tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/mona-lisa-31142/articlesMona Lisa – The Conversation2023-03-08T15:17:16Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2000462023-03-08T15:17:16Z2023-03-08T15:17:16ZPi gets all the fanfare, but other numbers also deserve their own math holidays<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514054/original/file-20230307-2837-xqlq9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=281%2C209%2C3413%2C2449&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One mathematical constant describes the population growth rate of a bunch of rabbits.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/rabbits-on-field-royalty-free-image/1146008449">Supalerk Laipawat/EyeEm via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>March 14 is celebrated as Pi Day because the date, when written as 3/14, matches the start of the decimal expansion 3.14159… of the most famous mathematical constant.</p>
<p>By itself, pi is simply a number, one among countless others between 3 and 4. What makes it famous is that it’s built into every circle you see – circumference equals pi times diameter – not to mention a range of other, unrelated contexts in nature, from the <a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/NormalDistribution.html">bell curve</a> distribution to <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pi-in-the-sky-general-relativity-passes-the-ratios-test/">general relativity</a>.</p>
<p>The true reason to celebrate Pi Day is that mathematics, which is a purely abstract subject, turns out to describe our universe so well. My book “<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324007036">The Big Bang of Numbers</a>” explores how remarkably hardwired into our reality math is. Perhaps the most striking evidence comes from mathematical constants: those rare numbers, including pi, that break out of the pack by appearing so frequently – and often, unexpectedly – in natural phenomena and related equations, that <a href="https://www.manilsuri.com/">mathematicians like me</a> exalt them with special names and symbols. </p>
<p>So, what other <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/mathematics/recreational-mathematics/mathematical-constants?format=HB&isbn=9780521818056">mathematical constants</a> are worth celebrating? Here are my proposals to start filling out the rest of the calendar.</p>
<h2>The Golden Ratio</h2>
<p>For January, I nominate the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/golden-ratio">Golden Ratio</a>, phi. Two quantities are said to be in this ratio if dividing the larger by the smaller quantity gives the same answer as dividing the sum of the two quantities by the larger quantity. Phi equals 1.618…, and since there’s no Jan. 61, we could celebrate it on Jan. 6.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/102878/the-golden-ratio-by-mario-livio/">First calculated by Euclid</a>, this ratio was popularized by Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli, who wrote a <a href="https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/mathematical-treasure-luca-pacioli-s-divina-proportione">book in 1509</a> extravagantly extolling its aesthetic properties. Supposedly, Leonardo da Vinci, who drew 60 drawings for this book, <a href="https://monalisa.org/2012/09/12/leonardo-and-mathematics-in-his-paintings/">incorporated it into the dimensions of Mona Lisa’s features</a>, a choice some claim is responsible for her beauty.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512253/original/file-20230224-2421-b4cons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a rectangle over Mona Lisa's face labels the vertical and horizontal ratio" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512253/original/file-20230224-2421-b4cons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512253/original/file-20230224-2421-b4cons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512253/original/file-20230224-2421-b4cons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512253/original/file-20230224-2421-b4cons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512253/original/file-20230224-2421-b4cons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512253/original/file-20230224-2421-b4cons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512253/original/file-20230224-2421-b4cons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The vertical and horizontal measures of Mona Lisa’s face fit the Golden Ratio.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324007036">'The Big Bang of Numbers'</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first inkling that phi occurs in nature came from another Italian, Fibonacci, while <a href="https://plus.maths.org/content/life-and-numbers-fibonacci">studying how rabbits multiply</a>. A common reproductive assumption was that each pair of rabbits begets another pair every month. Start with a single rabbit pair, and successive populations will then follow the sequence 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 and so on – that is, get multiplied by a monthly “growth ratio” of 2.</p>
<p>What Fibonacci observed, though, was that rabbits spent the first cycle reaching sexual maturity and only began reproducing after that. A single pair now gives the new, slower progression 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34… instead. This is the <a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/FibonacciNumber.html">famous sequence</a> named after Fibonacci; notice that each population turns out to be the sum of its two predecessors.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512255/original/file-20230224-2346-mamx70.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="diagram of how many rabbits you'll have month by month" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512255/original/file-20230224-2346-mamx70.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512255/original/file-20230224-2346-mamx70.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512255/original/file-20230224-2346-mamx70.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512255/original/file-20230224-2346-mamx70.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512255/original/file-20230224-2346-mamx70.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512255/original/file-20230224-2346-mamx70.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512255/original/file-20230224-2346-mamx70.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fibonacci’s rabbits don’t really double their population each generation – their growth ratio actually approaches the 1.618… of phi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324007036">'The Big Bang of Numbers'</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How does phi show up amid all these randy rabbits? Well, progressing through the sequence, you see that each number is about 1.6 times the previous one. In fact, this growth ratio keeps getting closer and closer to 1.618…. For instance, 21 equals about 1.615 times 13, and 34 equals about 1.619 times 21. This means the rabbits settle down to reproducing with a growth ratio that is no longer 2, but rather, gets closer and closer to the Golden Ratio.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512256/original/file-20230224-2023-hria2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="'petals' on the base of a pine cone spiral outward from the center in 13 lines" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512256/original/file-20230224-2023-hria2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512256/original/file-20230224-2023-hria2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512256/original/file-20230224-2023-hria2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512256/original/file-20230224-2023-hria2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512256/original/file-20230224-2023-hria2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512256/original/file-20230224-2023-hria2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512256/original/file-20230224-2023-hria2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The number of spirals in a pine cone is usually a Fibonacci number.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324007036">'The Big Bang of Numbers'</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Actual rabbits are unlikely to follow this rule precisely. For one, they have the unfortunate tendency to get eaten by predators. But the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/Fibonacci-number">Fibonacci numbers</a> – like 5, 8, 13 and so on – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahXIMUkSXX0">show up extensively in nature</a>, like in the number of spirals you might see in a typical pine cone. And yes, phi itself makes a few appearances as well, perhaps most notably in the way <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1743115">leaves arrange themselves around a stem</a> to maximize exposure to sunlight.</p>
<h2>The constant ‘e’</h2>
<p>February offers another blockbuster constant, <a href="https://rdcu.be/c6V6z">Euler’s number e</a>, which has the value 2.718…. So mark next Feb. 7 for the shindig.</p>
<p>To understand e, consider “doubling” growth again, but now in terms of the “population” of dollars in your bank account. By some miracle, your money in this example is earning you 100% interest, compounded each year. Each $1 invested becomes $2 at year’s end.</p>
<p>Suppose, however, the interest is compounded semiannually. Then 50% of the interest is credited midyear, giving you $1.50. You get the remaining 50% interest on this $1.50 at the end of the year, which works out to $0.75, giving you $2.25 ($1.50 + $0.75). So your investment gets multiplied by 2.25, rather than 2.</p>
<p>What if a war broke out between banks, each offering to compound the same 100% interest over shorter and more frequent intervals? Would the sky be the limit in terms of your payout? The answer is no. You could raise your growth ratio from 2 to about 2.718 – more precisely, to e – but <a href="https://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/titles/tony-crilly/50-maths-ideas-you-really-need-to-know/9781848667419/">no higher</a>. Although you get more frequent credits, they have progressively diminishing returns.</p>
<p><iframe id="jClwn" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/jClwn/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In the late 17th century, the <a href="https://www.stevenstrogatz.com/books/infinite-powers">discovery of calculus</a> led to a quantum leap in people’s ability to grapple with the universe. Math could now analyze anything that changed – which extended its domain to most phenomena in nature. The constant e is famous because of its <a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/e.html">iconic role in calculus</a>: It turns out to be the most natural growth factor to track change. Consequently, it shows up in laws describing many natural processes - from <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/how-populations-grow-the-exponential-and-logistic-13240157/">population growth</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.44.654">radioactive decay</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AAir4vcxRPU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The constant e is a big part of calculus – and turns up in all kinds of natural phenomena.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Next on our calendar of mathematical constants would come pi, of course, for March. My nominee for April is <a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/FeigenbaumConstant.html">Feigenbaum’s constant delta</a>, which equals 4.669… and measures how quickly growth processes spin off into chaos. </p>
<p>I’ll wait for my first batch to achieve official holiday status before going any further – happy to consider any candidates <a href="https://www.manilsuri.com/about">you want to nominate</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200046/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Manil Suri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pi gets a lot of attention this time of year, but there are plenty of other mathematical constants just as deserving of recognition.Manil Suri, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1617352021-06-04T14:41:33Z2021-06-04T14:41:33ZThe Hekking Mona Lisa – where the value of a painting, even a very good copy, lies<p>The Mona Lisa, housed in the Louvre in Paris, has been copied many times. The most famous of those copies has to be the Hekking Mona Lisa, named after its previous owner, the antiquarian Raymond Hekking (1886-1977). It’s <a href="https://www.christies.com/about-us/press-archive/details?PressReleaseID=10098&lid=1">set to go on sale</a> at Christie’s auction house in Paris and is expected, at a conservative guess, to sell for around €200,000 to €300,000 (£170,00 to £260,000)</p>
<p>This estimate will probably be exceeded. Previous sales of such 17th-century copies of the Mona Lisa have fetched as much as <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/perhaps-even-a-leonardo-copy-shows-you-re-rich-and-cultured">US$1,695,000</a> (£1,195,000), as one version did in New York in March 2019. Another version sold in Paris in November 2019 for <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-monalisa-idUSKBN1XT2B2">€552,500</a> and a third version at Christie’s Paris in the same year for €162,500. </p>
<p>The 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death was celebrated in 2019 with several prestigious exhibitions, so arguably the market for Leonardo images was at a fever pitch. However, the Mona Lisa, either as an original or through its numerous copies, means money at any time. </p>
<p>Of the many versions of the painting, few copies have a more fascinating history than the Hekking Mona Lisa. It offers a brilliant insight into changing attitudes over the centuries towards the perceived value of originality versus imitation.</p>
<h2>The ‘real’ deal?</h2>
<p>None of Leonardo’s works is more desirable than the Mona Lisa, which became the subject of arguably the most infamous of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/aug/05/mona-lisa-theft-louvre-leonardo">20th-century art heists</a>. In August 1911, Louvre employee Vincenzo Perugia stole the Mona Lisa. The painting was missing for two years before its recovery in Florence and its eventual return to the Louvre in 1913 after a triumphant tour of Italian museums. </p>
<p>The theft made papers all over the world and contributed exponentially to the painting’s fame.</p>
<p>In January 1963, amid much international attention, the Mona Lisa travelled to the United States and was shown to much acclaim in Washington DC and New York City. First Lady Jackie Kennedy had brokered the deal in 1961 and media attention on the Mona Lisa in the lead-up to its tour of America reached fever pitch. </p>
<p>It was in the middle of this that Raymond Hekking made the sensational claim that the Mona Lisa that the Louvre was preparing to send to America was not the original – but his was.</p>
<p>Hekking acquired his version of the Mona Lisa in the late 1950s from an art dealer in Nice, France, for around £3. He argued that the copy returned to the Louvre in 1913 was just another contemporary copy of the Mona Lisa.</p>
<p>Hekking turned out to be a genius communicator and masterminded an astonishingly prominent media campaign to get his Mona Lisa recognised as “THE” Mona Lisa. He invited the media to scrutinise his copy and <a href="https://www.britishpathe.com/video/mona-lisa-sensation">even produced a film</a> to support his claim. </p>
<h2>What’s in a reproduction?</h2>
<p>Hekking’s attempts to authenticate his version as the “real” Mona Lisa have since been disproved. His painting has been conclusively dated to the early 17th-century and attributed to an anonymous “Italian follower of Leonardo”. </p>
<p>All of this raises the question of where the value of an image lies anyway. </p>
<p>For collectors during the early modern period (around 1500-1800), the value of an artefact did not necessarily lie in the fact that the artist made the image themselves. Rather they valued having a copy of an iconic image. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Crowd of tourists in front of Mona Lisa on gallery wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404519/original/file-20210604-17-1ab4xkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404519/original/file-20210604-17-1ab4xkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404519/original/file-20210604-17-1ab4xkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404519/original/file-20210604-17-1ab4xkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404519/original/file-20210604-17-1ab4xkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404519/original/file-20210604-17-1ab4xkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404519/original/file-20210604-17-1ab4xkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ‘real’ Mona Lisa at Louvre, Paris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/paris-france-may-25-2016-many-576272251">Takashi Images/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s important to remember that historically there were fewer images and they were less readily accessible. Seeing an artwork may have required travel to the place where it was kept, and access to the image may have depended on the owner permitting you entry. Ownership of even a copy of a coveted image meant status and privilege and conferred significant cultural kudos on the collector. </p>
<p>Many artefacts were produced in workshops with the help of multiple assistants (as opposed to by a single artist) but this mattered little. It is quite helpful to think of those workshops in the same way as we would think of as a designer’s studio today. Works coming from that studio carry the brand of the artist but may not necessarily have been designed, created or executed by the hand of the master. </p>
<p>And still, it’s worth being associated with the brand because the imprint of and association with the artist is what matters and what gave value to the owner of the artefact. This is especially so when the creation of multiples meant copying by hand, producing versions that were each unique in their own right.</p>
<h2>Copies in the age of mechanical reproduction</h2>
<p>But now we live in an age where we can all see any artwork reproduced online or through techniques like photography, screen printing or engraving, does that decrease the value of a copy or reproduction?</p>
<p>The German philosopher Walter Benjamin was the first to try and unpick these debates. In his article <a href="https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf">The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction</a>, Benjamin made the point that an original artwork possesses an irreproducible and inimitable “aura” of uniqueness, which is not present in a mechanical reproduction and therefore reduces its value. </p>
<p>But he also emphasised that any artwork has “artistic authenticity”, and that makes it important because it reflects the intentions of the patron who wanted to possess the image and the role of the artist who made it on demand for that patron. In other words, what Benjamin here outlines is why a work such as the Hekking Mona Lisa is so important. It has a story all uniquely its own, and that confers value on it.</p>
<p>There’s more then to the Hekking Mona Lisa than being just another Leonardo copy. The Hekking Mona Lisa is not a mechanical reproduction but an authentic 17th-century copy of an iconic image, and it has spades of cultural authority and stories of its own. If there ever has been an image that invites debates about the value of copies, and reflections about authenticity, well, they are encapsulated by the Hekking Mona Lisa. And that will undoubtedly be reflected in the price tag this image will fetch at auction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161735/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriele Neher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s work is set to fetch a lot at auction. But why would a fake cost so much?Gabriele Neher, Associate Professor in History of Art, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1171802019-06-11T20:12:53Z2019-06-11T20:12:53ZWhat’s so special about the Mona Lisa?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276254/original/file-20190524-187165-191m8m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mona Lisa, Musée du Louvre, Paris, April 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Susan Broomhall</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every day, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/arts/design/mona-lisa-instagram-art.html">thousands</a> of people from around the world crowd into a stark, beige room at Paris’s Louvre Museum to view its single mounted artwork, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. </p>
<p>To do so, they walk straight past countless masterpieces of the European Renaissance. So why does the Mona Lisa seem so special? </p>
<h2>The mystery of her identity</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276257/original/file-20190524-187189-1ke39ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276257/original/file-20190524-187189-1ke39ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276257/original/file-20190524-187189-1ke39ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276257/original/file-20190524-187189-1ke39ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276257/original/file-20190524-187189-1ke39ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276257/original/file-20190524-187189-1ke39ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276257/original/file-20190524-187189-1ke39ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276257/original/file-20190524-187189-1ke39ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, oil on poplar wood, c. 1503–06?, 77 x 33 cm, inv. 779. Musée du Louvre, Paris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The story told by one of Leonardo’s first biographers, Giorgio Vasari, is that this oil portrait depicts Lisa Gherardini, second wife of a wealthy silk and wool merchant Francesco del Giocondo (hence the name by which it is known in Italian: La Gioconda). </p>
<p>Leonardo likely commenced the work while in Florence in the early 1500s, perhaps when he was hoping to receive the commission to take on a massive wall painting of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Anghiari_(Leonardo)">The Battle of Anghiari</a>. </p>
<p>Accepting a portrait commission from one of the city’s most influential, politically-engaged citizens might well have helped his chances. A recently discovered marginal note by Agostino Vespucci, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20131105050239/http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/Englisch/news/monalisa.html">one-time assistant to the diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli,</a> records that Leonardo was working on a painting of “Lisa del Giocondo” in 1503.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276263/original/file-20190524-187157-vyb9t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276263/original/file-20190524-187157-vyb9t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276263/original/file-20190524-187157-vyb9t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=182&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276263/original/file-20190524-187157-vyb9t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=182&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276263/original/file-20190524-187157-vyb9t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=182&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276263/original/file-20190524-187157-vyb9t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276263/original/file-20190524-187157-vyb9t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276263/original/file-20190524-187157-vyb9t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Agostino Vespucci, Handwritten comment about the Mona Lisa in Cicero’s Epistolae ad familiares (Bologna 1477), Bl. 11a, held in Heidelberg, University Library, D 7620 qt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Heidelberg University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Italian painter Raphael, a great admirer of Leonardo, leaves us a sketch from around 1505-6 of what seems to be <a href="https://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/r/raphael/7drawing/3/09drawin.html">this work</a>. When Leonardo later moved to France in 1516, he took this still unfinished work with him. </p>
<p>However, art scholars have increasingly voiced doubts about whether the image in the Louvre can indeed be Vasari’s Lisa, for the style and techniques of the painting match far better Leonardo’s later work from 1510 onwards. </p>
<p>Additionally, a visitor to Leonardo’s house in 1517 recorded seeing there a portrait of “a certain Florentine woman, done from life,” made “at the instance of the late magnificent Giuliano de Medici.” Medici was Leonardo’s patron in Rome from 1513 to 1516. Was our visitor looking at the same image Vasari and our marginal diarist describe as Lisa, or another portrait of a different woman, commissioned later? </p>
<p>All in all, just who we are seeing in the Louvre remains one of the work’s many mysteries.</p>
<h2>A portrait stripped bare</h2>
<p>In comparison to many contemporary images of the elite, this portrait is stripped of the usual trappings of high status or symbolic hints to the sitter’s dynastic heritage. All attention is thus drawn to her face, and that enigmatic expression. </p>
<p>Before the 18th century, emotion was more commonly articulated in painting through gestures of the hand and body than the face. But in any case, depictions of individuals did not aim to convey the same kinds of emotions we might look for in a portrait photograph today — think courage or humility rather than joy or happiness.</p>
<p>Additionally, a hallmark of elite status was one’s ability to keep the passions under good regulation. Irrespective of dental hygiene standards, a broad smile in artworks thus generally indicated ill-breeding or mockery, as we see in Leonardo’s own study of Five Grotesque Heads.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276267/original/file-20190524-187185-mbpffl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276267/original/file-20190524-187185-mbpffl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276267/original/file-20190524-187185-mbpffl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276267/original/file-20190524-187185-mbpffl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276267/original/file-20190524-187185-mbpffl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276267/original/file-20190524-187185-mbpffl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276267/original/file-20190524-187185-mbpffl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276267/original/file-20190524-187185-mbpffl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leonardo da Vinci, Grotesque Heads, c. 1490s, pen, Royal Library, Windsor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our modern ideas about emotions leave us wondering just what Mona Lisa might have been feeling or thinking much more than the work’s early modern viewers likely did.</p>
<h2>A 20th century phenomenon</h2>
<p>In fact, there is a real question as to whether anyone before the 20th century thought much about the Mona Lisa at all. The historian <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Becoming_Mona_Lisa.html?id=L_3fPAAACAAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">Donald Sassoon has argued that much of the painting’s modern global iconic status</a> rests on its widespread reproduction and use in all manner of advertising.</p>
<p>This notoriety was “helped” by its theft in 1911 by former Louvre employee, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1816681/">Vincenzo Peruggia</a>. He remarkably walked out of the museum one evening after closing time with the painting wrapped in his smock coat. He spent the next two years with it hidden in his lodgings.</p>
<p>Shortly after its return, the Dadaist Marcel Duchamp used a postcard of the Mona Lisa as the basis for his 1919 ready-made work, LHOOQ, initials that sound in French as “she has a hot ass”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276272/original/file-20190524-187182-fd4hdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276272/original/file-20190524-187182-fd4hdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276272/original/file-20190524-187182-fd4hdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276272/original/file-20190524-187182-fd4hdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276272/original/file-20190524-187182-fd4hdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276272/original/file-20190524-187182-fd4hdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276272/original/file-20190524-187182-fd4hdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276272/original/file-20190524-187182-fd4hdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marcel Duchamp, with Francis Picabia, L H O O Q, 1919, published in the magazine 391, No. 12, March 1920.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although not the first, it is perhaps among the best known examples of Mona Lisa parodies, along with <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20091028014015/http://www.studiolo.org/Mona/MONA14.htm">Salvador Dali’s Self Portrait as Mona Lisa, 1954</a>.</p>
<h2>Cultural furniture</h2>
<p>From Duchamp and Dali, we have increasingly seen the Mona Lisa used as a trope. Balardung/Noongar artist <a href="https://artsearch.nga.gov.au/detail.cfm?irn=167350">Dianne Jones has reprised the work in her inkjet photographic portraits of 2005</a>, which are less pointed in their swipe at white European art and more luminous in their appropriation of Mona Lisa’s sense of dream-like plenitude. </p>
<p>The painting appears as cultural furniture in the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/apeshit-beyonce-jay-zs-new-video-reinvented-louvre/">recent music video Apeshit, 2019, by Beyoncé and Jay Z</a>, in which they romp across the Louvre backed by a troupe of scantily clad dancers, striking Lady Hamilton-like poses in front of famous works of art. </p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/294517212" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The video for Apeshit.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Apeshit itself closely imitates earlier works of contemporary high culture, not least French New Wave film director Jean-Luc Godard’s Bande à Part (Band of Outsiders), 1964, in which three friends, including Mona Lisa-like Anna Karina (Godard’s famous muse), meet up and run through the Louvre in record time. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FM6igESrqMk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Jean-Luc Godard, Bande à part (extract), 1964.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, the <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/when-german-performance-artist-ulay-stole-hitlers-favorite-painting.html">notorious theft of a work of art by German performance artist Ulay</a> in 1976, in which he removed the most famous (and kitsch) painting in the National Gallery in Berlin, Carl Spitzweg’s 1839 portrait of The Poor Poet, was a reprise of the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277129/original/file-20190530-69071-16kcy6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277129/original/file-20190530-69071-16kcy6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277129/original/file-20190530-69071-16kcy6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277129/original/file-20190530-69071-16kcy6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277129/original/file-20190530-69071-16kcy6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277129/original/file-20190530-69071-16kcy6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277129/original/file-20190530-69071-16kcy6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277129/original/file-20190530-69071-16kcy6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wim Delvoye, Suppo, 2012, Musée du Louvre, Paris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martin Gautron/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many contemporary artists have rubbished all the reverence surrounding bucket-list art visits such as that to the Mona Lisa. </p>
<p>Recently, Belgian art provocateur Wim Delvoye (whose shit-producing machine, Cloaca, 2000, is one of the centrepieces of Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art) installed Suppo (2012), a giant steel corkscrew suppository, under the Louvre’s central glass entry pyramid. This made it the first sighting of art in the museum to which the Mona Lisa’s visitors flock.</p>
<p>Still, the mysteries of the Mona Lisa look set to intrigue us for years to come. It is precisely the breadth and depth of possible interpretations that makes her special. Mona Lisa is whoever we want her to be - and doesn’t that make her the ultimate female fantasy figure?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117180/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Broomhall receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Green does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is the world’s most visited artwork. Its appeal rests partly on several mysteries.Susan Broomhall, Professor of History, The University of Western AustraliaCharles Green, Professor, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1153102019-05-01T17:16:34Z2019-05-01T17:16:34ZLeonardo da Vinci: portrait of the artist as a musician is slightly off key<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271725/original/file-20190430-136800-1lc143.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C174%2C538%2C470&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Marcantonio Raimondi’s 1505 engraving may show Leonardo da Vinci playing an instrument called a lira da braccio.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cleveland Museum of Art.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Leonardo da Vinci has attracted more than his fair share of speculative nonsense in the modern day. Not least several unlikely theories that have taken inspiration from his interest in music. According to one idea, the hands of Jesus and his disciples in Leonardo’s famous Last Supper should be seen as the <a href="https://www.livescience.com/2039-da-vinci-musical-code-supper.html">noteheads of music notation</a>, producing a hidden melody, although there’s no evidence this is what Leonardo intended.</p>
<p>More musical “compositions” supposedly by Leonardo circulate on Youtube, a situation fuelled by the existence of a much later baroque composer who happens to be called <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonardo-Vinci">Leonardo Vinci</a>. A “portrait” of Leonardo making music has <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/new-leonardo-da-vinci-portrait-304153">recently been identified</a>, on what I consider to be insufficient evidence, in an engraving at the Cleveland Museum of Art.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rfuQU_qnqdw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>So if this is all nonsense, what did Leonardo really have to do with music? As we approach the 500th anniversary of the renaissance polymath’s death, the cupboard of musical myths attached to this cultural icon is in need of a clear-out.</p>
<h2>Music versus painting</h2>
<p>Leonardo spent a good deal of time in his notebooks discussing the relative merits of painting, poetry and music. Like many of his contemporaries, he enjoyed using the idea of musical harmony as a metaphor for any complex arrangement of elements that used rational(ish) principles to arrive at an orderly and attractive result. </p>
<p>He argued that a well-composed drawing or painting, or an elegant poem, could be harmonious just like a musical composition. But although he borrowed a musical metaphor, Leonardo wanted to show that painting was the superior art. To do this, he came up with two clever arguments.</p>
<p>First, he pointed out that harmony works best when you can see or hear all of the elements that go together to produce it at the same time. This happens in a painting, which is a harmony of colours, and in a musical chord, a collection of notes – but it doesn’t happen in poetry, which is just one voice.</p>
<p>Second, he felt strongly that harmony needs to be appreciated at length, and therefore the best art is one in which the harmony remains available for contemplation indefinitely. A painting presents its harmony for ever, but musical sounds come and go in an instant.</p>
<p>Mission accomplished: painting is best. The accusation that musical sounds are fleeting and insubstantial would continue to plague music for centuries after. Thanks a bunch, Leonardo.</p>
<h2>The food of love</h2>
<p>Leonardo’s interest in representing the psychology of his portrait subjects is often discussed in relation to Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile. But the Portrait of a Musician attributed to Leonardo in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan experiments with a different solution.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271727/original/file-20190430-136777-1ocboz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271727/original/file-20190430-136777-1ocboz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271727/original/file-20190430-136777-1ocboz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271727/original/file-20190430-136777-1ocboz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271727/original/file-20190430-136777-1ocboz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271727/original/file-20190430-136777-1ocboz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271727/original/file-20190430-136777-1ocboz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271727/original/file-20190430-136777-1ocboz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leonardo da Vinci, portrait of unknown musician, perhaps Franchino Gaffurio or Galeazzo di Sanseverino. Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There’s no evidence at all to help identify the sitter, but we can be pretty sure of one thing: he wasn’t a professional musician. Around the time this painting was made it was rapidly becoming very fashionable for rich young Italians to be painted making music.</p>
<p>For them, making music was all about being young, beautiful and hopelessly in love. Leonardo’s sitter holds up a musical score for us to inspect. Unfortunately it is no longer legible, but it’s a safe bet that it was a love song. </p>
<p>Then, as now, music was thought of as a powerful way of expressing emotions and communicating them to others. Songs were seen as representations of the singer’s state of mind.</p>
<p>In this portrait, Leonardo pioneers the representation of music making as an easy way to give the viewer an insight into the sitter’s psychology. Over the next couple of decades, this would become a standard approach in Italian portraiture.</p>
<p>Like the man in his portrait, Leonardo was an enthusiastic amateur musician. There’s <a href="https://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_vite_de%27_pi%C3%B9_eccellenti_pittori,_scultori_e_architettori_(1568)/Lionardo_da_Vinci">strong evidence</a> that he enjoyed making up poems and singing them to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument called the <a href="https://www.khm.at/objektdb/detail/84784/">lira da braccio</a>. Leonardo’s musical hobby was not at all unusual. During his lifetime, writing love poems to sing to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument was the most popular amateur musical pastime for educated Italians.</p>
<h2>Sound and science</h2>
<p>Much more unusual was Leonardo’s interest in the science of acoustics. Expert musicians paid little attention to acoustics in this period, focusing instead on the philosophy of music and the rules of musical composition. Leonardo, in contrast, approached music as a scientist interested in natural phenomena.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271728/original/file-20190430-136810-ttg1yu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271728/original/file-20190430-136810-ttg1yu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271728/original/file-20190430-136810-ttg1yu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271728/original/file-20190430-136810-ttg1yu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271728/original/file-20190430-136810-ttg1yu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271728/original/file-20190430-136810-ttg1yu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271728/original/file-20190430-136810-ttg1yu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271728/original/file-20190430-136810-ttg1yu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sketch of Leonardo da Vinci’s experiments into acoustics using a bell.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Using close observation, Leonardo explored how sounds moved through different kinds of materials, as Michel Eisenberg explains in <a href="http://faculty.virginia.edu/Fiorani/NEH-Institute/essays/themes-and-essays/music/eisenberg">this excellent short essay</a>. Leonardo used his insights to develop designs for new and improved musical instruments – although, like many of Leonardo’s inventions, few of them ever saw the light of day.</p>
<p>Leonardo’s innovations and inventions sometimes seem <a href="http://www.leonardodavincisinventions.com/inventions-for-flight/leonardo-da-vinci-helicopter/">alarmingly prescient</a>, and his practice of <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2017/11/why-did-leonardo-da-vinci-write-backwards-a-look-into-the-ultimate-renaissance-mans-mirror-writing.html">mirror-writing</a> gives his notebooks an air of mystique and concealment. But the real Leonardo had no mysterious prophetic messages to pass down the centuries in song. Rather, he was a jobbing artist and engineer, thinking creatively from the real circumstances of the musical culture of his day to push the boundaries of arts practice and understanding.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115310/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Shephard works for the University of Sheffield. This research was funded by a Research Project Grant from the Leverhulme Trust UK. Tim Shephard is a member of the Liberal Democrat Party.</span></em></p>A lot has been said about Leonardo and music, much of it speculation. But what do we know for sure?Tim Shephard, Senior Lecturer in Musicology, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/959382019-01-09T19:11:50Z2019-01-09T19:11:50ZHow the right lighting could save the Mona Lisa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249187/original/file-20181206-128199-1bc3u15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lighting causes damage to paintings over time. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/DCIncuh0XbY">Juan Di Nella/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Next time you’re in a museum or art gallery, observe each painting a little more closely. You may notice cracks on the surface of the canvas, especially if the painting is very old. </p>
<p>The damage you see is caused by radiant energy striking the painting’s surface – and light (visible radiation) causes irreversible damage to artwork.</p>
<p>However, all is not lost. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15502724.2018.1533852">Our new research</a> shows that optimised smart lighting systems can reduce damage to paintings while preserving their colour appearance. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/terahertz-spectroscopy-the-new-tool-to-help-detect-art-fraud-77173">Terahertz spectroscopy: the new tool to help detect art fraud</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The dilemma</h2>
<p>Damage to artwork by infrared, ultraviolet and visible radiation is <a href="http://www.cie.co.at/publications/control-damage-museum-objects-optical-radiation">well documented</a>. When a photon (an elementary light particle) is absorbed by a pigment in paint, the pigment molecule elevates to a higher energy state. In this excited state, the molecule’s chemical composition changes. This is called a photochemical action. </p>
<p>Viewed from the human perspective, the photochemical action manifests itself as cracks, discolouration, or surface hardening. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249191/original/file-20181206-128208-h0dq28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249191/original/file-20181206-128208-h0dq28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249191/original/file-20181206-128208-h0dq28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249191/original/file-20181206-128208-h0dq28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249191/original/file-20181206-128208-h0dq28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249191/original/file-20181206-128208-h0dq28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249191/original/file-20181206-128208-h0dq28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Johannes Vermeer painted The Milkmaid in 1660.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/milkmaid-by-johannes-vermeer-1660-dutch-411416362?src=Do8T0Wf9OQ1JATiVB6PnKw-1-17">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not surprisingly, daylight, which includes infrared and ultraviolet radiation, is highly damaging to paintings. In museums, it is common practice to use incandescent, and more recently, light emitting diodes (LEDs), to reduce damage. </p>
<p>However, a group of researchers <a href="http://www.vangogh.ua.ac.be/">showed</a> that light can cause colour degradation regardless of the lighting technology. Bright yellow colours in Van Gogh’s famous Sunflowers are turning dark brown due to absorption of blue and green light from LEDs. Research on the conservation of artwork makes it look like this is a losing battle. </p>
<p>Of course, you will be right in thinking that the best conservation method would be the complete absence of light. But we need light for visibility and to appreciate the beauty of a painting. </p>
<p>This leaves us with a dilemma of two conflicting parameters: visibility and damage. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-does-glow-in-the-dark-paint-work-92438">Curious Kids: How does glow in the dark paint work?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Light optimisation</h2>
<p>Lighting technology in itself may not be enough to tackle this dilemma. However, the way we use technology can make a difference. </p>
<p>Our approach to address this problem is based on three key facts: </p>
<ol>
<li>light triggers photochemical actions only when it is absorbed by a pigment</li>
<li>the reflectance factor of a pigment (its effectiveness in reflecting light) determines the amount of light absorption</li>
<li>light output (composition of the light spectrum, and the intensity of the light) of lighting devices, such as LEDs, can be fine-tuned. </li>
</ol>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249193/original/file-20181206-128193-1835fm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249193/original/file-20181206-128193-1835fm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249193/original/file-20181206-128193-1835fm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249193/original/file-20181206-128193-1835fm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249193/original/file-20181206-128193-1835fm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249193/original/file-20181206-128193-1835fm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249193/original/file-20181206-128193-1835fm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yellow colours are particularly vulnerable to being damaged by light.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-painting-cracked-texture-183476567?src=jrn42ol2Z0PZEk5uu9EFQw-1-7">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is possible to measure the reflectance factor of a painting and optimise lighting to reduce absorption. Previous research <a href="https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-23-11-A456">shows</a> that optimising light to lessen absorption can reduce energy consumption significantly, and with <a href="https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-25-11-12839">no loss</a> in visual experience. Objects look equally natural and attractive under optimised light sources compared to regular white light sources. </p>
<p>In this new study, we optimised LEDs for five paintings to reduce light absorption. Using a <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/996017">genetic algorithm</a> (an artificial intelligence technique), we reduced light absorption between 19% and 47%. Besides the benefits for the painting, this method almost halved the energy consumed by lighting. </p>
<p>In addition to increased sustainability and art conservation, the colour quality of the paintings was another parameter in our optimisation process. Colour appearance and brightness of paintings were held constant not to lower the appreciation of the artwork. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-eye-disorders-may-have-influenced-the-work-of-famous-painters-92830">How eye disorders may have influenced the work of famous painters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is possible due to a quirk in our visual system. Photoreceptor cone cells, the cells in our retinas which enable human colour vision, are not equally sensitive to the whole visible spectrum. </p>
<p>Different combinations of wavelength and intensity can result in identical signals in our brain. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1331666/?page=1">This understanding</a> gives us the flexibility of using different light sources to facilitate identical colour appearances. </p>
<p>This smart lighting system requires scanning of the artwork to obtain colour information. Then, a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2281482">precise projection system</a> emits optimised lighting to the painting. </p>
<p>This method offers a solution to extend the lifetime of works of art, such as the world-famous Mona Lisa, without leaving them in the dark.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95938/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dorukalp Durmus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Researchers have found a way to reduce light damage to artworks by up to 47% by optimising LEDs to prevent light from being absorbed by the artwork.Dorukalp Durmus, Honorary Associate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/937982018-04-09T14:35:42Z2018-04-09T14:35:42ZWhy we can’t unsee Mona Lisa’s moustache<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213814/original/file-20180409-114080-15jve7h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two works by Duchamp. L.H.O.O.Q. (1919) and L.H.O.O.Q. Rasée (1965).</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Can you spot the difference between these two images? They are both by French conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp. On the left is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2001/may/26/art">L.H.O.O.Q. (1919)</a> where Duchamp drew a moustache and beard on the picture of Mona Lisa. You may wonder about the acronym he chose as a title for this. If you pronounce the letters in French, what you get sounds like “<em>Elle a chaud au cul</em>” (my humble translation: “She’s horny”).</p>
<p>On the right is L.H.O.O.Q. rasée (where “rasée’” means “shaven”), a piece Duchamps did much later, in 1965. It is a reference to the earlier picture – but it is perceptually indistinguishable from a faithful reproduction of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa. But, having seen his moustachioed Mona Lisa, it is very difficult not to see differently from the way we see Leonardo’s original. Give it a try. Here’s the original just to refresh your memory:</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213816/original/file-20180409-114112-1m0g43j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213816/original/file-20180409-114112-1m0g43j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213816/original/file-20180409-114112-1m0g43j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213816/original/file-20180409-114112-1m0g43j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213816/original/file-20180409-114112-1m0g43j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213816/original/file-20180409-114112-1m0g43j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213816/original/file-20180409-114112-1m0g43j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The original as it appears in the Louvre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leonardo da Vinci</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The missing moustache and beard is very much part of our experience of L.H.O.O. Q. rasée – whereas it is not when we look at Leonardo’s original. And it is difficult to see how we can describe our experience of L.H.O.O.Q. rasée without some reference to the mental imagery of the missing beard and moustache. </p>
<h2>Perception versus ideas</h2>
<p>The standard story of the art of the 20th century is that artists have gradually turned away from perception and towards concepts. Contemporary art, according to this line of thinking, is not about how things look, but about our ideas. But this is not a convincing story. </p>
<p>Contemporary art is as much about perception as the art of the mid-20th century. But it is about a very specific perceptual phenomenon: mental imagery. If we look at some of the most iconic conceptual artworks, it is easy to see that they are not trying to get you to think complex thoughts. They are trying to trigger a specific kind of mental imagery. That is clearly the whole point of L.H.O.O.Q. rasée. But there are many other examples. </p>
<p>Here is another famous one: <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-robert-rauschenberg-erased-de-kooning">Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning</a> drawing (1953), which is just what it says it is: all we see is an empty paper (with hardly visible traces of the erased drawing on it). </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211600/original/file-20180322-54869-4irszg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211600/original/file-20180322-54869-4irszg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211600/original/file-20180322-54869-4irszg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211600/original/file-20180322-54869-4irszg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211600/original/file-20180322-54869-4irszg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211600/original/file-20180322-54869-4irszg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211600/original/file-20180322-54869-4irszg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rocor/29087674172/in/photostream/">rocor via Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A little background: <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/willem-de-kooning-1433">Willem de Kooning</a> was one of the most influential painters working in New York when the young and not particularly respectful Rauschenberg asked him for a drawing telling him straight up what he was going to do with it. De Kooning did not want to make Rauschenberg’s job easier, so he used all kinds of different techniques (pastels, pencils, crayon, charcoal, even ink) to make the erasing less easy. </p>
<p>When you look at the Erased de Kooning drawing, it is difficult not to try to discern what drawing might have been there before Rauschenberg erased it. And this involves trying to conjure up mental imagery of the original drawing. </p>
<h2>More to the image</h2>
<p>Duchamp and Rauschenberg are classic examples of how artists can exploit what you know – or what you think you know – to make you see art differently. But there are many more. Here is just one more: Ai Wei Wei’s monumental installation, Straight (2013). That’s the way it looks.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213817/original/file-20180409-114116-1tfndow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213817/original/file-20180409-114116-1tfndow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213817/original/file-20180409-114116-1tfndow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213817/original/file-20180409-114116-1tfndow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213817/original/file-20180409-114116-1tfndow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213817/original/file-20180409-114116-1tfndow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213817/original/file-20180409-114116-1tfndow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ai Weiwei’s installation, Straight, in the Hirshorn Gallery, Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/isteeve/8329425632">Steve Pribut</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What you can’t tell by looking is that the 150 tons of steel rods used for this installation are in fact, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebar">rebar</a> from the reinforced concrete school buildings that collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, killing many students. Ai Wei Wei <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jun/15/ai-weiwei-ra-show-sichuan-earthquake-chinese-artist-steel-rods">collected the steel rods</a> and straightened them for this installation piece. </p>
<p>If you know where these pieces of metal came from, your experience of the artwork changes significantly. It is difficult not to imagine how these bars were poking out of the rumble of mountains of concrete burying many schoolchildren underneath. If you look at the installation without knowing about the origins of the bars and then later, after reading about the earthquake, you look at it again, your experience will be very different. And this difference is mainly due to the difference in mental imagery. </p>
<h2>Really seeing</h2>
<p>All these artworks show how mental imagery can completely transform our experience. Here is a story the French photographer <a href="https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/henri-cartier-bresson/">Henri Cartier-Bresson</a> liked to tell: during the war, he was hiding in a shed in the middle of the nondescript German countryside surrounded by a mountain range for weeks. Then one day he visualised the ocean behind the mountain range. And this completely transformed his experience (in a positive way). Not only his experience of the mountain range, but also of his general situation and of himself. Mental imagery does have a huge influence on the way we perceive and on our mental life in general. </p>
<p>Susan Sontag was trying to provoke <a href="https://archive.org/stream/PHOTSusanSontagOnPhotography/PHOT%20Susan%20Sontag%20On%20Photography_djvu.txt">when she wrote</a>, more than 50 years ago, that: “The basic unit for contemporary art is not the idea, but the analysis of and extension of sensations.” But the past 50 years have suggested that she was right and we now have a pretty good grip on this “extension of sensation” she talks about: it is about exercising mental imagery.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93798/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bence Nanay receives funding from the European Research Council and the Flemish Research Foundation. </span></em></p>Some classic tales about the way artists can mess with your mind.Bence Nanay, Senior research associate, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/651272016-09-13T15:44:40Z2016-09-13T15:44:40ZPsychotextiles could be next big thing in fabrics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137242/original/image-20160909-13345-1belgfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Torro!</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-114652312/stock-photo-humanoid-and-fabric.html?src=GVF3GmWq7Ugl2-tuokxJlw-1-0">Giovanni Cancemi</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While most of us feel pain if we’re pricked by a needle, or taste sourness sucking a lemon, scientists understand less about how we’re affected by what we see. This is because seeing is a much more complicated activity. It involves shape, dimension and colour in a three-dimensional context with multiple object associations that are changing over time. </p>
<p>We know that certain works of art make us feel certain emotions. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mona-Lisa-painting">The Mona Lisa</a> by Da Vinci is admired <a href="http://sciencenetlinks.com/science-news/science-updates/mona-lisas-smile/">because</a> her smile has a <a href="http://www.jcheudin.fr/pdf/2015_virtual_reality_international_conference.pdf">calming effect</a> on us, for example, while <a href="http://www.edvardmunch.org/the-scream.jsp">The Scream</a> by Munch <a href="http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/medicine/student-staff/staff-and-student-achievements/docs/APT2015Azeem513.pdf">makes us</a> anxious. </p>
<p>We <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13539061-unconscious-branding">also know</a> that some colours and shapes <a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471285277.html">influence</a> our emotions. We already use these insights in design and in commercial advertising. The colour red arouses us for example, drawing attention to the object in question. This is why Coca Cola cans and many lipsticks are red – not to mention danger signs. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137244/original/image-20160909-13371-6j30v0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137244/original/image-20160909-13371-6j30v0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137244/original/image-20160909-13371-6j30v0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137244/original/image-20160909-13371-6j30v0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137244/original/image-20160909-13371-6j30v0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137244/original/image-20160909-13371-6j30v0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137244/original/image-20160909-13371-6j30v0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137244/original/image-20160909-13371-6j30v0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Aaaaahhh.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-292337915/stock-photo-clothing-design-concept-man-in-blank-green-t-shirt-front-and-back-view.html?src=KHigYxnJKptNFZ9J6GG67Q-1-22">Syda Productions</a></span>
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<p>We experience something similar with sharp angles, which is why chevrons are used in road signs. On the other hand, more rounded angles and the colour green produce a calming effect. </p>
<p>But do other visual characteristics produce the same emotions in the majority of the population? And if so, can we manipulate them to change our state of mind? Our insights into colours and shapes come mainly from neuroscientists looking for ways to treat people with psychiatric problems such as depression and schizophrenia. They have tended to be limited and not practical for using in everyday life – which is what we wanted to achieve. </p>
<h2>Spot the pattern</h2>
<p><a href="https://pureapps2.hw.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/psychotextiles-and-their-interaction-with-the-human-brain(129a59ce-22c4-4234-91f2-8f46bacd1da3)/export.html">The study</a> carried out by myself and Meixuan Chen, a research student, involved two stages. In the first stage, we tested ten pairs of patterns on 20 participants. This may not sound like a big group, but you have to appreciate that we tested each participant for a number of hours. The findings correlated across over 80% of them, a big majority, which in this kind of study is considered enough to draw conclusions about the population as a whole.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137106/original/image-20160908-25237-1v1lfsm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137106/original/image-20160908-25237-1v1lfsm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137106/original/image-20160908-25237-1v1lfsm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137106/original/image-20160908-25237-1v1lfsm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137106/original/image-20160908-25237-1v1lfsm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137106/original/image-20160908-25237-1v1lfsm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137106/original/image-20160908-25237-1v1lfsm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137106/original/image-20160908-25237-1v1lfsm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Experiment in progress.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">George Stylios</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As you can see from the picture above, each participant was shown the images on a computer screen. We investigated their emotional responses by measuring their brain and heart activity respectively using EEG and ECG monitors, as well as asking them how they felt about each pattern. </p>
<p>We didn’t show the participants different categories of patterns at this stage, but rather a wide selection. We deliberately made them black and white, since using colours would have risked contaminating the results. Here are the patterns:</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137104/original/image-20160908-25257-1ela6dg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137104/original/image-20160908-25257-1ela6dg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137104/original/image-20160908-25257-1ela6dg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137104/original/image-20160908-25257-1ela6dg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137104/original/image-20160908-25257-1ela6dg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137104/original/image-20160908-25257-1ela6dg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137104/original/image-20160908-25257-1ela6dg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137104/original/image-20160908-25257-1ela6dg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137105/original/image-20160908-25279-1x78bj1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137105/original/image-20160908-25279-1x78bj1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137105/original/image-20160908-25279-1x78bj1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137105/original/image-20160908-25279-1x78bj1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137105/original/image-20160908-25279-1x78bj1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137105/original/image-20160908-25279-1x78bj1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137105/original/image-20160908-25279-1x78bj1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137105/original/image-20160908-25279-1x78bj1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">George Stylios</span></span>
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<p>When we analysed the results, we discerned two trends. Our participants took more pleasure from repeating patterns than non-repeating ones, and were more excited by intense patterns than weak ones. </p>
<p>With repeating patterns, for example, we found that participants registered an increase of theta brain waves in an area called the Fz channel location at the midline of the frontal lobe. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16202519">The</a> literature <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18725252">correlates this</a> with pleasant emotion. At the same time, our participants found non-repeating patterns less pleasant and found weaker patterns more calming. </p>
<p>It is important to appreciate that pleasure and excitement are not the same thing in neuroscience. Exciting things surprise us and make us sit up and take notice. They are not necessarily pleasant, however. Things can be exciting and unpleasant, just as they can be pleasant but not hold our attention. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137247/original/image-20160909-13371-fysnt4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137247/original/image-20160909-13371-fysnt4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137247/original/image-20160909-13371-fysnt4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137247/original/image-20160909-13371-fysnt4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137247/original/image-20160909-13371-fysnt4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137247/original/image-20160909-13371-fysnt4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137247/original/image-20160909-13371-fysnt4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137247/original/image-20160909-13371-fysnt4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Hey good lookin’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/IMac_G3_blueberry_side.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>The challenge for product designers is to create products that are both pleasant and exciting at the same time. Apple is the classic example of a company that achieved this with their Mac computers in the 1990s. These machines looked so different to the rest of the market that they surprised people, yet were also extremely pleasant from a visual point of view. </p>
<h2>Wise woollens</h2>
<p>For the second stage of our study, we designed and produced four smart knitted fabrics on campus from a purpose-made electrochromic composite yarn. Each fabric – we call them psychotextiles – could toggle between two kinds of patterns on a graduating scale. </p>
<p>Two of our fabrics toggled between a repeating and non-repeating pattern, while the other two toggled between weak and intense patterns. We tested them on 20 more people in a similar way to the first stage. It confirmed what we found before. Not only that, we showed that by shifting between patterns, we could make the participant switch from one emotion to the other and back again. As the video shows, different patterns produced activity in different parts of participants’ brains that are linked to certain emotional responses. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/txoGNZzscFk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>These results raise fascinating possibilities. By using a smart fabric, it means someone could choose a pattern to achieve a particular emotion – clothes that lift your mood or calm you down, for example; or wallpaper that can be manipulated to create a party atmosphere. It could be set to respond to the weather, to the time of day or year or whatever. </p>
<p>It could be a kind of “visual medicine” that becomes an alternative to the likes of antidepressants. Equally it might transform product manufacturing, engineering and the teaching of art and design. In future we might talk about psychoart, psychointeriors, psychomaterials and psychoarchitecture, to name only a few. </p>
<p>First there needs to be a major research push into the interaction between the human brain and the surrounding environment. Researchers might look at more chaotic patterns, patterns with lettering, mixtures of angles and curves, patterns with three-dimensional effects and so on. </p>
<p>The next step would be to start combining patterns with different colours and shapes. After that, we might look more closely at smells and sounds and start mixing these with the visual elements. If we are to make the most of the reactions that we have in common, the future starts here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65127/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Stylios does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Welcome to the world of cloths and materials that change depending on your mood.George Stylios, Senior Research Professor, Heriot-Watt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.