Mona Lisa Pics

Mona Lisa pics can be found everywhere - on magazine covers, coffee mugs, posters, postcards, T-shirts, calendars, Warhol art, and more. Ever since Leonardo da Vinci painted the portrait in 1509, the Mona Lisa has fascinated everyone from artists, historians, kings, emperors, university scholars, and psychologists, to laymen and the viewing public. The nature of Mona Lisa's mysterious smile and the intention behind her pose have been the subject of many heated debates, essays, theories, and conjectures - enough to fill several libraries' worth of shelves! In 2005, a computer program was even designed to analyze the Mona Lisa's smile and determine which emotions lay behind it.

Although Da Vinci's iconic portrait has been proudly on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris for centuries, copies of the masterpiece can be found all over the world. Some of these Mona Lisa pics even claim to be the "real deal." For example, a version of the Mona Lisa from around 1616 was long thought to be the original, as was a painting found in the home of European nobleman in the early 1900s.

However it is generally agreed that these are but excellent reproductions which were not in fact painted by Da Vinci. Likewise, the authenticity of Mona Lisa pics in the nude has largely been rejected by art historians and experts.

However, did you know that historically, the Mona Lisa largely went unnoticed until it mysteriously disappeared from the Louvre Museum and was thought to be lost forever? Three years later, after it appeared just as suddenly as it had disappeared, it was discovered that a museum employee has stolen the painting. Ever since then, the portrait received international attention and pictures of the Mona Lisa began to emerge everywhere. Today the Mona Lisa is considered a masterpiece of Renaissance Art and is visited by millions each year.

And in case you're wondering who the woman is posing in all the Mona Lisa pics, the experts largely agree that the woman in Da Vinci's portrait was none other than Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a wealthy Florentine silk merchant named Francesco del Giocondo. "Mona" is a contraction of the term "Madonna," which means "my lady," and of course, now you know who "Lisa" refers to! And if you're interested in a short Italian lesson, "Mona" is the Italian equivalent of "Ma'am" or "Madam" in English and is the polite way of addressing a woman in Italy.