Was Mona Lisa's smile not genuine?

So if her smile is ‘forced’, what could that mean? Dr Ricciardi explained: “Of course, we know that posing for a picture for many hours will result in a forced expression. But we also know that Leonardo was a master of ‘sfumato’ – the technique of shading which is used to demonstrate expression. He deliberately raised her left lip, as if to paint a smirk. He would have known that curving the lip on both sides and adding folds around the eyes would have shown a genuine smile. And he had this knowledge hundreds of years before Duchenne’s work in the 1800s. So we have enjoyed hypothesising that this asymmetry was a deliberate action. What we still don’t know is the reason that he portrayed her this way – so her smile is as elusive as ever!”


Source:
St George’s University of London
Media Contacts:
Lucia Ricciardi – St George’s University of London