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The Mona Lisa has been the subject of awe and fascination for centuries, with experts from around the world desperate to solve the mystery behind her iconic, enigmatic smile.
Now, thanks to X-ray technology, scientists have begun to uncover the secrets of Leonardo da Vinci’s legendary portrait, and explain how he was able to create something so mind-bending with just a few strokes of a brush.
The research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on Wednesday, suggests that the Italian Renaissance master may have been in a particularly inventive mood when set about crafting the piece in the early 16th century.
“He was someone who loved to experiment, and each of his paintings is completely different technically,” Victor Gonzalez, the study’s lead author, told the Associated Press..
Gonzalez, who has studied the chemical compositions of dozens of works by Leonardo and other artists, discovered that there was something special about the paint used for the Mona Lisa.
Specifically, the researchers found a rare compound, called plumbonacrite, in Leonardo’s first layer of paint.
The discovery confirmed that Leonardo most likely used lead oxide powder to thicken and help dry his paint as he began working on the portrait.
He is thought to have dried the powder, which has an orange colour, in linseed or walnut oil by heating the mixture to make a thicker, faster-drying paste.
“What you will obtain is an oil that has a very nice golden colour,” Gonzalez said. “It flows more like honey.”
Carmen Bambach, a specialist in Italian art and curator at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, who was not involved in the study, called the research “very exciting”.
She emphasised that any scientifically proven new insights into Leonardo’s painting techniques are “extremely important news for the art world and our larger global society.”
Finding plumbonacrite in the Mona Lisa attests “to Leonardo’s spirit of passionate and constant experimentation as a painter—it is what renders him timeless and modern,” Bambach said.
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Secrets revealed
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