Leonardo Da Vinci - Mona Lisa (La Jaconde) ( Originally
Published Early 1900's ) The unequalled fame of this portrait
rests almost wholly upon one particular kind of appeal: on the
expression of a face, and its power to suggest a mysterious
personality be-hind it. The immediate effect, for most
observers, is an impulse to interpret that expression in terms
of some familiar emotion or type of character. Is it a mood of
disillusioned irony, one asks, in which Mona Lisa looks out upon
the world? Is it weariness, gentle mockery, condescending
aloofness .or pitying tenderness that one reads behind that mask
of suave control? Thus the observer is tempted to dream romantic
mysteries about an imagined woman, while, too often, his eyes
pay little heed to the actual picture before him. Nevertheless,
there is something actually here that has power to stimulate
such fancies. There is a pictured face, with shadows cunningly
arranged to represent slight peculiarities in the shape and
tension of the features. Their suggesti