Mona Lisa’s smile wasn’t genuine when Leonardo da Vinci painted her because it is on the WRONG side
MONA Lisa’s world-famous smile “wasn’t genuine” when Leonardo da Vinci painted her, new research says.
Her lop-sided grin shows it was forced it as she sat for the Italian Renaissance legend more than 500 years ago, say scientists.
The famous portrait is one of the most-discussed works of art ever - partly thanks to the subject's ambiguous look.
Now a US team claims to have finally solved the mystery after analysing the asymmetry of the enigmatic grin.
Lead author Dr Luca Marsili, a neurologist at the University of Cincinnati, explained: "Our results indicate happiness is expressed only on the left side.
"According to some influential theories of emotion neuropsychology, we here interpreted the Mona Lisa asymmetric smile as a non genuine smile - also thought to occur when the subject lies."
The Mona Lisa has intrigued mankind ever since its creation somewhere between 1503 and 1506.
Some people think she is happy, and others sad.
So Dr Marsili and colleagues asked 42 volunteers to judge which of six basic were expressed by two altered pictures of her smile - one mirror image of the left side, and one of the right.
BEAUTY IS TRUTH'S SMILE
Thirty-nine, or 92.8 per cent, of the raters indicated the left half displayed happiness, while none felt this was shown on the right side.
Instead, 35 said the expression was neutral, five disgust and two said it showed sadness.
The researchers, who include Dr Lucia Ricciardi at St George's University of London, also point out the upper face muscles are not triggered in the painting.
A genuine smile causes the checks to raise and muscles around the eyes to contract, and is called a Duchenne smile, after 19th century French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne.
Writing in Cortex, they said the asymmetric type, also called a non-Duchenne smile, "reflects a non-genuine emotion and is thought to occur when the subject lies."
Added Dr Marsili: "Considering it is unlikely a person who sits motionless for hours to be painted is able to constantly smile in genuine happiness, the simplest explanation is the Mona Lisa asymmetric smile is the manifestation of an 'untrue enjoyment' in spite of all the efforts Leonardo's jesters used to make in order to keep his models merry.
ALWAYS WEAR A SMILE
"An alternative intriguing possibility, however, is Leonardo already knew the true meaning of asymmetric smile more than three centuries before Duchenne's reports and deliberately illustrated a smile expressing a 'non-felt' emotion."
If da Vinci was aware of the meaning of an asymmetric smile, the researchers speculate Mona Lisa's smile might hide cryptic messages.
For example, that this was in reality a self-portrait, which has been suggested before, or that it referred to a man or a dead woman.
They added: "While the Mona Lisa smile continues to attract attention of its observers, the true message it conveys remains elusive and many unsolved mysteries remain to be elucidated, perhaps via the knowledge of emotion neuropsychology."
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The half-length portrait on a poplar panel is sometimes known as La Gioconda or La Joconde.
It was painted using oil between 1503 and 1506 and has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world."
The model is said to be Lisa Gherardini who was married to a wealthy Florentine merchant called Francesco del Giocondo. But a recent theory is it was really 'da Vinci in drag.'
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