Vasari could be a myth. At this point my critical question begins: Even though E. H. Gombrich was right to find out the new meaning of her smile, his evidence for that assertion has to be retrospective. In other words, what is the evidence that is necessary enough to prove the sad smile of Mona Lisa? In order to answer this question, I shall suggest three important points. First, I think that the critic of G. Vasari has only the half truth. His detailed descriptions are very helpful to interpret the aura of the masterpiece, but those have vulnerable points. Then he explained even about her eyebrows, although there was no eyebrow in her face. It has raised the question that he had never
seen the picture, and from then on his appreciation has been considered as a myth. At this very point a new reading of Mona Lisa begins as the art historian E. H. Gombrich suggested it. According to him, her smile could be interpreted even as a sad one. Second, the reason why her countenance could be red as sad is to be analysed at three points as follows―contraposto, sfumato, and the natural background. Of these points the most important thing is the natural background. To perceive that da Vinci painted two faces of the nature at the both sides of Mona Lisa, it is the point of the view. The two natures hold respectively three factors in common―the road, the water, and the mountain. The road at the left is curve, the road at the right is straight. The lake at the left is placid, the lake at the right is dangerous. The mountain at the left is tender, the mountain at the right is rough. On the whole, the nature at the left is masculine, and the nature at the right is feminine. It is natural that Mona Lisa looks ambiguous around this double
environment. Lastly, the sad smile of Mona Lisa is in connection with the sad memories of
the painter and the model. Da Vinci was born as an illegitimate child, and at five he had to be separated from his own mother, who married again to another man. This sad life during his childhood remained in his unconsciousness as a trauma. This trauma revived again when he met Mona Lisa. On the other hand, Mona Lisa had also the same trauma. When she was seated as a model in front of the famous painter, she was really happy because her husband’s business was flourishing, settled rightly in a new house, and gave birth to a another child.
But at this very happy instance she remembered her child’s death three years ago. In this meaning it is said that Mona Lisa’s sad smile means ‘the aesthetic of sadness and downfall.’