Interesting article on the BBC here. New examination of a copy of the Mona Lisa has revealed detail lost from the original.
Having seen the recent Leonardo exhibition in London, this makes a lot of sense. Seeing the reproduction of The Last Supper was absolutely essential in understanding the fragmented, blurred original. But the exhibition also included two renditions of The Virgin of the Rocks – one from London and another from The Louvre, which is of course the home of the Mona Lisa. What was painfully clear was the two institutions’ differing attitudes to restoration and care. I’m not going to say which is better because I’m not sure what I even think about that myself, but the London piece was beautifully vivid whilst the Paris version was dull and difficult to see in a similar way to the Mona Lisa. Of course it could be argued that the dirty yellow image is more “original” than the polished, restored one but if the objective is to show how the painting would have looked back in the day then how important is it that every brushstroke is from the master’s own hand?
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