Why this painting so special? First of all, the Mona Lisa was not painted on paper, canvas or cloth. Instead, it was painted on Poplar Wood. In those days, it was the favourite wood of Italian painters. Secondly, this painting isn’t large. Look at the photos.
This is where it hangs in the museum. You can see its size in comparison to the people. This painting is only 77 cm by 53 cm. But still, it is considered so special because, in its time, in Italy, this was the first painting which focused so closely on the person. This is a half-length portrait. These types of shots are very common in photography today. But no one used to make such paintings in those days.
If you look at the overall colour grading of this painting, you will see a lot of brown and yellow shades. It looks like a very dull painting. It is so yellowish that at one point, a professor declared Lisa a cholesterol patient. But there are two reasons behind this. First, a Varnish Layer has been applied to this painting so that moisture does not affect the painting badly. It looks like a dull painting. It is so yellowish that once a professor had declared Lisa to be a patient with high cholesterol.
But there are two reasons for this. First, there is a layer of varnish on top of this painting. So that there are no ill-effects of moisture on this painting, since it was painted on wood. So it’s necessary to protect it from humidity and moisture. And secondly, over time, there was bleaching. Originally, when this was painted, it used to be more bright and colorful. Some people tried to recreate this painting to see how it would have looked originally.
