THE MONA LISA ... The Mona Lisa is a famous painting from the Renaissance by Leonardo da Vinci - and artist, an inventor, and a scientist. She was painted between 1503 and 1505. There is suspicion that the mysterious smiling girl is really a female form of the face of da Vinci. There is no proof that this mysterious woman ever modeled for da Vinci, also leading to these suspicions. Also, x-ray evidence shows that the lines and position that makes up the Mona Lisa are the same in da Vinci’s self-portrait. The way that da Vinci painted Mona makes her look secretive and beautiful, shading both shadow and light together to create the effect of not knowing whether it is night or day. This effect, called the sfumato technique, is a gradual dissolving of the forms themselves, helping the mysterious and secretive air. Another theory on the Mona Lisa is that she was indeed a Florentine woman, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, hence the nickname “La Gioconda”. She was the portrait of grace, as it was supposedly a sign of grace and elegance to smile with a slightly parted lips. Little is known about if she was truly a model, or if she was da Vinci in feminine form. The information on her is as mysterious as her smile. The Mona Lisa was celebrated and everyone loved it. It became even more famous when it was stolen, in fact, in 1911 from the Salon Carré in the Louvre, being rediscovered in a hotel in Florence two years later. The main emphasis on a painting of a model is focused on the corners of the mouth the eyes. In Mona Lisa, however, Leonardo has done the opposite, making these feature particularly vague. The effect: we cannot find out exactly what mood Mona is in. It twists our minds and entrances us to the point where we end up confused, and none the wiser to what we wanted to find out in the first place. Mona is indeed a mysterious woman.