Upstream | October 22, 2009 | 9 comments

Mona Lisa's smile a mystery no more

source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18019-mona-lisas-smile-a-mystery-no-more.html

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vincius
If you have been puzzled by Mona Lisa's smile – how she's radiant one moment and serious the next instant – then your worries are over. It happens because our eyes are sending mixed signals to the brain about her smile.

Different cells in the retina transmit different categories of information or "channels" to the brain. These channels encode data about an object's size, clarity, brightness and location in the visual field.

"Sometimes one channel wins over the other, and you see the smile, sometimes others take over and you don't see the smile," says Luis Martinez Otero, a neuroscientist at Institute of Neuroscience in Alicante, Spain, who conducted the study along with Diego Alonso Pablos.

This isn't the first time scientists have deconstructed Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece. In 2000, Margaret Livingstone, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School with a side interest in art history, showed that Mona Lisa's smile is more apparent in peripheral vision than dead-centre, or foveal, vision. And in 2005, an American team suggested that random noise in the path from retina to visual cortex determines whether we see a smile or not.

more info regarding Leonardo at www.leonardoshands.com
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9 comments // Mona Lisa's smile a mystery no more

  • eskimoe
  • vincius
  • royulery
    • 0
      royulery  

    • the master still makes news.
      school of athens, not heaven, wow my memory was way off.
      i wonder what he would think of the da vinci code. i would be floored if proof came out that he was templar or illuminati but that would make the world seem bigger.

    • 2 years ago
  • vincius
    • 0
      vincius  

    • Leonardo unlike the other masters was an anatomist... he studied the inside of the object before considering painting...he also understood how we , as his audience percieve....,

    • 2 years ago
  • masterzip
    • 0
      masterzip  

    • all of this was carefully calculated by Davinci, knowing his artwork would be examined this way 500 years later....
      a painting is not a fact....

    • 2 years ago
  • artemis6
    • 0
      artemis6  

    • Both Leonardo and Raphael were brilliant . Too bad Raph died so young . Thanks for the link and the post . Respectively .

    • 2 years ago
  • vincius
  • vincius
  • royulery
    • 0
      royulery  

    • leonardo was one of three masters of light at that time. there is a painting of raphael's, i can't remember the name, leonardo and michaelangelo were depicted as saints in a heavenly scene on either side and above a large group of saints. raphael drew himself as a youth below and to the side, partially covered (teenage mutant ninja turtles, anyone). the last three masters of light and perspective.

    • 2 years ago
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