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Video: Different Painting Under "Mona Lisa"
A BBC 2 documentary, "Secrets of the Mona Lisa", explains Pascal Cotte's theory that the Mona Lisa is underlaid by a portrait of a different woman.
From iflscience.com:
The Mona Lisa is one of the most famous pieces of artwork in human history. This half-length portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, thought to depict Lisa Gherardini in the early 16th century, was given to the King of France centuries ago, and has been on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797.
Now, 500 years on from its completion, French scientist Pascal Cotte, has claimed to have uncovered hidden details within the painting. As reported by BBC News, this potentially means that the famous painted woman isn't actually Mona Lisa at all. The findings will be presented in a documentary, "Secrets of the Mona Lisa", which airs on BBC Two tomorrow at 9pm GMT.
direct link to the Youtube video.
Possible "Hidden Portrait" Underneath the Mona Lisa
French scientist Pascal Cotte has claimed to have found a "hidden portrait" underneath the Mona Lisa:
An image of a portrait underneath the Mona Lisa has been found beneath the existing painting using reflective light technology, according to a French scientist. Pascal Cotte said he has spent more than 10 years using the technology to analyse the painting. He claims the earlier portrait lies hidden underneath the surface of Leonardo's most celebrated artwork.
A reconstruction shows another image of a sitter looking off to the side. The Louvre Museum has declined to comment on his claims because it "was not part of the scientific team". Instead of the famous, direct gaze of the painting which hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, the image of the sitter also shows no trace of her enigmatic smile, which has intrigued art lovers for more than 500 years. But Mr Cotte's claims are controversial and have divided opinion among Leonardo experts.
[Editor's note: Does an image of the image exist?]
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 12 2015, @08:07AM
But - couldn't people just go pick new canvas from the canvas trees? I realize we can't do that today, since the canvas trees are extinct due to global warming, but Da Vinci had canvas trees all around him, didn't he?
http://in1.ccio.co/LD/Jt/HR/179229260140281082Yj1FMcbyc.jpg [in1.ccio.co]
(Score: 3, Funny) by dyingtolive on Saturday December 12 2015, @08:19AM
I mean, that would have worked for him if the canvas tree harvesting wasn't under all that strong regulation during the late 1400s due to the well known Renaissance Canvas Bubble popping finally under the weight of subprime canvas loans.
Fun fact: Da Vinci actually made the majority of his money speculating on those loans, but even in the end, even he ran into the issues plaguing your average artist and struggled to find canvas for himself. With the remainder of his fortune he built his famous flying machine and left Earth for the Mars colony that pre-Islam Middle East had established centuries ago.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2015, @12:49PM
It was painted on wood, not canvas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @02:53AM
Canvas trees aren't extinct, they're just banned under the pretense of a drug.