3D imaging reveals incarnations of 'Mona Lisa'
(AFP)
2006-09-27 09:32
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"Mona Lisa" is seen at the Louvre museum in Paris
Researchers identified a lack of brushstrokes, suggesting that Da Vinci may have used his fingers to paint, except there are no fingerprints on the artwork.
Scans of the "Mona Lisa" revealed that darker areas, such as the eyes and corners of her smile, are thicker and "composed of a succession of thinly applied glaze layers," said NRC scientist Francois Blais.
However, how Da Vinci actually applied his layers of pigment and oil medium remains a mystery, he said.
"It's extremely thinly painted and extremely flat, and yet the details of the curls of hair, for example, are extremely distinct. So, the technique is unlike anything we've ever seen before," said John Taylor of the NRC.
A 12-centimeter (4.7-inch) split at the top of the painting, which worried curators, appears to be stable, NRC scientists said in a statement.
It was likely caused by the removal of the original frame and repaired between the middle of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, they said.
Also, the poplar wood panel on which Da Vinci painted his masterwork has a convex warp on the middle right side that is 12 millimeters (0.5 inches) higher than its surroundings, researchers said, but it does not threaten the "Mona Lisa" smile.
The 3D scans were done over two nights in October 2004 before the painting was placed in a new glass display case at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Mottin said although the Mona Lisa is seen by seven million visitors to the museum annually, scientists have had few opportunities to study her in a laboratory -- only once in the 1930s, in 1952 and now.
"She suffers from her celebrity," he said.
The new images will allow curators to continue their research without touching the canvas, as well as try new restoration techniques on the 3D model before applying them to the actual portrait, said Taylor.
The Canadian camera technology has been used previously to scan Michelangelo's statue "David" and paintings by artists like Renoir and Corot.
It was also used to create animation for Hollywood movies such as Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and, onboard the NASA space shuttle Atlantis, to examine the changing state of the shuttle's heat tiles during a mission.