All the Shocking Secrets of the Mona Lisa.

Gone are the days where you are fooled by false colors!
This is the true Mona Lisa.

Not only is the Mona Lisa the most secretive painting, it is also the most famous.
Who knew paintings could keep secrets?

Somehow Mona Lisa's mysterious smile is her most attractive feature. The stare of this painted woman is never the less creepy, though, people
have said  Mona Lisa follows them with her eyes.

This is what happens when you become a
famous painting

Throughout the centuries, daunting facts have been discovered about the Mona Lisa.

I have listed all
the discoveries I know of below:

She has no eyebrows.
I always thought they were invisible. They were actually worn down by time.

There is an earlier version.

The Other Earlier Version

This version may or may not have been created by da Vinci. It is a younger and way less detailed Mona Lisa.

Her smile used to be wider.
But time made her unhappy.

There is a code of numbers and letters in her eyes.
I don't what that means Leonardo was doing, but it freaks me out. Leonardo is not and was not James Bond., so why? 
Can you see the letters and numbers in the left picture? Actually you can't, they're microscopic. 

Sources:

'Solved: Why Mona Lisa doesn't have eyebrows' by Richard Holt: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3668700/Solved-Why-Mona-Lisa-doesnt-have-eyebrows.html
The real-life Da Vinci Code: Historians discover tiny numbers and letters in the eyes of the Mona Lisa: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337976/Real-life-Da-Vinci-Code-Tiny-numbers-letters-discovered-Mona-Lisa.html

The Mona Lisa Foundation: http://monalisa.org
Contribute to them. I don't know them but I bet they would really appreciate it.

Digital scans reveal Mona Lisa secrets: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/22/artnews.france

Check out 

Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered by Dianne Hales

She was really a man all along!

 Just kidding, click on the picture.

I couldn't resist putting this here

The Fairy Hoax Believed by Arthur Canon Doyle

The hoax was made up by two children; Elsie and Frances who somehow managed to fool many people, generations in fact. In 1917, they took photos of themselves with fairies. Some people believed then that  the Supernatural existed including Elsie's mother. She had had attended a lecture on spiritualism and showed the photos to the people there. Quickly the photos were circulating the Spiritualist community and were shown as evidencing the Supernatural.

Elsie with two fairies

Another with a gnome

In 1981, one of the girls confessed that the fairies were not real that paper cutouts from a book, too bad.

I bet they had a good laugh that so many people believed them!



Check out more in

The Fairy Ring by Mary Losure

click the picture and believe in fairies, join the fairy ring.

Sources:
The Case of the Cottingley Fairies: http://www.randi.org/library/cottingley/
The Cottingley Fairies: http://hoaxes.org/photo_database/image/the_cottingley_fairies/

Art Weekend: Famous People in and Related to Art

I formerly declare this Art Weekend...blah, blah
blah....throw all the parties you want.

After doing posting for while you can expect that it would get moderately routine and that I would feel bored by it. Well, if you knew the person I am you can. So I announce that all through this weekend posts will be about art and all the famous people related.

Portrait Lives: Abraham Lincoln and Did you Know?

It's Portrait Lives Wednesday!
Every Wednesday features a Portrait Lives, which is the showing of age progression in specific historical people through contemporary portraits of them. Way more fun than it sounds.

Every American knows about President Abraham Lincoln, he is widely outlawing slavery in the South and his Gettysburg Address.

Plus Lincoln was the messy hairdo master.

Assume all his ages typed below are preceded by the word 'about.' There are no pictures of Lincoln before he was 37.

aged 37

aged 51

aged 52

aged 52

aged 52

aged 54

aged 54

aged 55

aged 57

aged 57

aged 58

His Last Days: Aged 58 to 59

him with his son called Tad

He is actually holding his spectacles 

He had a slight smile

Research by Doctor Zebra suggests with probability that Lincoln was dying of cancer when he was shot.

I have one thing to say about that: Oh. My. God.
He was shot on April 14, 1865 in Ford's Theater in the head and died the following day.

Check out

Chasing Lincoln's Killer

I have read it, it's very good and easy to read so click on the picture!

Sources:
President Abraham Lincoln: http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/biographies/abraham-lincoln.html
Health and Medical History of President Abraham Lincoln http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/g16.htm

The Immortality of Early Modern Art

Random Art Facts
Maybe I am going a little off topic here, but I love early modern art....and I am intent on proving to you why you should love it too.
Early Modern = (1450-1800)

Almost all of these types of paintings have hidden symbols which when you recognize uncovers a different story.

Those paintings also capture a moment in time. Like a camera taking a picture of a child, that child may never be ten again and that time of childhood bliss may never be captured again. This moment by a camera or a painting has become something of fragile immortal purity.

Here's some examples:

This woman on the left was Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly in 1526. She was to be never in such extravagance again in her life. 

This is a picture of the peak of her wealth. In the 16th century wealth is wearing gold, a valuable metal, and fur. She was the mistress of the King Francois and was using her high status to elevate her family's position at court.

But then the king died, and the new King Henri and his mistress, Diane, came along. She was 'humiliated in ever way' by Diane and dismissed from the graciousness of the king's court. She was to die unknown and forgotten.

• Vermeer's work on the right is a classic example of symbols in early modern art.

This woman is standing on 'earth' and looking at a crystal ball symbolizing heaven. Underneath her is the apple of original sin and near it a snake. A snake is commonly a symbol of Satan. Thus this serpent Satan is struck down by the cornerstone of the church, Christ. Most Catholics in the Netherlands at the time when Vermeer lived had to pray in their home. Or those Catholics had to face the wrath of the then Protestant Netherlands.

Sources:

'Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly' in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 7

   http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35398/35398-h/35398-h.htm. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I have looked on the Met Museum website and they have fantastic paintings in the public domain so I have drawn my examples from there.

Check out

Renaissance Art (Beginner's Guides) by 

Tom Nichols 

Click on the the picture and surf the world of renaissance.

20th Century Mugshots Online

Random fun fact
The Justice Police Museum has a archive of 20th century police records that are beautiful centered on the Sydney Living Museum website and on the historic history trust collection.
There you can find police records specifically about the 1920's to 1940's. These are fascinating items of history they are also valuable items of vivid art.

Add caption

They are such stories as the true story of a woman who dressed as a man.  The story was this: Eugenia Falleni who dressed as a 'Harry Crawford' since 1899. As Harry she married a widow named Annie Birkett who had a son. After four years of marriage, Annie had told a relative that she had found out 'something amazing about Harry.' Shortly afterwards she disappeared. Later on a body was identified as hers. It was supposed that Harry was the murderer, and Harry's gender was found out, but when it was found Harry's second wife said she had always wondered why he was so shy.


Check out

Prisoners: Murder, Mayhem, and Petit Larceny 

by Arne Svenson          

Bring justice to this link by clicking on the picture.

Sources:
Eugenia Falleni, alias Harry Crawford, special photograph number 234, Central Police Station Sydney, 1920: http://collection.hht.net.au/firsthhtpictures/fullRecordPicture.jsp?recnoListAttr=recnoList&recno=31246

Portrait Lives: Marie Antoinette: Part 2

Marie Antoinette has too many portraits to put in just one post.

profile at aged about 26

aged  about 28

aged about 30 with her children

aged about 32

aged about 33

aged about 36

aged about 37-8 in prison

aged about 38

her death, on her way

her death, more, Marie is like oops i stepped on your foot.

After a bad haircut, she was executed at a quarter after 12 pm in a white gown, whites are easily stained so it was never worn again.

Sources: 

My mind, 

Remembering Marie-Antoinette: The Martyr, the Whore, and the Icon: http://www.uta.edu/modl/cultural-constructions/200705/html/kilgore.html

Marie Antoinette: http://blogs.bu.edu/guidedhistory/historians-craft/marieantoinetteinthepubliceye/

It's Late Portrait Lives Wednesday! Starring Marie Antoinette: Part 1

Marie Antoinette is the most famous person of the French Revolution. As many people know she didn't survive it.  She was to the French people of her time the image and icon of unfair extravagance as some poor french people starved. The media showed her as a sickly evil harpy in newspaper pamphlets, a queen who would stoop so low as to having lesbian relationships with her ladies-in-waiting, when the truth was nothing of the kind. The truth was that the press can cause horrible things to happen to innocent people, even Marie Antoinette, a high-status French Queen who was imprisoned by her people and executed by the guillotine.

aged just a few months old

aged  about 5

aged 7

aged about 12

aged about 14

aged about 17 by Drouais

Marie, Queen of France without a crown at aged about 18

mid twenties by Gautier-Dagoty 

I thought I could do this in one post but I can't 

so stay tuned for the last part tomorrow!

I know you can't wait and are disappointed.

But here a short video about her that will make up:

and Check out

To the Scaffold: The Life of Marie Antoinette

Click on the image or go to the Scaffold!