Much rhapsodical nonsense has been written about the "Mona Lisa" and her enigmatic smile, and there have been endless speculations as to her character and the meaning of her expression. It is all beside the mark. The truth is that the "Mona Lisa" is a study of modeling. Leonardo da Vinci had discovered that the expression of smiling is much more a matter of modeling of the cheek and of the forms below the eye than of the change in the line of the lips. It interested him to produce a smile wholly by these delicate changes of surface; hence the mysterious expression. The painter was able to produce that strange smile on Mona Lisa’s face by

Much rhapsodical nonsense has been written about the "Mona Lisa" and her enigmatic smile, and there have been endless speculations as to her character and the meaning of her expression. It is all beside the mark. The truth is that the "Mona Lisa" is a study of modeling. Leonardo da Vinci had discovered that the expression of smiling is much more a matter of modeling of the cheek and of the forms below the eye than of the change in the line of the lips. It interested him to produce a smile wholly by these delicate changes of surface; hence the mysterious expression. The painter was able to produce that strange smile on Mona Lisa’s face by