Jay-Z and Beyonce posed with her Kardashians posed with her so did Tony Danza Cara deine even Richard Simmons Nat King Cole sang about her so did Will I Am she was famously stolen in 1911 Marcel Duchamp parodied her in 1919 someone more recently made a towel out of her but who is she why after centuries do we continue to flock to her let's better know the Mona Lisa [Music] Leonardo da Vinci yep the original renaissance man who painted the Last Supper and was also an inventor architect engineer and scientist began the portrait in 1503 while living in Florence it was the height of the Italian Renaissance when a mounting interest in humanism as well as a growing Merchant class with disposable income had popularized portrait painting we call it the Mona Lisa Mona being short for Madonna or lady and his subject is almost definitely Lisa Del condo a Florentine who married a cloth Merchant at the age of 15 and would have been about 24 when it was painted Italians call the painting Londa the feminine form of her married name and the French likewise call it la jond which conveniently invokes the Latin jondas and its derivatives meaning Pleasant or agreeable Lisa's husband Franchesco likely commissioned the portrait on the occasion of their moving into a new home or possibly after the birth of one of their children but the portrait never actually got to them Franchesco might not have paid for it or Leonardo could have put off finishing it for a more important commission but the painting remained in the artist possession until his death in 1519 after he had joined the Royal Court of King franois the from there the painting became the property of the king and after a stay at versai it eventually made its way to the lou in the late 18th century there it has remained except when this guy walked it out of the museum under his shirt hid it for 2 years and then tried to return the painting to an Italian Museum which he felt was it rightful home then it was back to the lou until World War II came along and it was shuffled around France for safekeeping sometimes even on a stretcher in an ambulance it went from a Chateau in the L Valley to an Abbey in the south of France to museums farther south until it could finally be returned to Paris after the end of the war while many portraits of the time were more closely cropped and painted in profile Lisa is oriented more frontally and shown in half length her hands are included with her right resting delicately over top the left and she's dressed fairly unremarkably not trying to show off with the latest trends she's seated in a chair in a loia or open air room which looks out over a landscape it was made with oil paint on wood panel using a technique Leonardo liked called spato what a great word say it with me spato which is the kind of smudgy smokey haziness you see especially around her eyes and mouth it contributes to the softness and realness of Lisa but also gives an atmospheric effect that is almost otherworldly he used the same effect in some biblical scenes you see it here in the shading around the Virgin Mary's neck but are decidedly secular subject Lisa while rendered hazley is looking directly out at us and with her famous smile if that's what you call this expression in 2005 researchers ran the image through emotion recognition software which rated features like curvature around the lips and crinkles around the eyes finding the expression to be 83% happy 9% disgusting 6% fearful 2% angry less than 1% neutral and 0% surprised so it's a smile but it's not an empty smile there's a knowingness to it a smile in spite of everything as if she knows she's caught in this painting in her own turbulent time looking out at us whoever we are in our turbulent time which is perhaps what makes it so indelible an image it has always been one of the Treasures of the louv collection but it wasn't until after it 1911 theft that it reached super stardom in the 2 days after it was returned more than a 100,000 people came to see it and they really haven't stopped since then with Millions meeting her gaze each year many copies of the painting exist and much debate about who painted them researchers recently found that one version at the pra was probably painted by an artist sitting right next to Leonardo following his actions Stroke by stroke but even that one while striking doesn't capture the mystery and Majesty of the original there are new Mona Lisa and of course many plays on the original with artists from boo who painted Alisa at age 12 and as an adult and Warhol who drew the connection between this original celebrity and the subjects of more recent Paparazzi it doesn't appear that our attention to this painting is waning in fact it might even be rising as the internet offers us countless reproductions reinterpretations merchandis ifications and bastardization which raises the question of whether at this point the Mona Lisa is famous primarily because it's a masterpiece or famous primarily because it's famous it may be that our identification with Lisa is more intense than ever as we see around us more and more images of ourselves looking out staring into the eyes of unknown [Applause] Millions while you're at it would you like to better know our patreon patreon is a subscription-based platform that allows you to support creators you like in the form of a monthly donation to support our Channel and earn some really cool rewards head on over to patreon.com assignment [Music]