Mona Lisa by https://padlet.com/vtispanagiotis/98ks43t8f4ychu46 The Mysterious Painting en-us 2021-11-29 16:36:27 UTC 2025-05-05 22:16:28 UTC hello@padlet.com vtispanagiotis https://padlet.com/vtispanagiotis/98ks43t8f4ychu46/wish/1918393431 2021-11-29 16:39:07 UTC https://padlet.com/vtispanagiotis/98ks43t8f4ychu46/wish/1918393431 vtispanagiotis https://padlet.com/vtispanagiotis/98ks43t8f4ychu46/wish/1918397603 The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance,it has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world". The painting's novel qualities include the subject's enigmatic expression,the monumentality of the composition, the subtle modelling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism]]> 2021-11-29 16:40:37 UTC https://padlet.com/vtispanagiotis/98ks43t8f4ychu46/wish/1918397603 vtispanagiotis https://padlet.com/vtispanagiotis/98ks43t8f4ychu46/wish/1918401854
The painting was one of the first portraits to depict the sitter in front of an imaginary landscape, and Leonardo was one of the first painters to use aerial perspective. The enigmatic woman is portrayed seated in what appears to be an open loggia with dark pillar bases on either side. Behind her, a vast landscape recedes to icy mountains. Winding paths and a distant bridge give only the slightest indications of human presence. Leonardo has chosen to place the horizon line not at the neck, as he did with Ginevra de' Benci, but on a level with the eyes, thus linking the figure with the landscape and emphasizing the mysterious nature of the painting.
Mona Lisa has no clearly visible eyebrows or eyelashes, although Vasari describes the eyebrows in detail. In 2007, French engineer Pascal Cotte announced that his ultra-high resolution scans of the painting provide evidence that Mona Lisa was originally painted with eyelashes and eyebrows, but that these had gradually disappeared over time, perhaps as a result of overcleaning. Cotte discovered the painting had been reworked several times, with changes made to the size of the Mona Lisa's face and the direction of her gaze. He also found that in one layer the subject was depicted wearing numerous hairpins and a headdress adorned with pearls which were later scrubbed out and overpainted.

]]> 2021-11-29 16:42:14 UTC https://padlet.com/vtispanagiotis/98ks43t8f4ychu46/wish/1918401854 What is '' Aerial Perspective''? vtispanagiotis https://padlet.com/vtispanagiotis/98ks43t8f4ychu46/wish/1918408740 2021-11-29 16:44:48 UTC https://padlet.com/vtispanagiotis/98ks43t8f4ychu46/wish/1918408740 Fame vtispanagiotis https://padlet.com/vtispanagiotis/98ks43t8f4ychu46/wish/1918420711
Today the Mona Lisa is considered the most famous painting in the world, a destination painting, but until the 20th century it was simply one among many highly regarded artworks. Once part of King Francis I of France's collection, the Mona Lisa was among the first artworks to be exhibited in the Louvre, which became a national museum after the French Revolution. Leonardo began to be revered as a genius, and the painting's popularity grew in the mid-19th century when French intelligentsia praised it as mysterious and a representation of the femme fatale. The Baedeker guide in 1878 called it "the most celebrated work of Leonardo in the Louvre", but the painting was known more by the intelligentsia than the general public.

The 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa and its subsequent return was reported worldwide, leading to a massive increase in public recognition of the painting. During the 20th century, it was an object for mass reproduction, merchandising, lampooning and speculation, and was claimed to have been reproduced in "300 paintings and 2,000 advertisements". The Mona Lisa was regarded as "just another Leonardo until early last century when the scandal of the painting's theft from the Louvre and subsequent return kept a spotlight on it over several years."

From December 1962 to March 1963, the French government lent it to the United States to be displayed in New York City and Washington, D.C. It was shipped on the new ocean liner SS France.In New York, an estimated 1.7 million people queued "in order to cast a glance at the Mona Lisa for 20 seconds or so."While exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the painting was nearly drenched in water because of a faulty sprinkler, but the painting's bullet-proof glass case protected it.
In 1974, the painting was exhibited in Tokyo and Moscow.


In 2014, 9.3 million people visited the Louvre. Former director Henri Loyrette reckoned that "80 percent of the people only want to see the Mona Lisa.

]]> 2021-11-29 16:49:09 UTC https://padlet.com/vtispanagiotis/98ks43t8f4ychu46/wish/1918420711 What is ''Intelligentsia''? vtispanagiotis https://padlet.com/vtispanagiotis/98ks43t8f4ychu46/wish/1918428442
The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the intelligentsia comprises scholars, academics, and teachers, journalists and literary writers.


Conceptually, the intelligentsia status class arose in the late 18th century, during the Russian Partitions of Poland (1772–1795). Etymologically, the 19th-century Polish intellectual Bronisław Trentowski coined the term inteligencja (intellectuals) to identify and describe the university-educated and professionally active social stratum of the patriotic bourgeoisie; men and women whose intellectualism would provide moral and political leadership to Poland in opposing the cultural hegemony of the Russian Empire.

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