FRIDAY afternoon. A big group of female college students met me at the hallway of the 5th International Rondalla Festival Exhibit (former Silay Puericulture Center). The colegialas were requested by their teachers to look for Ver Pacete in Silay. “Interview him on what he knows about Da Vinci painting, the Mona Lisa.”
The assignment was connected to the National Book Month Celebration. I could only share what I remember from my Humanities and World History classes. Madonna Lisa Antonio Maria Gherardini is Leonardo Da Vinci’s La Gioconda. She is the wife of the wealthy Florentine citizen Francesco del Giocondo. The rich man commissioned Da Vinci to produce the portrait of his young wife in 1503... and this could be Leonardo’s idea of a perfect beauty.
The Mona Lisa has been claimed to be the most famous painting in the world that has been included in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code (novel and later became a movie). It hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris protected by thick bulletproof glass. Giorgio Vasari, artist, and biographer, said, “...the mouth joined to the flesh-tints of the face by the red of the lips appeared to be living flesh rather than paint...”
One student blushed when I said that she has the semblance of Mona. The girls presented to me the enlarged picture of Mona Lisa. I showed them the smoky contours (sfumato).
There are locks of hair falling over right shoulder and they blend with the rocky landscape. The smoky contour line that blends with the background creates the illusion of movement and ambiguity of mood. It gives the painting a sense of life... as if you are really in front of this mysterious lady.
I call the attention of the colegialas to the missing eyebrows. Perhaps in the 17th century, a restorer tried to clean the portrait but the solvent was strong and the eyebrows were dissolved. I told the students that it is hard to clean the painting and that could be the reason why Christ’s craggy face in the mural at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Victorias was not touched.
Mona Lisa has an enigmatic smile. The face of Mona Lisa has been influenced by the two landscapes. The left-hand landscape tends to pull the left eye downwards, and the right-hand landscape tends to push the right eye upwards. I told the students that the beauty of push and pull even in the work of art is very important. The students laughed. This visual push and pull meets in the middle of the portrait and causes the eyes of the viewers to see a flicker at the corner of the mouth of Mona Lisa.
The hands of Mona Lisa are exquisite. The hands are very relaxed that gives majestic but gentle image to the lady portrayed. The eyes of Mona express unearthly wisdom considering that the eyes are windows of the human body, through which it mirrors all the beautiful things in the world.
The girls were silent for few minutes as if digesting what I have shared. Celine, the group leader, said, “Sir Ver... we all want to be like Mona, even in smiles only.”