French Scientists Crack Secrets Of Mona Lisa
Heaven soon
French
Scientists Crack Secrets Of Mona
Lisa
The enigmatic smile remains a
mystery, but
French scientists say they have
cracked a
few secrets of the "Mona Lisa."
French researchers studied seven
of the
Louvre Museum's Leonardo da Vinci
paintings, including the "Mona
Lisa," to analyze the master's use
of
successive ultrathin layers of
paint and
glaze - a technique that gave his
works
their dreamy quality. Specialists
from the
Center for Research and
Restoration of the
Museums of France found that da
Vinci
painted up to 30 layers of paint
on his
works to meet his standards of
subtlety.
Added up, all the layers are less
than 40
micrometers, or about half the
thickness
of a human hair, researcher
Philippe
Walter said Friday. The technique,
called
"sfumato," allowed da Vinci to
give outlines and contours a hazy
quality
and create an illusion of depth
and
shadow. His use of the technique
is
well-known, but scientific study
on it has
been limited because tests often
required
samples from the paintings. The
French
researchers used a noninvasive
technique
called X-ray
fluorescence spectroscopy
to
study the paint layers and their
chemical
composition.
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