Better Know the Mona Lisa | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios
2017 ж. 5 Сәу.
134 820 Рет қаралды
She's probably the most famous artwork of all time, but what do you know about her? It's time to better know the Mona Lisa. To support our channel, or at least consider it: / artassignment
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I could listen to Sarah talk about art for hours.
Who is sarah
@@stephaniefaypage8028 go to 5:16 and figure it out.
I went to the Louvre in 2010 and saw the Mona Lisa, and the atmosphere about & around it was more fascinating than the painting in my opinion. There were dozens crowded around her, but five other Da Vinci works behind the group, ignored. We were several feet away from her, and she was smaller than what I expected. I could barely see her, but managed to snap a photo from among the people who seemed so much taller than me, and much more unwilling to move. It almost felt like revering her like she is detracts from the fact that she is art, and should be appreciated with a keen eye from a few folks rather than crowding around her mindlessly taking a photo.
The Mosa Lisa is the type of painting I'd rather see on the internet because it's just impossible to look at it irl.
How so?
Too many people maybe?
Yeah, it's really crowded. You kinda just get sucked into a current of people that takes you to the painting and then away from it. It's also (in my opinion) not that remarkable of a painting in person, at least not when you only get to see it up close for a couple of seconds before you get carried away.
it all depends on how they show it. sometimes the access is a lot more intimate. and believe me it simply has qualities no other painting possesses ;)
Not really, I went to the Louvre early in the morning and there were few people in the room, got to be close to her for a while. When I went back hours later it was impossible to see the painting. Or maybe I was just lucky
I hope this becomes a series. This and "The case for.." videos are magnificent.
It's weird to see those old photos and illustrations where the paintings are just stacked one on top of another. It is a very different way of displaying art than one typically sees in a museum now. Now you are suppose to take in one piece at a time with plenty of white space around it. It seems back then a painting was competing for viewers attention more. I wonder when they stopped doing that.
!!!! if you're interested in art that's more "stacked together" i would check out the barnes foundation in philly!! lmao i'm too lazy right now to go into big detail but I know the original guy wanted pieces of art together to look at their interactions as well as the pieces themselves (you can read more about it over here: www.barnesfoundation.org/about/press/coverage/contemporary-artists-create-a-new-kind-of-order-at-the-barnes-foundation)
There are some private collections - I'm thinking of some stately homes in Britain that I've visited but can't remember the names of - that still have paintings filling the walls like that. It's odd.
Parts of the European collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario are also arranged like that, in simulation of the old presentation style. These form a rather stark contrast with the more "modern" exhibits neighboring them.
That kind of art display is often called "salon style," and it originated in Paris with the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which began in 1667. They needed to display all of their student's artwork, and so to fit it in they stacked it floor to ceiling with paintings. From 1725 on, the Royal Academy moved to an exhibition space in the royal palace called the Salon Carré, which soon became know as just the "salon." Hence "salon style." This kind of hanging persisted for a long time all around Europe and in America, into the early 20th Century, even when there was ample space to spread them out a bit. With the dawn of many different modernisms in the 20th century, artists and exhibitors began to experiment with different types of display, one of which was the "white cube" gallery we see a lot of today, where works are presented one-by-one, very much separate from each other. Sorry for the novel here. Should probably make a video about it?
Cool! Thank you for the information. I think it could make an interesting video, especially if you got into how art museums developed in the first place, and you could talk about how the way art is displayed changes the way we interact with it. Only if you want to of course.
Please do more of these style videos! I loved this one. I also really like your "Case for" series too.
Ernst Gombrich wrote about the Mona Lisa in the _Story of Art_ _There is another work of Leonardo's which is perhaps even more famous than 'The Last Supper'. It is the portrait of a Florentine lady whose name was Lisa, 'Mona Lisa._ _A fame as great as that of Leonardo's 'Mona Lisa' is not an unmixed blessing for a work of art. We become so used to seeing it on picture postcards, and even advertisements, that we find it difficult to see it with fresh eyes as the painting by a real man portraying a real woman of flesh and blood. But it is worth while to forget what we know, or believe we know, about the picture, and to look at it as if we were the first people ever to set eyes on it._ _What strikes us first is the amazing degree to which Lisa looks alive. She really seems to look at us and to have a mind of her own. Like a living being, she seems to change before our eyes and to look a little different every time we come back to her. Even in photographs of the picture we experience this strange effect, but in front of the original in the Louvre it is almost uncanny. Sometimes she seems to mock at us, and then again we seem to catch something like sadness in her smile. All this sounds rather mysterious, and so it is; that is so often the effect of a great work of art._ _Nevertheless, Leonardo certainly knew how he achieved this effect, and by what means. That great observer of nature knew more about the way we use our eyes than anybody who had ever lived before him. He had clearly seen a problem which the conquest of nature had posed to artists - a problem no less intricate than the one of combining correct drawing with a harmonious composition. The great works of the Italian Quattrocento masters who followed the lead given by Masaccio have one thing in common: their figures look somewhat hard and harsh, almost wooden. The strange thing is that it clearly is not lack of patience or lack of knowledge that is responsible for this effect._ _No one could be more patient in his imitation of nature than Van Eyck; no one could know more about correct drawing and perspective than Mantegna. And yet, for all the grandeur and impressiveness of their representations of nature, their figures look more like statues than living beings. The reason may be that the more conscientiously we copy a figure line by line and detail by detail, the less we can imagine that it ever really moved and breathed. It looks as if the painter had suddenly cast a spell over it, and forced it to stand stock-still for evermore, like the people in 'The Sleeping Beauty'._ _Artists had tried various ways out of this difficulty. Botticelli, for instance, had tried to emphasize in his pictures the waving hair and the fluttering garments of his figures, to make them look less rigid in outline. But only Leonardo found the true solution to the problem. The painter must leave the beholder something to guess. If the outlines are not quite so firmly drawn, if the form is left a little vague, as though disappearing into a shadow, this impression of dryness and stiffness will be avoided. This is Leonardo's famous invention which the Italians call 'sfumato'- the blurred outline and mellowed colors that allow one form to merge with another and always leave something to our imagination._ _If we now return to the 'Mona Lisa', we may understand something of its mysterious effect. We see that Leonardo has used the means of his 'sfumato' with the utmost deliberation. Everyone who has ever tried to draw or scribble a face knows that what we call its expression rests mainly in two features: the corners of the mouth, and the corners of the eyes. Now it is precisely these parts which Leonardo has left deliberately indistinct, by letting them merge into a soft shadow. That is why we are never quite certain in what mood Mona Lisa is really looking at us. Her expression always seems just to elude us. It is not only vagueness, of course, which produces this effect._ _There is much more behind it. Leonardo has done a very daring thing, which perhaps only a painter of his consummate mastery could risk. If we look carefully at the picture, we see that the two sides do not quite match. This is most obvious in the fantastic dream landscape in the background. The horizon on the left side seems to lie much lower than the one on the right. Consequently, when we focus on the left side of the picture, the woman looks somehow taller or more erect than if we focus on the right side. And her face, too, seems to change with this change of position, because, even here, the two sides do not quite match. _ _But with all these sophisticated tricks, Leonardo might have produced a clever piece of jugglery rather than a great work of art, had he not known exactly how far he could go, and had he not counterbalanced his daring deviation from nature by an almost miraculous rendering of the living flesh. Look at the way in which he modelled the hand, or the sleeves with their minute folds. Leonardo could be as painstaking as any of his forerunners in the patient observation of nature. Only he was no longer merely the faithful servant of nature._ _Long ago, in the distant past, people had looked at portraits with awe, because they had thought that in preserving the likeness the artist could somehow preserve the soul of the person he portrayed. Now the great scientist, Leonardo, had made some of the dreams and fears of these first image-makers come true. He knew the spell which would infuse life into the colors spread by his magic brush._
I love this new series! Can't wait to see who or what we "get to know" next!
Loved this, great work !
WOW that last moment with all the instagrams was really profound. Wonderful ending. (Also, I happened to see Lisa in person for the first time a few weeks ago. Nice timing. :) )
Very useful video. Some of the info I considered when I've recently composed a short music about Mona Lisa with the help of my color-hearing, synesthesia. Thanx for uploading this!
Great video! More 'Better Know' please.
So beautiful. It's inspiring listening to you.
Great video. One fact you left out - she's got two different horizon lines. The one on the left is substantially lower than on the right. It was strange to see the copy by his student at 4:22 where the lake on the right is extended over to the left to level the horizon. I've heard a theory that Da Vinci wanted to send a student's copy back to the family so he could keep his masterpiece. Maybe he liked the horizon-line joke of his, but didn't want to send it that way to a client? Oh, another big word you left out was chiaroscuro, which Da Vinci used to model the figure. He wasn't the first to emphasize light and shadow, but he did it much more effectively than the preceding generation of Florentine painters.
This is the first and so far only "The Art Assignment" video I have respected. (I abhor modern art, which, thus far, has been the soul focus of this series of KZhead videos.)
can this please be a series! This is super cool :)
Great video! I really like this channel! Greetings from Brazil : )
Really liked this one!
I know this isn't cultured, but I laughed out loud at 4:36 , that charicature is just funny in its cartoony style and over blown features.
Thank you so much
A truly timeless masterpiece. She was always great and will always be great even if her popularity declines,
Woow, great text!
The background is the most interesting, it's creepy
There's a great Smarthistory video where Salman Khan describes the background as "Vulcan territory": kzhead.info/sun/Zs-Kj9RqfIyOZ4k/bejne.html
This video crushes. Wow
Bruh when you pointed out the similarities between the Mona Lisa and the people taking selfies with it, I laughed out loud it was such a funny connection.
really intresting!!😄
gr8 video!!!!
Now I could smile
Not me realizing that John Green, author of the Fault in our Stars, is your husband. I've been showing these videos to my students for years! (not this one because boobies and I teach 7th graders). The internet is a wild place.
The ending though! *Clap Clap Clap*
Now she’s smiling because you know the truth I’ve been looking for it since Chula Vista high school Spartans!
Hope we get some new videos soon. Thanks
1 - Like the idea of a "Better Know" series! 2 - "Say it with me... SFU..MA..TO." :D 3 - I couldn't help but think about this Pink Panther episode: kzhead.info/sun/iruSfLFxpqKbn68/bejne.html ;)
1- Awesome 2- My fav part 3- Hah! I'd never seen that one. I'm reminded of how frustrating a viewing experience of Pink Panther was.
Hehehe, indeed, it's been... some 30+ years since I last watched a PP cartoon? Wow. I'd forgotten just how random they can be (and yet how quickly the time passes when watching the amusing absurdity... :P). I also hadn't realized they'd made new ones 1993 and in 2010. Quite the amazing run, especially given how 'by accident' it was all begun (a good reminder on how we never fully know what our art will open up for others and where it will lead us :).
5:11 😊
pleaseeee do a case for pop surrealism
I thought the person who had been modelling to this portrat was unknown, in fact there were rumors saying she may even be leonardo da vinci himself...
Sooo the Mona Lisa is the Paris Hilton of the Art World? Nice. ;)
Clever. I seriously giggled at that. Haha
You said it, not me :)
Mona Lisa is the Paris Hilton of art, famous for being famous
5:05 hahaha my ugly face :) aaaaah Lisaaaaa
Thanks for letting us use your magnificent Mona Lisa selfie.
i miss you Sarah
I saw the Mona Lisa for myself once and it was slightly disappointing, especially since there were some many people crowded around and there was this awesome massive paint straight across from it.
Me too I posed with her too.
I don't get it! Why is this painting more majestic than other portraits?
Praptolium cuz of reasons
Cuz people.
とてもきれいですばらしいですね
Big Sean made a song about her
NO! Her name was not Mona Lisa, nor Gherrardini, and even less Del Giocondo, but Isabella of Aragona and Sforza, also known as Isabella of Milan. She was born a princess as she was the daughter of Alfonso II of Aragona, king of Naples, and Ippolita Sforza. She was made to marry her cousin Gian Galeazzo Sforza to strengthen ties between the kingdom of Naples and the Duchy of Milan. After the mysterious death of her young husband, she became emotionally close to Leonardo da Vinci who also lived at the court of Milan as he was in the service of the Duke of Milan and with whom, according to the studies of the German historian Maike Vogt-Lüerssen, they had several children together. My location of the landscape which, moreover, is not Italian would confirm that it would indeed be this princess who also had Spanish origins.
@Saveliy Ad позыркай про живопись, канал интересный сам по себе
So I doodle a lot. I made this years ago while thinking about the Mona Lisa and her painter: instagram.com/p/3EXO6TxG7S/
Sorry but I think the Mona Lisa only got famous because it was stolen 🤷🏾♀️ the allure of the yellowish “darkness” is partly due to the lacquer that the painting was later preserved with (not the way leonardo intended, although he did use sfumato)
Duchamp? Arthur Sapeck i'm sure influenced duchamps take
It was a Spanish assignment in high school, what you know was a lie
The Naked Mona Lisa The Mona Lisa is just another art piece that is no longer fashionable for the casual observer. There she is now, lying naked and helpless upon a hospital bed, with her bedroom door wide open for every passerby to see. But no one would go to her side. Times have changed her renowned face into an unrecognizable visage. No longer the dazzling damsel in her youth. The glamorous model that captured the world with her shape and beauty has become frail in her age. Her tone is pale, the color of her cheeks no longer rosy, and unable to dip her lips in a gloss of scarlet red. No one by her side captures her winter years. Abandoned and naked, she lay on bed 101, helpless and far away from any five-star services. The flashing cameras and sneaking reporters have dimmed down. Her glory years have dropped like the sheets that covered her body. Her value dropped like a printed copy. Her empty room is now void of perfumed flowers and beloved friends. The men once fascinated by her figure and portrait were now too tired and dying to come to her door. For a moment, she captures the eyes of an English patient passing by. Her constant cry for help compelled him to investigate whose voice goes unheard. But too afraid to approach her as a stranger, he returned to his bed hoping the medical staff would take care of her. But sadly, he watched how they all would pass her room with a deaf ear and a blind eye. Finally, an assistant arrived to give food to the patients. But she too skipped bed 101 to serve the English patient with a usual French breakfast. Her bedroom door was open by day but shut at night. Locked away and forgotten in the dark. Why is no one seeing her? And why is no one moved with compassion to clothe her in dignity and love? Perhaps a cold reminder of how apathy will suffocate love towards one’s neighbor. But soon after breakfast, the same nurse who passed the naked Mona Lisa now arrives next door to show love and care to the English patient. I am here to help you, she smiled. But unimpressed by her apathy moments before, he shunned her charming approach and demanded that she first take care and cover the ill-forsaken woman next door. How can she help him when she turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to another in her care? Go, clothe her first, and cover her shame, then, return to care for me, he responded. You want to be a doctor, but you neglect the foundation principle. Healthcare includes the dignity of every patient. He saw the nakedness, the poverty, and wretchedness of the health system and medical staff like rotten cancer, eating away the goodness among men. Offended at what she heard, she excused herself. I am here for you, she replied, stubbornly resisting. And neglecting her oath and sworn duty she left his room, leaving both patients without her professional touch and care. Love is not blind, and love is not deaf. Where love is, there winter blossoms into spring. Gray colors turn into a rainbow of beauty as the sun of a perfect God continues to shine on all men. When someone is thirsty, give them water to drink when someone is hungry, feed them. When someone is naked, clothe them. If they are in prison, visit them. Visit those in the hospital, and do not forget the orphans and widows. With such good deeds, Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité will prosper a nation. It was springtime in the city of love when the two strangers met. So, the morning before he left the hospital, he first went downstairs into the garden and picked the most beautiful wildflowers he could find for his Mona Lisa. And as he came to her door to say goodbye, she reached out to him for a cup of water. And in one act of kindness, he raises her value. Her worth more than the original painting hanging in the Louvre of Paris.
if I got my hands on this picture, I'd make a bonfire out of it. The ridiculous things people hold dear to their hearts is so disappointing in the way i view life. Spending millions (or in this case, priceless) on insignicant items is ludicrous. The you have someone that can paint the exact same portrait and be viewed as not being anything special 'cause he/she wasn't the person that painted the original lol. Thid world will probably never realize just how obsurd this is. Again... Bonfire for sure along with all of picasso's.
She is no doubt a masterpiece but unfortunately it's really disappointing to see it in real life. The Mona Lisa is not a big painting and it hangs on a giant wall all by itself across from a massive painting by Veronese (The Wedding at Cana). This makes the Mona Lisa seem even smaller and it doesn't help that they make you stand about 5ft away from it and it has a thick wall of bulletproof glass in front of it so you can't see any of the wonderful detail. The best setting to see the Mona Lisa in would be a small intimate setting where you could get a little closer to it, but then it would be hard for the millions of tourists to see it.
One painting I have seen that was amazing to see in real life was Guernica by Pablo Picasso. You should do an episode on it!
2:35
Mona Lisa is the first kardashian! lol.
+Saveliy Ad позыркай про живопись, канал интересный сам по себе
What happened to Mona Lisa husband?
Can you imagine a place more lost on the kardashians than the Louvre ..... lolz £1000 says they went there just for that instagram selfie... -_-
Wow, stolen and sold, it belongs to me, I would never have named it Lisa, it was called originally women because at the time I was pregnant, then had miss carrying my baby, which was a hard time now to know, wow
SFU🍅
The Mona Lisa, much like the other works of da Vinci, is deteriorating. There is heavy crackling all over but is very distracting in and around the face. It is coated with centuries of dirt. What was not discussed in this video is the controversy over whether it should be restored or left to slowly rot until it ceases to exist. I'm in favor of subtle and respectful restoration by world class experts. Over time the paint has cracked and warped. Changes in humidity and other environmental factors have already partially destroyed the work. The layers of dirt eclipse the beautiful colors and brush strokes underneath. At the very least the work should be scanned with a high resolution scanner and
kinda felt like the first 2:20 min. of this vid was super redundant/unnecessary
It is a shame that a painting that is supposed to be analyzed and appreciated closely is imprisoned in a glass casket with a massive empty wall around it. Let art be appreciated in its purest form and now by this blasphemous display the Louvre has done.
"How to NOT interpret art 101" There's barely a shred of logic in your interpretation of Mona Lisa.
Tbh the mona lisa is overrated