The Mona Lisa had another secret, but she couldn’t keep it that way any longer. Using X-rays to observe the chemical structure of a tiny particle From the famous artwork, scientists have gleaned new information about the techniques Leonardo da Vinci used to paint his groundbreaking portrait of the woman with the most enigmatic smile.
The study published this Wednesday in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (CNRS) suggests that the famous Italian Renaissance master, Maybe I was in a particularly experimental mood when he started working on the “Mona Lisa” at the beginning of the 16th century.
The oil paint formula that Leonardo used as a base coat to prepare the canvas appears to have been different for the “Mona Lisa.”
“He was someone who he loved to experiment, and each of their paintings is completely different from a technical point of view,” says Víctor González, lead author of the study and a chemist at the CNRS, France’s main research institution.
González has studied the chemical composition of dozens of works by Leonardo, Rembrandt and other artists.
“In this case, it’s interesting to see that there is actually a special technique for the background layer of the ‘Mona Lisa,'” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.
What chemical is used in Mona Lisa paint?
Specifically, researchers found a rare compound, plumbonacrite, in Leonardo’s first layer of paint. The discovery, says González, confirms for the first time what art historians only say They had come up with a hypothesis: that Leonardo probably used lead oxide powder to thicken and dry the paint when he began work on the portrait that now appears behind the protective glass of the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Carmen Bambach, a specialist in Italian art and curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, who was not involved in the study, called the research “very exciting” and said that any new scientifically proven knowledge about Leonardo’s painting techniques ” extremely important news for the art world and our global society in general.
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The discovery of plumbonacrite in the “Mona Lisa” testifies to “Leonardo’s passionate and constant experimental spirit as a painter: this makes him timeless and modern,” Bambach explained via email.
How did you identify the plumbonacrite in the “Mona Lisa”?
The analyzed color fragment from the base layer of the “Mona Lisa”. It was barely visible to the naked eye.no larger than the diameter of a human hair, and came from the top right edge of the painting.
Scientists studied its atomic structure using X-rays at a synchrotron, a large machine that accelerates particles to near the speed of light. This allowed them to decipher the chemical composition of the small fragment.
The plumbonacrite It is a byproduct of lead oxideThis allowed researchers to determine with greater certainty that Leonardo likely used the powder in his paint recipe.
“The Plumbonacrita is really a fingerprint of their recipe,” says González. “This is the first time we’ve been able to confirm it chemically.”
According to Leonardo, the Dutch master Rembrandt may have used a similar recipe when painting in the 17th century; González and other researchers also found plumbonacrite in their work.
“It also shows us that these recipes have been passed down through the centuries.”Gonzalez said. “It was a very good recipe.”
Leonardo is believed to have dissolved lead oxide powder, which is orange in color, by heating the mixture in linseed or walnut oil to create a thicker, quicker-drying paste.
“What you get is an oil that has a very nice golden color,” González said. “It flows more like honey.”
This latest discovery is just one of many that the researchers tasked with analyzing the painting hope to make. The “Mona Lisa” and other works by Leonardo have other secrets to tell.
“There is still a lot to discover. We’re just scratching the surface,” González says. “What we say is just another little stone of knowledge.”
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