Mona Lisa, the mysterious woman immortalized in Leonardo da Vinci's 16th century masterpiece, had just given birth to her second son when she sat for the painting, a French art expert said on Tuesday.
The discovery was made by a team of Canadian scientists who used special infrared and three-dimensional technology to peer through hitherto impenetrable paint layers on the work, which now sits in the Louvre museum in Paris.
Bruno Mottin of the French Museums' Center for Research and Restoration said that on very close examination of the painting it became clear that the Mona Lisa's dress was covered in a thin transparent gauze veil.
"This type of gauze dress ... was typical of the kind worn in early 16th century Italy by women who were pregnant or who had just given birth. This is something that had never been seen up to now because the painting was always judged to be dark and difficult to examine," he told a news conference.
"We can now say that this painting by Leonardo da Vinci was painted to commemorate the birth of the second son of the Mona Lisa, which helps us to date it more precisely to around 1503."
The young woman with the ambiguous half smile has been identified as Lisa Gherardini, wife of Florentine merchant Francesco de Giocondo. She had five children.
Mottin also said that, contrary to popular belief, the subject had not let her hair hang freely but in fact wore a bonnet from which only a few curls managed to escape.
Vocabulary:
infrared :红外线；红外线的
hang: to let droop（垂下；悬着）
周二，一位法国艺术家说，达芬奇16世纪创作的不朽名画《蒙娜丽莎》中的神秘女子当时刚刚生完她的第二个儿子。
这一新发现由加拿大的一个科学家小组做出，他们利用特殊的红外线和三维技术，对这幅收藏于巴黎卢浮宫的油画进行了迄今为止最为彻底的渗透式扫描。
法国博物馆研究与修复中心的布鲁诺·莫丁说，通过仔细探查，可以发现蒙娜丽莎的裙子外面罩了一层透明的薄沙。
他在一个新闻发布会上说："这种薄沙裙装是16世纪早期意大利孕妇和刚生完孩子的妇女的典型装束。之前，我们从未发现过这层薄沙，因为人们一直认为这幅画色调暗，不易探查。"
"现在我们可以认为，达芬奇的这幅画是为了纪念蒙娜丽莎第二个儿子的出生而作的，同时这也帮助我们进一步确定这幅画创作于1503年前后。"
画中带着神秘微笑的年轻女子被认为是佛罗伦萨商人弗朗西斯科·戴尔·吉奥康多的夫人丽莎·格拉迪尼，她一共生了5个孩子。
莫丁还说，与人们普遍认为的相反，画中的蒙娜丽莎并非是随意的散着头发，事实上，她戴了一顶无边软帽，因此有几缕头发从帽子里滑落了下来。
链接阅读
Mona Lisa 'happy', computer finds 解密蒙娜丽莎的微笑 幸福表情占83%
The enigma of Leonardo da Vinci's famous Mona Lisa painting has been cracked with the help of emotion-recognition software from scientists recently.
According to findings which will be published in the New Scientist, a British journal, the exact breakdown of Mona Lisa's emotions, were 83 percent happy, 9 percent disgusted, 6 percent fearful, and 2 percent angry.
The sofeware rated features such as the curvature of the lips and crinkles around the eyes.
Dr. Nicu Sebe, a professor at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, used emotion-recognition software to come up with the exact breakdown of Mona Lisa's emotional state.
The program draws on a database of young female faces to derive an average "neutral" expression.
The software uses this average expression as the standard for comparisons. Other applications of emotion-recognition software might be to detect terror suspects on the basis of their emotions as well as their physical characteristics.
Possibly the most famous portrait of all time, Mona Lisa's cryptic expression has intrigued art lovers for five centuries.
In 2003, a scientist from Harvard University said the way the human eye processes visual information meant the smile was only apparent when the viewer looked at other parts of the painting.
The painting, which is on public display in the Louvre in Paris, was painted between 1503-1506.
It was thought to be named after the sitter, most likely the Florentine wife of Francesco del Giocondo.
The Mona Lisa features in the opening of Dan Brown's hit novel The da Vinci Code when a Louvre curator is found dead near the painting.
(Agencies)
近日，科学家们运用“情绪识别软件”对莱昂纳多·达·芬奇的名画《蒙娜丽莎的微笑》之谜进行了解读。
分析结果表明，蒙娜丽莎的微笑中带有83％的喜悦，9％的厌烦，6％的恐惧和2％的愤怒。这一研究成果将被刊登在英国的《新科学家》杂志上。
“情绪识别软件”通过对肖像面部特征的定量分析来评估人物的情绪，比如，嘴唇的曲度和眼睛周围的皱纹。
荷兰阿姆斯特丹大学的尼克·瑟比博士运用这个新软件对蒙娜丽莎的“情绪”进行了破解。
这项研究根据“年轻女子脸庞”数据库，研究并推断出了年轻女子的“正常”面部神情。
“情绪识别软件”就是用这个“正常”面部表情作为比较标准的。这个软件还能根据人物的情绪和生理特征识别出恐怖嫌疑犯。
《蒙娜丽莎》堪称传世名作，而五个世纪以来，画中蒙娜丽莎的神秘微笑则让众多艺术爱好者们迷惑不解。
2003年，哈佛大学的一位科学家说，蒙娜丽莎的笑容时隐时现，是我们看东西时视线游动的结果，也就是说，观察者的视线在画的其他部位时，才能看到蒙娜丽莎的微笑。
这幅画创作于1503年至1506年间，现在在巴黎的卢浮宫内展出。
这幅画被认为是以画中人的名字命名的，她很可能是佛罗伦萨人弗朗西斯科·德尔·吉奥康德的妻子。
丹·布朗的畅销小说《达·芬奇的密码》中的开头一幕就是卢浮宫的馆长秘死在博物馆中《蒙娜丽莎》的画旁。 |
