Portrait Of A Lady With A Unicorn And Leonardo's Mona Lisa

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Raphael’s Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn and Leonardo’s Mona Lisa are both masterpieces in which have many similarities and differences. There is an obvious similarity when viewing both of the paintings side-by-side. In both works there is a female sitter in the middle of the frame, hands crossed and looking off into the distance. Also the landscape of both works are very similar being continuous rolling mountains making where they are sitting quite unknown. The main and obvious difference in the painting in which I will go into more depth later within the paper is the unicorn. The two ladies also clearly come from different upbringings because while one is represented in a very wealthy manor, Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn, the other, …show more content…

The sitter in the painting is still unknown to this day, but there are assumptions of who it is. In Da Vinci’s biography, a person by the name of Giorgio Vasari claims it to be the wife of Francesco del Gioconda, Lisa Di Antonio Maria Gherardini. She is a wealthy Florentine, but this issue with this assumption is that the subject of the painting does not represent one who is wealthy or an icon of status. Within the painting, the subject Mona Lisa is wearing absolutely no jewelry and nothing is suggesting her status as someone who is wealthy. You can notice that she sits within the painting with a blank stare looking of into the distance with a slight smirk. Also, her stance is very quiet and conserved with her hands crossed over one another. What Da Vinci did that is different from what is expected from Renaissance etiquette is that instead of directing the sitter’s eyes not looking directly to the man’s eyes, he somehow has her gaze trap the viewers without having her staring straight. The Mona Lisa is indeed much darker since Da Vinci painted it 500 years ago, but his skills with perspective and chiaroscuro are still somewhat visible today which is impressive. Da Vinci’s famous smoky sfumato (haziness) which is a subtle blurriness in certain areas. Leonardo shows the subject as the painting as an independent being. And although she is not looking straight at the viewer, it somehow still speaks to you in making it feel like it is between you and the

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