Each year, around ten million people visit the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa. Many don’t realise that the painting they see today actually bears little resemblance to the work of art Leonardo da Vinci created five centuries ago. Today’s Mona Lisa is tarnished and discoloured, yellowed and darkened, to the point where viewers would be forgiven for thinking she had been painted in brown and green tones. But, in fact, this is a far cry from the fresh and delicate colours for which Leonardo’s contemporaries admired her.
Since Mona Lisa was painted, the materials Leonardo used to create the painting have suffered the effects of time and repeated restoration efforts. The wood support has shrunk, producing cracks. Over time, chemical interactions between the binder, pigments, and varnish have resulted in changes to their optical properties.
French engineer, Pascal Cotte, is among a privileged few to have been granted the honour of viewing and photographing the original Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum, Paris. The painting was removed from its frame to allow Cotte to photograph it with his unique, purpose-built camera. The resulting images formed the basis for Cotte’s scientific examination and analysis of the painting, including the creation of a giant infrared print.
Three hours of photography resulted in thirteen original photos of the masterpiece, each with a resolution of 240 megapixels. Cotte was able to create an array of images utilising wavelengths of light from ultraviolet to infrared. By using wavelengths of light that are undetectable to the naked eye, Cotte was able to discover aspects of the painting that are invisible under normal conditions.
But photographing the Mona Lisa was only the first stage in a long process of analysis and verification, including consultation with Mona Lisa experts that took over two years.
Today you are seeing the results: 25 fascinating secrets. Discover each secret in turn, in the giant infrared display of Mona Lisa. Go even deeper into the technology and analysis behind the secrets in the audiovisual display.
More importantly, admire Mona Lisa as Leonardo intended; blue lapis lazuli sky, bright blushing face, hazy forested mountains and green trees.