Mona Lisa: The History of the World's Most Famous Painting (Hardcover)

If you ever wanted to know the secret behind the enigmatic smile of Leonardo's Mona Lisa, then Donald Sassoon's splendid Mona Lisa: The History of the World's Most Famous Painting is the book to read. Sassoon begins with a simple but daunting question: "Why is the Mona Lisa the best-known painting in the entire world?" What follows is a tour de force of wonderfully readable historical scholarship that begins with the creation of the painting in 1503 and ends with Mona Lisa going global in the 21st century on 93,800 pages of the internet.

Sassoon begins with the controversy around the commissioning and creation of Leonardo's "revolutionary painting", which "was regarded as a masterpiece by many of Leonardo's own contemporaries" for its innovative pose and "sfumato" (or "smoky") style of painting which created "that smile". However, he goes on to explain that, prior to the 19th century, the painting was not treated with anything like the iconic reverence it receives today. With great style and humour he explores how romantic aesthetes such as Walter Pater, Theophile Gautier and Oscar Wilde managed "to transform Mona Lisa into a dangerous woman", a "femme fatale" of her time. The painting's reputation was further enhanced by its theft from the Louvre in 1911 by an Italian decorator who chose the Mona Lisa for no other reason than "it was much smaller and could be hidden under his coat" than larger paintings nearby. Sassoon also chronicles Marcel Duchamp's famous parody of the painting, and the infatuation with the painting that united everyone from Sigmund Freud to President John F Kennedy. In Mona Lisa Donald Sassoon has written the definitive book on Leonardo's enigmatic painting. Written with admirable style and wit, the book is a classic that will make everyone look afresh at "the best-known painting in the world". --Jerry Brotton

Possibly the world's most famous single work of art, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece has long haunted imaginations and inspired admiration. This is a narrative history of the unique work, which attempts to explain why the Mona Lisa has achieved quite the fame and status that it has: in the Louvre it is the only painting exhibited in a specially secure box, and now has its own room. Sassoon looks at various aspects of the painting's history, such as the innovative techniques used in its creation, the questions over the identity of the sitter, its subsequent history and copies, its theft, its appropriation by the surrealists then the advertising industry, and so on. With such a vast amount of information, conjecture and detail to draw on, Sassoon's book does the subject proud, being both well informed and entertaining. His study is well produced and strikingly illustrated. Ultimately, however, it must be said that the more the Mona Lisa is dissected as a cultural phenomenon, the further we are from understanding just why it is so 'special' to so many. That appeal remains as elusive and enigmatic as its famous smile.

How did a painting by Leonardo da Vinci become an object of popular consumption and a global icon? With a wealth of material, Donald Sassoon here charts the story of the Mona Lisa, the best-known painting in the entire world. Many mysteries surround it: why did Leonardo keep this portrait all his life? Why was it bought by the King of France? Why did Napoleon remove it from the Louvre and hang it in his bedroom? Even in Leonardo's time the painting was regarded as a masterpiece, because of the originality of the 'sfumato' technique of layering paint from dark to light, the innovative 'contrapposto' pose of the sitter, with her body turned but her gaze direct, and the pyramidal composition, hands at the base and head at the apex. In the 19th century poets and writers wrote extensively on the arts, and the renowned French critic Theophile Gautier 'rebranded' the Mona Lisa as a femme fatale, a mysterious and beautiful seductress. In Britain, Walter Pater wrote an essay on Leonardo with a much-quoted passage on the Mona Lisa as a seductive woman who, like so many in mythology and history, brings doom to her men. In 1911 the painting was removed from its frame and stolen. The theft was fully exploited in songs, satirical postcards and variety shows. Two years later, when the Mona Lisa was returned in Italy, crowds gathered to see it and once more the painting and its history received massive press coverage. When Marcel Duchamp, in 1919, took a postcard of the Mona Lisa and drew on her face a moustache and beard, this Surrealist mockery caused consternation, but debunking the image soon became widespread. This fascinating text is backed up by colour illustrations, notes, bibliography and index - it is both scholarly and most interesting. Let's not forget that Nat King Cole singing the pop song 'Mona Lisa' topped the charts, and you'll still hear it on the radio today. (Kirkus UK)