The Hindu : Front Page : Behind the Mona Lisa mystery

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 23, 2007
ePaper

Front Page

Front Page

Behind the Mona Lisa mystery

French inventor says scans show painting once featured eyebrows, eyelashes

— Photo: AP

DISSECTING DA VINCI: Pascal Cotte talks about his work on Mona Lisa, at the event “Da Vinci: Exhibition of Genius,” in San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO: For centuries, the Mona Lisa has beguiled art buffs, many of whom were unable to resist speculating on its origins and meaning. Now a French inventor claims to have some answers, including on the enigmatic subject’s famously missing eyebrows and eyelashes.

Parisian engineer Pascal Cotte says his ultra-detailed digital scans of the painting allow him to effectively burrow through layers of paint to “see” into the past of Leonardo Da Vinci’s 16th-century portrait of a Florentine merchant’s wife.

The world’s most famous painting originally included both brows and lashes, according to Mr. Cotte. He says his 240-megapixel scans of the painting reveal traces of Mona Lisa’s left brow, obliterated by restoration efforts .

“With just one photo you go deeper into the construction of the painting and understand that Leonardo was a genius,” he said at the U.S. debut of an exhibition detailing his findings.

As a boy growing up in Paris in the 1960s, Mr. Cotte spent hours staring at the Mona Lisa the first time he saw it at the Louvre. He later used his scientific training in light and optics to develop a camera that would let him examine the object of his obsession.

The 49-year-old estimates he has spent 3,000 hours analysing the data from the scans he made of the painting in the Louvre’s laboratory three years ago. Using sensors to detect light from both the visible spectrum and the infrared and ultraviolet ranges invisible to the human eye, Mr. Cotte said, his camera allowed him to make these and other findings:

• Da Vinci changed his mind about the position of two fingers on the left hand.

• Her face was originally wider and the smile more expressive than Da Vinci ultimately painted them.

• She holds a blanket that has all but faded from view.

Mr. Cotte said his analyses revealed what he believes are the painting’s colours as they looked on Da Vinci’s easel.

Age, varnish, and restoration by later conservators have resulted in a painting that, in its permanent home behind bullet proof glass at the Louvre, appears saturated with heavy greens, yellows and browns.

Working with his 22-gigabyte digital photo, made using 13 different colour filters rather than the typical three or four found in consumer-grade digital cameras, Mr. Cotte created a reproduction of the Mona Lisa with the light blues and brilliant whites he thinks represent the painting in its original form. “For the next generation, we guarantee that forever you will have the true colour of this painting.”

Scepticism

Though some art historians have expressed scepticism about the findings, he hopes his technique can be used as a guide for future restoration work on not just the Mona Lisa but also on aging art treasures around the world.

Since scanning the Mona Lisa, Mr. Cotte has made super-high-resolution photographs of more than 500 paintings, including works by Van Gogh, Brueghel, Courbet and other European masters. “To communicate our cultural heritage to our kids, we need to provide the maximum of information,” he said.

On the Web, the details are at http://www.monalisarevealed.com — AP

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page